Free Will and Moral Responsibility

Question 1

What are the requirements for a person to have moral responsibility?

Answer 1

• Free human agent
• Conscious and capable of making a decision

Question 2

Who is void of moral responsibility?

Answer 2

• Those who have not yet learned it
• Those who cannot understand it
• Those who have permanently forgotten it
• Those who have temporarily forgotten it

Question 3

What is hard determinism?

Answer 3

• The basis that no one has free will because everything has a ‘universal causation’, meaning that every event has a cause.

Question 4

What is reductionism?

Answer 4

• Reduce everything down. Thoughts are from brain, chemistry makes up brain, thoughts are just electrical impulses, these impulses are determined by physics. So, our thoughts are determined.

Question 5

What does Spinoza say about our free will?

Answer 5

Our feeling of freedom is simply our ignorance to the causes operating upon us
* Believes this because influences from the past contribute to our actions.
* We could understand that we are not free if we could take into account every action ever.

Question 6

What is Scientific Determinism?

Answer 6

• Belief that physics governs everything
• Analysis of the brain through electrical impulses proves determinism
• Pierre-Simon Laplace states that the present state of the universe is caused by its previous states.
• Therefore, the physical world appears to be determined and caused.

Question 7

What are the criticisms of Scientific Determinism?

Answer 7

If the laws of nature are only probable.
* If the quantum world is indeterminate.

Question 8

What is Psychological Determinism?

Answer 8

• Associated with Skinner’s Psychological Behaviourism
• He believes that our behaviour is a result of both genetic and environmental conditions.
• Behavioural psychology is the theory that we are conditioned over time to do a certain thing. This conditioning is therefore similar to determinism.

Question 9

What are the criticisms of Psychological Determinism?

Answer 9

Noam Chomsky rejects Skinner’s proposals and says that they are an ‘example of futile behaviourist speculation and assumption’.
* Cannot compare human and animal behaviour
* The response itself by Skinner is merely conditioned and so there is no point in listening.

Question 10

What is Theological Determinism?

Answer 10

Rooted in the Christian idea that God is omniscient
* Developed into predestination
* Calvin stated that ‘Some are eternally ordained to glory and the rest to eternal torment’.

Question 11

What is the criticism of Theological Determinism?

Answer 11

Concept of a timeless God, God exists out of time so has seen all events but has not caused them. Therefore, God has the power to intervene, but he does not, he allows free choices.
* Concept of a temporal God, God exists in time so cannot see the future.

Question 12

What is Libertarianism?

Answer 12

The view that all forms of determinism are false.
* In issues of right and wrong we act as free moral agents.

Question 13

What is meant by mind body dualists?

Answer 13

• View of Descartes that mind is separate from physical body and is able to act freely in physical world.

Question 14

What is meant by ‘human freedom is non casual’?

Answer 14

There are two types of events, those that are caused and those that are free, and these are ontologically distinct.
* This cannot be shown to be true.

Question 15

What is meant by a moderate libertarian?

Answer 15

Would accept that the external world is deterministic
* Would accept that determined processes affect things in the physical world
* Would accept that personality is too large to be governed by our environment
* Would accept that human behaviour is not determined by external causes
* Believe in three limitations, physical, psychological and social to our free decisions.

Question 16

What do Libertarians say about our free will?

Answer 16

• We believe we make free decisions and if it is an illusion then it is a very persistent one.

Question 17

What is meant by Libertarianism is forward looking?

Answer 17

• Libertarians focus on the reasons for the actions rather than on what has caused those actions.

Question 18

What is the Paralysis of complete freedom?

Answer 18

• With no limitations on what one can do one procrastinates as to the best thing to do in that exact moment until one is paralysed.

Question 19

What are the strengths of Libertarianism?

Answer 19

• Libertarians argue that the mind is not subject to casual laws otherwise there would be no argument about them.
• We constantly experience ourselves as free.
• Positive approach to decision making whereas determinism is negative.

Question 20

What are the weaknesses of Libertarianism?

Answer 20

• Libertarianism has lots of assumptions with no evidence.
• Determinists say that this is an illusion.
• These negative approaches by determinists are just hard truths that we can’t accept.

Question 21

What is incompatibilism?

Answer 21

• View that determinism and libertarianism are incompatible

Question 22

What is compatibilism?

Answer 22

• Sometimes known as soft determinism
• View that human freedom and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism

Question 23

What does Hume say about compatibilism?

