Free will and moral responsibility

Question 1

What is free will?

Answer 1

The ability to make reasoned and conscious choices even though there may be limits or influences on them.

Question 2

How is the issue of free will complex?

Answer 2

It may be difficult to assess at what point the limit/influence is an actual constraint.
In some situations that result in harm being done, it is clear that free will could not operate.

Question 3

How does UK law accommodate the issue of complexity?

Answer 3

Three levels of legal responsibility that correspond to levels of moral responsibility:
-No responsibility
-Diminished responsibility
-Full responsibility

Question 4

What are the 4 groups of people seen as being unable to understand right and wrong?

Answer 4

-Babies and young children who are insufficiently developed.
-Those who have severe learning disabilities or suffer from certain forms of mental illness/neurological disability.
-Those who have permanently forgotten the difference as a result of conditions such as dementia.
-Those who have temporarily forgotten the difference e.g alcohol/drugs (this is the most controversial).

Question 5

What do people believe about the sources of moral awareness in telling right from wrong?

Answer 5

-David Hume claimed that it is innate: we just know we ought to respond positively to those in need.
-Others claim it is the product of one’s upbringing, social environment or culture. This is supported by differing views on issues such as polygamy.
-Can come from one’s religious tradition.

Question 6

Define incompatibilism

Answer 6

The view adopted by both Hard Determinism and Libertarianism.
It claims that humans cannot be both determined and free.

Question 7

Define compatibilism

Answer 7

This view cites experience as supporting the claim that human behaviour is always determined but often also free.

Question 8

What is traditional hard determinism?

Answer 8

-Based on universal causation: nothing is random and nothing is free.
-Spinoza argued that our apparent freedom to choose is simply an illusion.
-Every decision we make is the product of a chain of causes. They are influenced by our upbringing, past experiences etc.

Question 9

What is scientific determinism?

Answer 9

-Form of hard determinism.
-Based on evidence from the natural and applied sciences.
-Points towards a chain of causality with no gaps and allowing no scope for the operation of free will.

Question 10

What is psychological behaviorism?

Answer 10

-Influenced by Pavlov’s Dogs
-Watson claimed that humans enter the world on a clean slate and our behavior is conditioned by upbringing and experiences.
-Watson and Skinner both claimed that conditioning could lead to changed behavior.
-Watson focused on fear but Skinner preferred positive reinforcement. He claimed people would feel free because they were doing what they wanted.

Question 11

Challenges to Skinner’s behaviourism

Answer 11

-Its basis in animal studies will not ‘translate’ to human behaviour, which is far more complex.
-If everything is just a set of conditioned responses, then his theory is just a conditioned response.

Question 12

What is theological determinism?

Answer 12

-Fins expression in the doctrine of predestination that was developed by Augustine and Calvin.
-God’s omniscience is understood as causative so there can be no free choice.

-Most Christians find this repugnant.

Answers:
-Aquinas claimed God’s omniscience is not causative.
-God exists timelessly so simply knows.
-Actions stemming from our free choices cause God’s timeless knowledge.
-Another approach adopted by mainstream and Process theologians is that God exists in time and so cannot know the future.

Question 13

What are the ideas of libertarianism?

Answer 13

-There is such a thing as the causally undetermined choice.
-Choices are not random but nor are they predetermined.
-Accept that our bodies are subject to causal laws.
-Accept that nature and nurture may exert strong occasionally overwhelming influence on our moral decisions, but argue these aren’t necessarily determinant.

Question 14

Support for libertarianism.

Answer 14

-Humans sometimes make choices that go against our personal desires.
-Humans can regret decisions.

-Free will cannot be proved, but it is accepted. It is a contingent truth.

Question 15

What are the ideas of compatibilism?

Answer 15

-We are free when we act according to our wishes: freedom is the ability to do what we want.
-Accept universal causation, but believe there are two types: external and internal.

External causation= describes factors beyond our control which determine what we do.
Internal causation= describes our temperament and personality.

Question 16

Libertarian views on compatibilism

Answer 16

-Defective.
-The idea of freedom as determined by our nature is not genuine freedom.

Question 17

Hard determinist views on reward and punishment.

Answer 17

-Reward and punishment are meaningless since those who break the law did not choose to do so.
-Reject the idea of retribution.
-Skinner suggested psychological conditioning as a way of reforming an offender’s character and outlook by manipulating their minds.

Question 18

Libertarian views on reward and punishment

Answer 18

-Retribution is the appropriate response to crime.
-Some would see reform as the appropriate response.
-This would be in the sense of helping offenders to make up for the harm they had caused, feeling regret and making a conscious decision to behave differently in the future.

Question 19

Compatibilist views on reward and punishment.

Answer 19

-Accept moral responsibility for those who could have done otherwise, had they so wished.
-Hume said actions should be judged praiseworthy or blameworthy only where ‘they are indicators of the internal character’.
-Hume totally rejected any idea of eternal punishment, seeing it as disproportionate.
-Use rewards and punishments to manipulate behaviour (Skinner, Watson, Hume).