Ethics- Free Will and Moral Responsibility Flashcards
What are the three conditions of moral responsibility?
- A free human agent
- A conscious human agent
- An agent who can distinguish between right and wrong
What are the three levels of responsibility in UK law?
- No responsibility
- Diminished responsibility
- Full responsibility
What is the case of Sally Challen and what responsibility does she have?
- She killed her husband after years of being psychologically abused
- She received diminished responsibility in the end, as abuse had limited her ability to distinguish between right and wrong, but having a hammer suggests premeditation
What is the case of Harry Clarke and what responsibility did he have?
- A bin lorry driver who crashed the lorry who crashed and killed 7 people due to a medical condition
- He received full responsibility, because he had lied about the medical condition to keep his job
What was the murder of Jamie Bulger and what responsibility did the murderers have?
- John Venables and Robert Thompson were 10 years old and abducted and killed Jamie Bulger
- They receive full responsibility because they were above the age of conviction, and also they took him away to a hidden place, so they clearly knew it was wrong
What is Hard Determinism?
Argues that people do not have free will and that all moral actions have been determined by antecedent causes. This means no one can be held morally responsible.
What is Libertarianism?
People are entirely free to make moral decisions and moral choices and so are morally responsible.
What is Soft Determinism?
Determinism is true in many aspects of our lives e.g. genetics, but we are still morally responsible. often referred to as Compatibilism because it says free will is compatible with determinism.
What did Epicurus say about free will?
We are entirely physical, and thus controlled by forces beyond our control, meaning we have no free will.
Why do many Hard Determinists have a Reductionist approach?
They believe that human behavior can be reduced to the laws of physics, and the laws of cause effect.
How are choices made in Hard Determinism?
The whole network of causes and conditions that exist at any one moment are sufficient to determine everything that will happen in the future
What is Spinoza’s argument about free will?
“We are aware of our actions, but ignorant of their causes”
How did John Locke illustrate Hard Determinism?
He used the analogy of a sleeping man in a locked room. The man wakes up and decided to stay in the room (he doesn’t check the door). The man did not freely choose, it was predetermined that he would stay in the room.
Why does Spinoza believe in Universal Causation?
He says that like a doctor might not know the cause of a disease, but they know it is still caused, we do not know the cause of everything but they are still caused.
What was Isaac Newton’s argument for Scientific Determinism?
He says we live in a mechanistic universe, governed by the immutable laws of nature and physics. The universe is a mechanism dominated by cause and effect