Answer 23

• Hume believes we have liberty of spontaneity, the ability to do what we desire, instead of liberty of indifference, freedom from necessity.
• Controversy around freedom and determinism made worse by philosophers not correctly defining their terms with significant accuracy.
• Hume’s definition of necessity is not logical.
• Regularity from constant conjunction shows that liberty and necessity are compatible, and that liberty requires necessity.
• Constant conjunction is events that naturally happen after one another in conjunction
• For example, a brick hitting a window and then the window smashing.
• This can also be seen in human nature as ‘people are as consistent as the wind’.
• Therefore, freedom requires determinism because without it we would not be able to define freedom, we would be lost.

Question 24

What are the strengths of Hume’s compatibilism?

Answer 24

• If we accept Hume’s definitions everything becomes clear. If necessity is essentially ‘constant conjunction’ then Hume is correct, freedom is consistent with necessity, and we have the freedom to do as we desire

Question 25

What are the weaknesses of Hume’s compatibilism?

Answer 25

• For modern hard determinists, Hume’s idea of necessity and causation as ‘constant conjunction’ is too watered down. ‘Wishes and desires are as determined as everything else. If determinism is true, then compatibilism is false
• For Hume, reason seems to be indistinguishable from the forces of nature. Everything is watered down to ‘constant conjunction’.

Question 26

What are the two views on moral responsibility?

Answer 26

• Crime is a mental condition that can be treated
• Crime is a deliberate anti-social behaviour, and should be punished

Question 27

What is the Hard determinist approach to the consequences of moral responsibility theory for reward and punishment?

Answer 27

• If determinism is true, then there can be no freedom of the kind required for moral responsibility. Because all such events are determined and unavoidable
• Further, if determinism is true, then in the religious sense, any idea of ‘sin’ against God becomes redundant, because nobody can be blamed by God for doing what their created / determined nature makes them do.
• Skinner argued that punishing people for antisocial behaviour is not really effective, because once the punishment is over, they will eventually go back to their original behaviour. We should therefore make sweeping changes to our traditional practices in order to keep society safe. “It should be possible to design a world in which behaviour likely to be punished seldom or never occurs”. We can use psychological conditioning to make this happen.

Question 28

What are the critiques of this approach?

Answer 28

• For libertarians, ideas such as this are completely incoherent, since for the determinist, any attempt to apply conditioning must itself be determined by existing conditions, so we might as well sit back and do nothing, because doing nothing can make no difference to what is determined

Question 29

What is the Libertarian approach to the consequences of moral responsibility theory for reward and punishment?

Answer 29

• The libertarian must hold people responsible for their actions
• The law in the UK acknowledges diminished responsibility for a number of different types of people and situations such as children, those suffering from depression and the mentally unstable. The law punishes those who are judged to be guilty of a crime, for the specific reason that they could have done otherwise
• Kant insisted that ‘ought implies can’, we feel the moral compulsion concerning what we ‘ought’ to do, which strongly suggests that we are able/free to do it. Our freedom is clear since we are able to override that compulsion to do otherwise. At the same time, we can feel guilt and remorse when we fail to do what we ought.
• We can be free internally (in our minds) to follow the moral law, and externally (politically) by being able to pursue our own ends. In a State of Nature (lawless society), we lack external freedom, because other people can enforce their own choices with violence, so we might have to be violent in return. To have external freedom, then, we have to live under the rule of law. “Whatever underserved evil you bring upon another person must be brought upon yourself”

Question 30

What are the critiques of this approach?

Answer 30

• The weakness of the libertarian approach to reward and punishment is that if determinism is true, then Libertarianism itself is merely another kind of determined response to moral issues

Question 31

What is the Compatibilist approach to the consequences of moral responsibility theory for reward and punishment?

Answer 31

• Compatibilists see themselves as morally responsible since their moral choices are not the results of physical restraints or coercive threats and they wanted to act as they did despite being aware of alternative actions.
• For Hume, it makes no sense to punish or to reward someone when his actions are the result of factors apart from what they choose.
• Thus, Hume argues that people are blameworthy only where our choices come from our character.
• For Hume, then, both the ultimate reward of heaven and the ultimate punishment of hell are senseless, because they are totally disproportionate either to human good or to human evil as they are eternal and human evils and goods are only short-term.

Question 32

What are the critiques of this approach?

Answer 32

• ‘Just Deserts’. This is a theory of punishment that sentencing should be proportionate to the severity of the crime.
• If either the determinists or the libertarians are right, then compatibilist ideas about moral responsibility are the ‘miserable subterfuge’ that Kant derides.