Contribution
A survey, by one of the skeptics, of the arguments for and implications of denying basic-desert moral responsibility. For the record it supplies three things it lacked: Pereboom’s definition of basic desert in his words; hard incompatibilism set out as a case against each rival; and the manipulation argument, with Pereboom’s Case 2 quoted and the hard-line and soft-line replies weighed. It also reports Levy’s luck argument against historical compatibilism.
Key insight
Hard incompatibilism is an argument by elimination. Determination by natural causes is no better than determination by manipulators, which is the four-case argument. Event-causal indeterminism leaves the agent unable to settle what happens, which is luck. Agent causation would do, but there is no evidence for it. The four-case argument’s force comes from the soft-liner’s predicament: any difference named between a manipulated and an ordinary determined agent can be written into a new case.
Assumptions
- Basic desert is the target. “For an agent to be morally responsible for an action in this sense is for it to be hers in such a way that she would deserve to be blamed if she understood that it was morally wrong … just because she has performed the action … and not, for example, merely by virtue of consequentialist or contractualist considerations” (Pereboom 2014a: 2, quoted in §1).
- Free will is defined by responsibility. Free will is “the control in action needed for moral responsibility” (§2). Fischer’s semi-compatibilism is noted as an exception.
- Survey stance. The entry reports and does not adjudicate, except in §3, where it argues the skeptic’s side.
Key results
- What survives skepticism (§1). Attributability, answerability (Scanlon, Bok), grounded by Pereboom in “future protection, future reconciliation, and future moral formation”, and Waller’s take-charge responsibility.
- Hard incompatibilism (§2.2). “Whatever the fundamental nature of reality, whether it is deterministic or indeterministic, we lack basic desert moral responsibility.” Against compatibilism: “no relevant difference between this prospect and our actions being causally determined by manipulators”. Against event-causal libertarianism: the luck or “disappearing agent” objection. Agent-causal libertarianism “cannot be reconciled with our best physical theories”.
- The four-case argument (§2.2). It “sets out three examples of actions that involve manipulation, the first of which features the most radical sort of manipulation consistent with all the leading compatibilist conditions, each progressively more like the fourth, which is an ordinary case of action causally determined in a natural way”. The challenge is “a relevant and principled difference between any two adjacent cases”. Case 2, quoted (Pereboom 2014a: 77): Plum is “programmed … at the beginning on his life so that his reasoning is often but not always egoistic”, so that “he is causally determined to engage in the egoistic reasons-responsive process of deliberation and to have the set of first and second-order desires that result in his decision to kill White. Plum has the general ability to regulate his actions by moral reasons … Yet he does not decide as he does because of an irresistible desire.” The conclusion: “it is simply irrelevant whether Plum’s psychological states ultimately trace back to intentional agents or non-intentional causes”.
- Replies (§2.2). Hard-line replies accept Plum’s responsibility; the worry is conflict with intuition. Soft-line replies find a difference; the worry is that it “may be a difference that applies only to current manipulation cases”, since agentless cases now exist and any named condition invites a revised vignette. “The challenge … is to show that there is some kind of requirement … that can be satisfied by agents in deterministic settings but which cannot (in principle) be satisfied by agents in manipulation cases.” Deery and Nahmias (2017) is named as an attempt, and Capes as a reply.
- The Basic Argument (§2.3). Strawson: responsibility for action requires responsibility for how one is, which requires an infinite regress of chosen principles of choice. The objections are listed.
- The Luck Pincer (§2.4). Levy: every act is constitutively lucky, presently lucky or both, and each negates responsibility. Against historical compatibilism (Mele; Fischer and Ravizza), “the series of actions through which agents shape and modify their endowments … are themselves significantly subject to present luck … ‘we cannot undo the effects of luck with more luck’”. So “the actions whereby agents take responsibility for their endowment, either express that endowment … or reflect the agent’s present luck, or both”. Against non-historical accounts, the epistemic condition is demanding and itself lucky.
- Scientific challenges (§2.5). The Libet findings are widely rejected as an argument, including by skeptics. Situationism and automaticity suggest “shrinking agency”.
- Implications (§3). Illusionism (Smilansky) is set against disillusionism. Pereboom replaces resentment and indignation with “moral concern, disappointment, sorrow, and resolve”, and keeps axiological morality with an “ought of axiological recommendation”. The quarantine model justifies incapacitation by the right of self-defence, constrained by least harm and a duty to rehabilitate.
