The Limited Compatibilism of Epiphenomenalism with Responsibility

The second response to the epiphenomenal challenge is to deny that epiphenomenalism has any implications that are skeptical of responsibility. Such a compatibilist response is seemingly ruled out by adopting the classical compatibilist response to the challenge of hard determinism. Whether this is in fact so is explored in this chapter, the thesis being that in a certain range of cases we are responsible for effects that we do not cause so long as those effects are on one horn of an epiphenomenal fork the existence of which we know and the other horn of which we can control. Because such responsibility across the horns of an epiphenomenal fork can involve control of the past, and because a general control of the past to the extent that we can control the future is implausible, some care is taken to limit the scope of what in the past we can control by our present decisions. These limits are cast in terms of there being a strong necessitation of a past event by a present decision which necessitation is known to the actor as he acts to make it have been the case that such past event occurred.

Nothing But a Pack of Neurons

Seemingly separate from the concerns raised by either hard determinism or epiphenomenalism are the concerns raised by physicalistic reductionism. The separate worries for responsibility spawned by physicalism stem from the neuroscience claim that at bottom we are just mechanisms, physical machines. The claim seems to belittle our most cherished attributes like our creativity, our capacity to love, our responsible agency. To be “nothing but a pack of neurons” seemingly is to be less than the image we had of ourselves. The chapter examines the meaning of reductionism in the sciences generally, and of mind to brain more specifically. A variety of metaphysical views (of the relation of mind to brain) are examined, each of which raises this distinctive challenge of physicalism despite the differences between them. A view often called “reductionist” but which in fact is not—eliminative materialism—is also distinguished. The chapter then sifts the evidence thus far produced by neuroscience that some form of mind-brain reductionism is true, and assays the extent to which such reductionism actually challenges responsibility.

The Libertarian, Fictionalist, and Compatibilist Responses to Hard Determinism

This chapter surveys the various responses to hard determinism, all of which seek to salvage responsibility in the face of the thought that all of our actions and choices are caused by factors over which we have no control. Those responses are grouped into three large categories: libertarianisms, fictionalisms, and compatibilisms. Libertarians believe that we do possess contra-causal free will, at least some of the time. Fictionalists believe that we must fictionalize responsibility so that we can construct it so as to be compatible with the determination of human choice by factors themselves unchosen. Compatibilists believe that there is no contradiction between free and responsible action, on the one hand, and determination of human choice, on the other. Various subcategories of each of these groupings are explored, and a case is made to subscribe to one of the forms of compatibilism, classical compatibilism. Ten amendments are offered to classical compatibilism aimed at eliminating the many problems that have been raised for classical compatibilism these past sixty years.

Freedom and Morality

Most contemporary ethical theorists do not look to Schopenhauer as a resource for contemporary normative ethics. Chapters 1 and 2 dispel one of the main reasons for this—namely, that Schopenhauer’s pessimism leads only to the recommendation of resignation. But there is another reason why Schopenhauer has been neglected as an ethical theorist that this chapter addresses. It is widely held that Schopenhauer espouses hard determinism, the view that human beings (in addition to non-human animals) are determined to act as they do on the basis of physical and psychological laws. Yet, without the presumption of freedom it makes little sense to offer a normative ethical theory. Accordingly, before reconstructing Schopenhauer’s normative ethical theory, one needs to get clearer on his views on freedom. This chapter begins with Schopenhauer’s grappling with the problem of how freedom is possible in his dissertation (1813) and traces the development of his theory of freedom through The World as Will and Representation (1818) and his essay “On the Freedom of the Will” (1839). Next, it offers an interpretation of Schopenhauer’s mature compatibilist view that shows how it aims to depart from, but remains highly indebted to Kant’s theory of freedom. This under-acknowledged debt is the “ghost of Kantian freedom” in Schopenhauer’s thought. Ultimately, for Schopenhauer, though we are each born with an innate character and are shaped largely by our empirical circumstances, a rational being is nonetheless responsible for her character, which she can shape and even, albeit rarely, transform.

The ethics of hard determinism

The ethics of hard determinism are described.

Live a happy life and save the world as a hard determinist

What is hard determinism and how to practice it to live a happy life and save the world are described.

Are Persons Free to Choose?

This chapter explores a key dimension of the portrayal developed in Chapter 2—namely, moral agency. Against the hard determinism of modern scientism, classic Jewish sources affirm in a nuanced way the concept of free will. Since these sources have also sometimes endorsed a “soft-determinist” view (sometimes known as compatibilism), there is some common ground to be found on this complicated issue. How can we continue to embrace a belief in free will, with all that such a belief entails, and still give credence to the new sciences of the brain that qualify or even negate free will at the same time? Although ultimately Jewish sources must affirm personhood, agency, and moral responsibility, there is more than one simplistic way to do so.