1. Freewill and moral responsibility

2. Need to know:
The conditions of moral responsibility: free will; understanding the difference between right and wrong
Extent of our moral responsibility: Libertarianism, Hard Determinism, Compatibilism
Relevance of moral responsibility to reward and punishment

3. How free are we to choose our moral actions, and based on this conclusion, how responsible should we be held?

4. To be held morally responsible…
For moral responsibility we need a free human agent.
In addition, the human agent needs to be conscious and capable of making the decision.
A further requirement is that a person should be able to distinguish right from wrong

5. Sources of a person’s moral awareness of right and wrong
Innate moral sense
We learn right from wrong from our social context (parents, peers, school etc.)
Religious morality - for a religious person, knowledge of the good is encountered at the innate, social and religious level and when these conflict the person may face a moral dilemma.

6. Key Words
Determinism says: Everything is determined and we are not morally responsible for our actions. Every state of affairs or event (including human actions and decisions) is the inevitable and necessary consequence of antecedent states of affairs
Libertarianism says: Nothing is determined, we are totally free and as such we are morally responsible for our actions.
Soft determinism attempts to combine the two bringing freedom and accountability together with the sense that choices are pre-determined by prior events.

7. A History of Determinism
Democritus ( BC) said that causal deterministic laws control the motion of atoms and that everything, including human minds, consists merely of atoms.
Leucippas, his mentor, said
“ Nothing occurs at random, but everything for a reason, by necessity.

8. Before the 19th Century, determinists used to be called NECESSARIANS.
In the 1840s the word started to be used by theologians to describe a lack of free will.
In the late 14th Century, determinism meant to come to and end, or to settle.
In 1822, the word determination started to mean the quality of being resolute.

9. William James coined the terms ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ determinism in 1884 in his essay The Dilemma of Determinism

10. Determinism and Causality
BERTRAND RUSSELL – ‘The law of causation according to which later events can theoretically be predicted by means of earlier events has often been held to be a priori, a necessity of thought, a category without which science would not be possible.
The core idea of determinism is closely related to CAUSALITY BUT you can have causality without determinism.
ARISTOTLE called these archai – starting points or fresh starts in new causal chains.

11. What about chance??
Strict determinism implies just ONE POSSIBLE FUTURE.
But where does chance fit in??
Chance allows alternative futures and possibilities. A problem of determinism???
A determinist might respond with the idea of probability – no such thing as pure chance.

12. Aristotle and Epicurus allowed for the existence of chance and so denied a causal chain, maintaining that human decisions are caused by NEITHER chance NOR necessity but instead our AUTONOMOUS HUMAN AGENCY – back to free will! Only voluntary actions qualify for praise or blame.

13. The scale of the response to free will and determinism
No freedom whatsoever, totally determined
Complete freedom of choice
Hard determinists or incompatabilists
Soft determinists or compatibilists
Libertarians

14. Hard Determinism
All actions are completely determined by previous events.
All actions are the result of a complex network of prior events.
These include sociological, cultural, psychological and physical influences.
One of these alone would not be sufficient to determine all future actions – but the sum of them is.
The world is governed by strict natural laws.
Therefore, a person cannot be held morally accountable for their actions.
No free will – freedom is an illusion created by the brain, therefore we are not logically justified in claiming responsibility for our actions.
Casual determinism – laws of cause and effect in physics suggest that there is a complete chain of antecedent causes going back to the Big Bang

15. Reductionalism
Our thoughts may be seen as no more than electrical impulses in the brain, and our actions are simply the result of chemical and electrical activity. If everything is reduced to its simplist physical components, and those components can be shown to be determined by the laws of physics, then the complex whole is also thereby determined by those laws.

16. Perhaps our feeling of freedom is simply ignorance
Spinoza ( ) – this ‘feeling of freedom’ is merely ignorance.
Everything in the world is totally determined by physical causes, so there is no scope for human freedom.
We consider ourselves to be free because we are ignorant of all the causes operating upon us.
Our experience of free will is factually incorrect but we experience it due to the limited nature of human awareness

17. Scientific Determinism
For two hundred years up until about 1900 science maintained a rigid determinism and a belief in universal causation, which rejected free will as it rejected miracles. It saw all observable events as being subject to scientific law and therefore completely predictable.
Scientific determinists see the world as a great machine, with every event predictable. Some scientists believe that if we were to know everything about the world as it currently is, we could predict what is to come.
No freedom of will – all events are determined by antecedent events and states of affairs.
We might be able to avoid scientific determinism if the laws of nature are probabilistic, and if the quantum world is indeterminate.

