THE FALLIBILITY PARADOX

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (01) ◽  
pp. 234-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chandra Sripada
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Single Trial ◽  
Extended Sequence ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness

Abstract:Reasons-responsiveness theories of moral responsibility are currently among the most popular. Here, I present the fallibility paradox, a novel challenge to these views. The paradox involves an agent who is performing a somewhat demanding psychological task across an extended sequence of trials and who is deeply committed to doing her very best at this task. Her action-issuing psychological processes are outstandingly reliable, so she meets the criterion of being reasons-responsive on every single trial. But she is human after all, so it is inevitable that she will make rare errors. The reasons-responsiveness view, it is claimed, is forced to reach a highly counterintuitive conclusion: she is morally responsible for these rare errors, even though making rare errors is something she is powerless to prevent. I review various replies that a reasons-responsiveness theorist might offer, arguing that none of these replies adequately addresses the challenge.

Autonomy and Addiction

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 427-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neil Levy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
The Other ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Extended Agency ◽  
Conception Of The Good ◽  
Autonomous Agency ◽  
The Way

Whatever its implications for the other features of human agency at its best — for moral responsibility, reasons-responsiveness, self-realization, flourishing, and so on—addiction is universally recognized as impairing autonomy. But philosophers have frequently misunderstood the nature of addiction, and therefore have not adequately explained the manner in which it impairs autonomy. Once we recognize that addiction is not incompatible with choice or volition, it becomes clear that none of the Standard accounts of autonomy can satisfactorily explain the way in which it undermines fully autonomous agency. In order to understand to what extent and in what ways the addicted are autonomy-impaired, we need to understand autonomy as consisting, essentially, in the exercise of the capacity for extended agency. It is because addiction undermines extended agency, so that addicts are not able to integrate their lives and pursue a Single conception of the good, that it impairs autonomy.

scholarly journals Blockage Cases: No Case against PAP

2003 ◽  
Vol 35 (104) ◽  
pp. 109-120
Author(s):  
Carlos J. Moya Espí
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Alternative Possibilities ◽  
Harry Frankfurt ◽  
Frankfurt Cases ◽  
Principle Of Alternative Possibilities ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Plausible Condition

According to the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), an agent is morally responsible for something she has done only if she could have done otherwise. Harry Frankfurt held that PAP was false on the basis of examples ("Frankfurt cases") in which a counterfactual, and unactivated, device ensures that the agent will decide and do what she actually decides and does on her own, if she shows some sign that she is going to decide and do something else. Problems with these cases have led some thinkers to design examples in which the counterfactual factor is replaced by a device that actually blocks alternative possibilities. I argue that, even if these cases did not illicitly assume determinism, they are not successful against PAP anyway, for they violate a plausible condition on moral responsibility that Fischer has called "reasons-responsiveness".

NARRATIVE CAPACITY AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (01) ◽  
pp. 93-113
Author(s):  
Meghan Griffith
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Narrative Skill

Abstract:My main aim in this essay is to argue that “narrative capacity” is a genuine feature of our mental lives and a skill that enables us to become full-fledged morally responsible agents. I approach the issue from the standpoint of reasons-responsiveness. Reasons-responsiveness theories center on the idea that moral responsibility requires sufficient sensitivity to reasons. I argue that our capacity to understand and tell stories has an important role to play in this sensitivity. Without such skill we would be cut off from the full range of reasons to which moral agents need access and/or we would be deficient in the ability to weigh the reasons that we recognize. After arguing for the relevance of narrative skill, I argue that understanding the connection between reasons-sensitivity and narrative confers additional benefits. It illuminates important psychological structures (sometimes said to be missing from reasons-responsive accounts) and helps to explain some cases of diminished blame.

scholarly journals Resisting Tracing's Siren Song

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Agule
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Moral Reasons ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
Drunk Drivers

Drunk drivers and other culpably incapacitated wrongdoers are often taken to pose a problem for reasons-responsiveness accounts of moral responsibility. These accounts predicate moral responsibility upon an agent having the capacities to perceive and act upon moral reasons, and the culpably incapacitated wrongdoers lack exactly those capacities at the time of their wrongdoing. Many reasons-responsiveness advocates thus expand their account of responsibility to include a tracing condition: The culpably incapacitated wrongdoer is blameworthy despite his incapacitation precisely because he is responsible for becoming incapacitated. As some skeptics have suggested, it is not clear that we need tracing. Here, however, I make a stronger case against tracing: I show that tracing gets things wrong. I consider a new sort of case, the case of the Odysseus agent, whose incapacitation is non-culpable (sometimes merely permissible and sometimes praiseworthy). Tracing would have us hold responsible and therefore blame unlucky Odysseus agents, Odysseus agents who commit a wrongdoing in the throes of their non-culpably induced incapacitation. But we should not hold these unlucky Odysseus agents responsible for their incapacitated wrongdoing. Because tracing gets these cases wrong, we should reject tracing.

Does Situationism Threaten Free Will and Moral Responsibility?

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 698-733 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael McKenna ◽  
Brandon Warmke
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Ethical Theory ◽  
Situational Influences ◽  
Reasons Responsiveness ◽  
The Face ◽  
Gilbert Harman

The situationist movement in social psychology has caused a considerable stir in philosophy. Much of this was prompted by the work of Gilbert Harman and John Doris. Both contended that familiar philosophical assumptions about the role of character in the explanation of action were not supported by experimental results. Most of the ensuing philosophical controversy has focused upon issues related to moral psychology and ethical theory. More recently, the influence of situationism has also given rise to questions regarding free will and moral responsibility. There is cause for concern that a range of situationist findings are in tension with the reasons-responsiveness putatively required for free will and moral responsibility. We develop and defend a response to the alleged situationist threat to free will and moral responsibility that we call pessimistic realism. We conclude on an optimistic note, exploring the possibility of strengthening our agency in the face of situational influences.

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