Claims
| id | claim | strength | support |
|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | Basic-desert responsibility is what skeptics deny; other senses survive | strong | Pereboom’s definition quoted, §1 |
| C2 | Hard incompatibilism rejects compatibilism, event-causal and agent-causal libertarianism on distinct grounds | moderate | reported, §2.2 |
| C3 | Pereboom’s Case 2 agent meets reasons-responsiveness and hierarchical conditions and is determined by programming | strong | quoted, §2.2 |
| C4 | Soft-line replies face revised vignettes that meet any named condition | moderate | reported (Capes), §2.2 |
| C5 | Historical compatibilism cannot let agents take responsibility for constitutive luck | weak | Levy’s argument, reported, §2.4 |
| C6 | Non-retributive responses to crime are available to the skeptic | moderate | reported and argued, §3.4 |
Concepts
- Basic desert moral responsibility. As quoted from Pereboom above.
- Hard incompatibilism. No basic desert whether determinism is true or false.
- Hard-line and soft-line replies. McKenna’s terms: accepting the manipulated agent’s responsibility, or finding a relevant difference.
- Constitutive and present luck. Luck in the agent’s endowment, and luck in circumstances at or near the time of action (Levy).
- Historical and non-historical compatibilism. Whether how the agent came to be as she is matters to her responsibility.
Connections
The entry draws on Pereboom 1995, 2001 and 2014a throughout, McKenna 2008 for the hard-line and soft-line division, Levy 2009a and 2011 for luck, and Strawson 1986, 1994 and 2011 for the Basic Argument. The compatibilist side is in SEP Compatibilism (LIT-291), which the record already holds, including its supplement on manipulation. De Marco and Cyr (NOTE-856) give Case 1 and the later literature.
Bearing on the record
- THEORY-040, second half. That half says no historical condition in
the record’s readings is shown to escape. Two things here bear on it,
both second-hand.
- The soft-line predicament (“revise the vignette”) is that half, stated as the field’s main worry.
- Levy’s luck argument is the record’s first argument, as opposed to the one-sentence circularity worry from LIT-296, against a historical condition. It targets taking responsibility for one’s endowment, which is Fischer and Ravizza’s condition.
- Its promote_when asks for “a first-hand reading of Pereboom’s four-case argument”. That is not met. This is a survey, and it quotes only Case 2.
- Case 2 does show a manipulation meeting named conditions: reasons-responsive deliberation, first- and second-order desires, and a general ability to respond to moral reasons. These are all structural, which bears on the first half.
- THEORY-121. Its named refuter is Pereboom’s four cases “rebuilt so that the manipulation includes the taking of responsibility”. That rebuild is not reported here. Levy’s argument is a different candidate refuter of the same condition, reported, not read: the act of taking responsibility is itself lucky.
- QUESTION-071, part 2. Its premise that Pereboom’s cases match an unmanipulated agent “in every respect the account names” is supported for Case 2, which meets reasons-responsive and hierarchical conditions by stipulation. Levy’s dilemma is a reason to doubt that a recorded history of taking responsibility would separate the cases.
- THEORY-316 (Pereboom’s condition (3)). The entry’s “what matters … is that in all four cases the agent’s actions are ultimately the result of factors beyond their control” is condition (3) as the four-case argument’s conclusion. That confirms THEORY-316’s pointer to Chapter 4, at survey strength.
- THEORY-119. Not addressed. The entry does not discuss Frankfurt cases or Pereboom’s buffer case.
- THEORY-328 is filed from this reading and NOTE-856.
- Nothing here is ML practice.
Limitations
- A survey by an advocate. Caruso co-writes with Pereboom, and §3 argues the skeptic’s case.
- Only Case 2 is quoted. Cases 1, 3 and 4 are summarised in one sentence, in the 2014 wording, not the 2001 wording.
- Levy’s argument is a paragraph-length report, and the replies (Talbert, Hartman, Hales) are only named.
- Published 2018, so it does not cover the 2020s literature on manipulation that NOTE-856 does.
Open questions
- Whether a soft-line condition exists that manipulated agents cannot meet “in principle”. The entry names Deery and Nahmias (2017) and does not assess it.
- Whether Levy’s present-luck point applies under determinism, where “present luck” must be read as non-chancy.