Determinism and Moral Responsibility
Introduction
In 1984 in the Indian city of Bhopal several thousand people died as a result of poisonous fumes which escaped from the nearby Union Carbide factory. The Union Carbide company accepted responsibility, though the battle for compensation continues. This case is a spectacular example of something very commonplace. In our day to day lives we regularly attribute blame, we praise, condemn, express gratitude, congratulate, we experience guilt, resentment, pride, remorse, shame, indignation, and so on.
That is to say we hold people (including ourselves) morally responsible for their actions. But more than that, we do this because we believe that people are morally responsible for their actions. This belief is fundamental to our view of ourselves and others and to the way we live our lives. Moreover, as anthropologists tell us, the belief in moral responsibility is common to practically all human societies. So what's the problem? The problem is determinism.
Determinism is the doctrine that every human action, like any other event, is causally necessitated by some combination of laws and initial conditions. Thus, every human action is associated with a causal chain of events stretching indefinitely back into the past. To further explain the idea of determinism consider the motion of the moon. Its path is determined by the laws of Newtonian Mechanics and its position at any given time - its position in 100 years is determined now. Thus the laws together with the initial conditions determine the path of the moon. But if human actions are determined by events in the distant past over which we have no control, then how can we be held morally responsible for them? That's why determinism is a problem.
The problem can be expressed more precisely by means of the following argument:
- If all my actions are causally determined, then I couldn't do otherwise than what I in fact do.
- So for any given action A of mine, if A is causally determined then I couldn't do otherwise than perform A.
- If I couldn't do otherwise than perform A, then I can't be morally responsible for A.
Therefore, if determinism is true, I can't be morally responsible for my actions. To illustrate, suppose that Oswald shot Kennedy. Our argument shows that he is not responsible for his act. For, suppose that he wanted to kill Kennedy, decided to do it then did it. His desire and decision were causally determined by certain prior events and so on back. ie the ultimate causes of his action occurred long before he was born. Thus he couldn't have done anything else and was therefore not morally responsible for what he did.
The problem, then, is that both causal determinism and our belief in moral responsibility seem to be true. Yet they appear to conflict as the above argument indicates. We are forced to reject at least one of them. Since the argument is clearly valid, in order to avoid the conclusion at least one of the premises must be shown to be false. Premises (1) and (2) seem to be true so (3) is the crucial one. This premise expresses what the American philosopher Harry Frankfurt has called “The principle of alternate possibilities” (PAP). This principle states that people can be morally responsible for their actions only if they could have done otherwise.
By way of producing a counterexample, Frankfurt argues that PAP is false. If Frankfurt is right then our problem may be solvable. For, if PAP is false then a person may be both morally responsible for a given action even if unable to do otherwise. That is to say that causal determinism may be compatible with moral responsibility. Indeed the view which Frankfurt is defending is called “Compatibilism”.
If compatibilism is true, then we can be morally responsible for actions even if they are causally determined. Compatibilism, or sometimes “soft determinism”, provides a third alternative. Thus the three main views are Determinism, Libertarianism and Compatibilism. Consider Frankfurt's argument (I've slightly adapted his original counterexample).
Frankfurt's counterexample
You are a brilliant but fiendish neurosurgeon who has implanted electrodes in my brain so that you are able to monitor my thoughts and decisions. Thus, without my knowing you can control my actions by ensuring that I act in the way you want. Suppose that you want me to assassinate the Prime Minister. As it happens that's exactly what I plan to do anyway, and I go ahead and do it without you having to intervene.
Frankfurt claims that under these circumstances I am clearly morally responsible for my action because it was the result of my own desires, intentions, choices and decisions. However, and this is the point of the example, I couldn't have done other than assassinate the PM for had I shown any sign of changing my mind you would have monitored my thoughts and affected my decision-making in such a way that the appropriate decision was made. I couldn't have done otherwise. So I am morally responsible for assassinating the PM despite the fact that I couldn't have done otherwise.
Remember that premise (3) in the argument was essentially PAP - the principle of alternate possibilities -and consider how Frankfurt's counterexample falsifies PAP. On the one hand I'm morally responsible for my action, but on the other hand I couldn't do other than I did. So if the counterexample is sound PAP is false.