18. Psychological determinists believe that they have made some progress in isolating physiological abnormalities in the brain that may cause people to murder without having made a choice to do so. Could it have been ‘determined’ that these people would murder because of a genetic defect?
B.F Skinner – all behaviour is the result of genetic and environmental conditions, and all human actions are conditioned by the good or bad consequences of previous decisions – there can be no free will.
E.g. Pavlov’s Dogs – ‘classical conditioning’. Good and bad consequences of previous actions dispose the brain to repeat/avoid the same action

19. Theological Determinism
Root in the Christian idea of God being omniscient.
Similar to doctrine of Predestination (St Augustine and Calvin)
Free will must be an illusion because all events in the universe are determined by God’s omniscience.

20. Libertarianism All forms of Determinism are wrong
We act as free moral agents
Most Libertarians are mind-body dualists – the mind is a separate substance from the body so is able to act freely in the physical world.
We experience ourselves as free, and we have a sense of moral responsibility (guilt)
We are however, restrained by physical, psychological and social limitations – the idea of total freedom doesn’t make sense

21. Soft Determinism/Compatibilism
Incompatibilism – determinism and libertarianism are incompatible with each other. Seems clear that if one is true, the other must be false. However, some philosophers think they are compatible with each other:
There is an element of determinism in human actions, but we are still morally responsible for what we do.
Some of our actions are conditioned by genetics and environment.
Within the complex web of causal prior events, there is still a limited amount of choice left for human beings.
Needs to define what is determined and what is open to choice.

22. Nature V Nurture Is our behaviour due to:
The fact that we are just born ‘that way’? (Our genes, hereditary factors)
Our upbringing? (our environment and experiences)

23. The Bell Case
In 1968, Mary Bell (11) was convicted of the murder of 2 toddlers. She spent 12 years in secure units before being released at 23. She self-harmed and was often violent.
Her mother was a prostitute that specialised in sado-masochism. Mary was forced to listen to her mother entertain clients from a hiding place.
Was her socio-pathic behaviour pre-determined by her upbringing?

24. Compatibilists believe…
Determinism does not rule out free will
If events are totally random then free will is impossible as there is no control over choices.
Therefore Free Will REQUIRES determinism…

25. Buridan’s Donkey – used by Hume
Buridan was an (the most?) influential Parisian philosopher of the fourteenth century.
Buridan’s Donkey – used by Hume
A donkey is faced with the dilemma of having to choose between a haystack and a pail of water, but he can't decide whether he is more hungry or more thirsty. He stands there contemplating his options and is paralyzed with indecision. In the end, Buridan's donkey dies of both starvation and thirst.

26. David Hume – ‘classic account of the compatibilist approach)
Hume argued that events are determined because of a causal link between objects.
This causal link Hume calls the constant union of objects.
These causal links which are determined lead onto human free will. E.g. Volcanic ash cloud in Iceland choices about travelling
Predetermined events, which you cannot control, create free choice.

27. Hume calls the link between predetermined events and what you decide the inference of the mind.
He then proceeds to discuss how you make that decision. He argues that when you look at the situation, you will decide spontaneously how to act. This does not mean your act is not calculated or thought through.
A spontaneous decision is not one that can be predetermined – Hume calls this the liberty of spontaneity.

28. By linking predetermined events with free will Hume rejects three particular ideas.
Libertarianism – we are totally free.
Hard Determinism – Everything is predetermined.
Moral luck – Hume regards the idea of thing being determined by chance or luck as nonsense. Events are determined. They are not random.

29. Moral accountability I see this man drowning.
If I do not save him because I cannot swim, can I be held accountable?
If I do not save him because I don’t like him, can I be held accountable?
Soft determinism allows for moral accountability by allowing for the freedom to make choices.

30. The relevance of moral responsibility to reward and punishment
1. Crime is a mental condition: an illness that can be treated – there are determining factors in an individual’s life that they either cannot be blamed or for which their blame is limited. Treatment/punishment should therefore be therapeutic/for reform. OR 2. Crime is deliberately anti-social behaviour and should be punished to achieve the aims of retribution, protection and deterrence.

31. Hard determinism – is this is true there can be no freedom of the kind required for moral responsibility so it is pointless punishing people. Skinner argued that once someone has been punished they will eventually go back to their anti-social behaviour.
Libertarianism – must hold people responsible for their actions so reward and punishment is part of encouraging people to be morally responsible.
Compatibilism - see themselves as morally responsible because their moral choices are not the results of physical restraints or coercive threats and they wanted/desired to act as they did despite being aware of alternative actions