Free Will and Moral Responsibility – frame-poythress. Is free will presupposed by moral responsibility? What is the problem of moral responsibility? Is moral responsibility a hard determinism? Can someone be morally responsible?
Those who claim that we have libertarian free will argue that we make free choices when it is possible that we could have done otherwise than what we actually did. When this condition obtains, we are justified in blaming (or praising) the person who made the choice, i. The idea that we possess free in this sensewill has a lot of intuitive force behind it, but philosophers have struggled with the question of what could allow for free will in the face of concerns about the causal laws of the world. Hard determinists appeal to the causal laws of the world in order to challenge the claim that we have free will, in the sense of ‘free will’ that both they and libertarians accept. Everything that happens can be fully explained by the causal history of what happened before. To suggest that we have free will is to suggest that we are somehow outside of and unaffected by the causal chain of events—that we can be the sole source of our actions—and the hard determinist argues that this is unsupported by facts about how the world works.
The hard determinist may then find this to be proof that moral responsibility is an illusion, or she may attempt to retain a viable sense of moral responsibility in the face of determinism. Compatibilists argue for the latter: they claim that determinism and moral responsibility are actually compatible. By appealing to claims about an agent’s internal states, compatibilists argue that people can be held responsible when they are acting according to certain sorts of dispositions, e. And others have pointed out that we still have strong intuitions of responsibility even about cases that are explicitly deterministic.
The power of these intuitions of responsibility cause some hard determinists to argue for a revisionist approach. They accept that appeals to moral responsibility are theoretically unjustifie but they nonetheless assert that we are pragmatically justified in accepting the illusion that people actually have moral responsibility , because practices of praising and blaming are still useful, and abandoning them could lead to chaos. Finally, there are those who maintain that determinism and moral responsibility are utterly incompatible.
Importantly, both hard determinists and libertarians about free will may hold this view. The libertarian can then tout this incompatibility as a virtue of his view. If the two really are incompatible, then only libertarian free will allows us to retain our very commonsense intuitions of moral responsibility.
The hard determinist will bite the bullet and claim that, if the two really are incompatible, we are being intellectually dishonest by maintaining practices of moral responsibility , given that we can always trace the causes of an action to something that is ultimately fully outside of the control of the agent. This is an ancient philosophical problem that has given rise to an expanding and ever more nuanced set of views. But we can all agree that anyone who grapples with the problem of free will must also take seriously questions of moral responsibility. Some interpretations of quantum-mechanical suggest that the outcomes of some measurements are indeterministic, but it is difficult to argue that (1) decisions are quantum-mechanical measurements and (2) wholly random events count as “free” choices.
However, this is simply not true. Learn why free will is not necessary for moral responsibility. Here, we will summarize what philosopher and theologian Gordon Clark has written about this subject. If humans have genuine moral responsibility for an act, then this requires that they freely perform that act (i.e. that they instantiate agent causation). There are two theories of free will that are often discussed in relation to ethical responsibility.
The first is usually called “libertarianism,” and it is typical of Arminian theology. As Immanuel Kant says: “If our will is itself determined by antecedent causes, then we are no more accountable for our actions than any other mechanical object whose movements are internally conditioned. One finds scholarly debate on the ‘origin’ of the notionof free will in Western philosophy.
Augustine(354–4CE) and Frede in the Stoic Epictetus(c. 55–c. 1CE)). But this debate presupposes a fairlyparticular and highly conceptualized concept of free will, withDihle’s later ‘origin’ reflecting his having a yetmore particular concept in view than Frede. If, instea we look moregenerally for philosophical r. As should be clear from this short discussion of the history of theidea of free will, free will has traditionally been conceived of as akind of power to control one’s choices and actions.
See full list on plato. When anagent exercises free will over her choices and actions, her choicesand actions are up to her. But up to her in what sense? Asshould be clear from our historical survey, two common (andcompatible) are: (i) up to her in the sense that she is ableto choose otherwise, or at minimum that she is abl.
Most philosophers theorizing about free will take themselves to beattempting to analyze a near-universal power of mature human beings. But as we’ve noted above, there have been free will skeptics inboth ancient and (especially) modern times. In this section,we summarize the main lines of argument both for and against thereality of human freedom of will. A large portion of Western philosophical work on free will has beenwritten within an overarching theological framework, according towhich God is the ultimate source, sustainer, and end of all else. It is also commonlypresumed by philosophical theists.
Since moral responsibility seems to require free will, hard determinism implies that no one is morally responsible for his actions. Although the conclusion is strongly counterintuitive, some hard determinists have insisted that the weight of philosophical argument requires that it be accepted. One (partial) answer is that the relevantpower is a form of control, an in particular, a form of control suchthat the agent could have done otherwise than to perform theaction in question. This captures one commonsense notion of free will,and one of the central issues in debates about free will has beenabout whether possession of it (free will, in theability-to-do-otherwise sense) is compatible with causal determinism(or with, for example, divine foreknowledge—see the entry on foreknowledge and free will). If causal determinism is true, then the occurrence of any event(including events involving human deliberation, choice, and action)that does in fact occur was made inevitable by—because it wascausally necessitated by—the facts about the past (and the lawsof nature) prior to the occurrence of the event.
Under theseconditions, the facts about the present, and about the future, areuniquely fi. This section discusses three important approaches to responsibility. Additional perspectives (attributionism, conversational theories, meshor structural accounts, skeptical accounts, etc.) are introduced inmore or less detail in the discussions of contemporary debatesbelow. If moral responsibility requires free will , and free will involvesaccess to alternatives in a way that is not compatible withdeterminism, then it would follow from the truth of determinism thatno one is ever morally responsible. The above reasoning, and theskeptical conclusion it reaches, is endorsed by the harddeterminis.
Questions of moral responsibility are intimately tied into questions of free will. Part of what makes metaphysical questions about free will interesting is that they do have real life applications, because we live in a world of praise and blame and punishment and responsibility of a kind that is moral. Simple Paperless Solutions – Try Free ! Customize Your Last Will With Our Step-By-Step Templates. Finish In Just 5-Minutes! Below are quotes from.
Traditional philosophers approached the issues of free will and moral responsibility through conceptual analysis that seldom incorporated findings from empirical science. FREE WILL AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY by John M. If a person with a brain tumor breaks the law, should that person be judged by lower standards? Free will is the ability to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded. And if free will is a requirement for moral responsibility , Strawson’s argument gives support to compatibilism.
Some actions are free (and freedom is a necessary condition for responsibility ) Consideration in its favor: we praise, blame, and hold people morally responsible, and freedom is a precondition of these practices. Since people are responsible for at least some of their actions there are genuine cases of freedom. The relations among free will—determinism, moral responsibility , and agency are considered.
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