According to Frankfurt, the key to assigning moral responsibility to a person lies in what led to the person's action. So if a person's desires, intentions, choices and decisions led to a given action, then the person can be morally responsible for the action whether or not he could have done otherwise. Frankfurt illustrates this by distinguishing between two types of drug addicts - willing addicts and unwilling addicts. Unwilling addicts hate being addicted and struggle against it albeit unsuccessfully. They are painfully aware of their addiction and try to overcome it. By contrast, willing addicts take drugs because they enjoy it. It may not even occur to them that they are addicts. Their only concern is to get an adequate supply of drugs. Although both addicts are prisoners of their addiction - neither can do otherwise - Frankfurt claims that there is a crucial difference between them with regard to their moral responsibility for drug taking.
Moral responsibility for an action depends on what led to the action. What leads to unwilling addicts taking drugs? Simply the fact that they can't do otherwise. What leads to willing addicts taking drugs? The fact that they enjoy taking drugs. Willing addicts, like their unwilling counterparts, can't do otherwise. The point is that, in the case of the willing addicts, being unable to do otherwise is not the only thing which leads to their action. Both types of addicts can't do otherwise, but only the unwilling addicts take drugs only because they can't do otherwise. And for Frankfurt this difference is crucial when assigning responsibility. In the light of this Frankfurt offers a modified version of PAP.
“A person is morally responsible for what he has done if he did it
only because he couldn't have done otherwise.”
According to this modified principle, I am morally responsible for assassinating the PM and willing addicts are morally responsible for taking drugs. For while it is true that both I and the willing addicts couldn't have done otherwise, in both cases the actions are not performed only because the agents couldn't have done otherwise. I am morally responsible for killing the PM because even though I couldn't have done otherwise - you were waiting in the wings ensuring that I couldn't do anything else - it was not this fact alone which led to my action. I am as morally responsible for my action as I would have been had you not been involved at all.
Frankfurt's counterexample and determinism
If Frankfurt is right then we can be morally responsible for our actions even if our actions are causally determined. In other words, we should be compatibilists with regard to determinism and moral responsibility. It may look as if determinism undermines moral responsibility, but this is an illusion. Even if determinism is true, human beings can still be morally responsible for their actions. For, as Frankfurt points out, in the example I am as morally responsible as I would have been had you not been waiting in the wings ready to intervene should I change my mind. The fact that I couldn't have done otherwise played no role at all in leading me to act as I did. I would have done exactly the same in a situation where I could have done otherwise.
In order to explain what Frankfurt means here, suppose that my assassinating the PM was not causally determined. So whatever relation it is that holds between my action and the events leading up to it - call this relation R - it is just the sort of relation which ensures that I'm morally responsible for my action. We may suppose that R is the sort of relation which provides the ideal conditions for moral responsibility. Thus if R obtains there is no sense in which my action was causally necessitated.
Imagine, then, these two situations S(1) and S(2). S(1) Relation R obtains and I assassinate the PM without you implanting electrodes in my brain. S(2) Relation R obtains and I assassinate the PM but this time with you having implanted the electrodes though you not having to intervene.
In S(1) I am as morally responsible as I could possibly be - there are no impediments to it. All the conditions for moral responsibility are present. In S(2), since I am acting with electrodes in place, I couldn't have done otherwise for you are ready and waiting to intervene should I decide to change my mind. Nevertheless, so long as you don't actually intervene and I act on my own accord, then I don't act only because I couldn't have done otherwise.
Being unable to do otherwise is not what leads me to act. Indeed the fact that I couldn't do otherwise has no bearing at all on what I do. It would if you actually intervened. I would then not be morally responsible for my action for in this case it is precisely the fact that I couldn't do otherwise that is leading me to act. The important point here is this: I am as morally responsible in S(1) as I am in S(2). This is because in both situations my desires, intentions, choices, decision and action may be precisely the same.
What basis would there be for any claimed difference in the degree of moral responsibility in the two situations? When unable to do otherwise I can be as morally responsible as I am when able to do otherwise. So if Frankfurt is right, being causally determined to act need not prevent from being morally responsible for my action.
Some questions
- Is Frankfurt's counterexample convincing? Do you think that it is a genuine case of someone being both morally responsible yet unable to do otherwise?
- If Frankfurt is right then we may be morally responsible for our actions even if we don't have free will. Can this be right?
- Does Frankfurt's example, even if sound, apply to determinism? Suppose that we agree with Frankfurt and accept his example as showing that (in that example) a person may be morally responsible even if unable to do otherwise. Does it follow that someone can be both morally responsible for doing A and also causally determined to do A?
Reference
H. Frankfurt, Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility.
R. Neurath