The Communication Argument and the Pluralist Challenge

Various theorists have endorsed the “communication argument”: communicative capacities are necessary for morally responsible agency because blame aims at a distinctive kind of moral communication. I contend that existing versions of the argument, including those defended by Gary Watson and Coleen Macnamara, face a pluralist challenge: they do not seem to sit well with the plausible view that blame has multiple aims. I then examine three possible rejoinders to the challenge, suggesting that a context-specific, function-based approach constitutes the most promising modification of the communication argument.

Naturalistyczne wyjaśnienie wolnej woli (II)

Wysunięto kilka argumentów przeciwko możliwości wolnej woli bazujących na neuronaukach. Wskazałem, że te argumenty przeciw wolnej woli uzależnione są przede wszystkim od argumentów przeciw istnieniu jaźni. Na przykład, zgodnie z argumentem Llinása przeciwko jaźni, ponieważ w mózgu nie istnieje żaden obszar centralizujący doświadczenie i nasze przeświadczenie posiadania jaźni jest zatem wewnętrzną percepcją, której może nie odpowiadać żaden taki obszar, to jaźń nie istnieje. Ale, wbrew Llinásowi, jak również Dennettowi i innym, wykazałem, że ich zarzuty przeciwko jaźni znajdują zastosowanie wyłącznie przeciw jaźni świadomej, czyli takiemu pojęciu, które dobrze pasuje do filozofii kartezjańskiej. Niemniej jednak w tym wieku neuronauk nie ma żadnego powodu do tworzenia teorii na podstawie takiego pojęcia. Biorąc pod uwagę, że umysł ma charakter biologiczny, taka też powinna być jaźń. Musimy zatem rozumować na podstawie biologicznego pojęcia jaźni, to znaczy na podstawie pojęcia zgodnego z neuronaukami w kontekście biologii ewolucyjnej. Gdy to zrobimy, zdamy sobie sprawę, że jaźń, która pełni wiele funkcji obejmujących wiele obszarów mózgu, stanowi rozproszony mechanizm, który w ogóle nie musi być scentralizowany. Uświadomimy sobie również, że jaźń jest także przeważnie nieświadoma, i że nasze poczucie jaźni, będąc percepcją wewnętrzną, jak wskazał sam Llinás, jest podatna na iluzje. Lecz nie powinniśmy mylić poczucia jaźni z jaźnią bardziej niż percepcji słonia ze słoniem. Dysponując biologiczną koncepcją jaźni, której bronię, a także moim pojęciem silnej emergencji, można sformułować przekonujący argument, że jaźń rzeczywiście określa działania danej osoby. Takie powinno być, jak wcześniej zauważył Gary Watson, właściwe podejście do problemu wolnej woli.

Must Compatibilists Be Internalists?

This chapter identifies three lines of thought that build bridges from compatibilism to internalism about moral responsibility and argues that all three are seriously defective. The three lines of thought are due to Richard Double, Harry Frankfurt, and Gary Watson. Thought experiments discussed include radical reversal stories and an original-design story in which a goddess creates a zygote and implants it in a certain woman at a certain time because she wants it to grow into a being who will perform a certain deed thirty years later. Differences between these two kinds of thought experiment are discussed.

Nietzsche’s Theory of Agency

Nietzsche’s repudiation of free will and moral responsibility is documented throughout his corpus, and his arguments for this conclusion—arguments from his distinctive kind of fatalism, his skepticism about the causal efficacy of the will, and his particular brand of epiphenomenalism about the conscious mental states crucial to deliberation—are shown to undermine both compatibilist and incompatibilist views about free will and moral responsibility by engaging the views of many contemporary philosophers working on these topics, including Harry Frankfurt, Galen Strawson, Robert Kane, Derk Pereboom, Gary Watson, and others. In particular, the chapter argues that both “alternate possibilities” and “control” views of free will are vulnerable to Nietzsche’s critique. Some empirical evidence is adduced in support of Nietzsche’s view.

Introduction

In this brief introduction, the editors summarize the motivation for the coming together of these chapters—which is to celebrate the work and philosophical legacy of Gary Watson—as well as the content of each contribution. Michael McKenna builds on and systematizes several key elements of Watson’s views on agency and responsibility. Susan Wolf extends elements of Watson’s oeuvre, notably the relationship between the way agents are responsible for their actions and the kind of response licensed by those actions. Pamela Hieronymi goes on from Watson’s work to offer her own account of what blame’s about. R. Jay Wallace is also concerned with Watson’s overall conception of moral responsibility, understanding blame to be an incipient form of moral address. Michael Smith continues the theme, offering a possible theory of moral responsibility similarly grounded in the reactive emotions. T. M. Scanlon continues a debate that Scanlon and Watson have been having over the moral status of psychopaths. Jeanette Kennett argues that psychopaths are not accountable for their actions in the sense required for moral blameworthiness; and that psychopaths’ actions are not attributable to them so as to make them plausibly criminal. Antony Duff extends Watson’s work on moral responsibility to the domain of criminal responsibility. Gideon Yaffe seeks to better understand the prospects of Watson’s account of addiction. Gary Watson himself offers his current account of the distinction between the two faces of responsibility and thoughts on weakness of will and negligence. Finally, a 2016 interview of Watson by Sarah Buss is a wide-ranging and significant discussion of Gary’s personal history and philosophical development.

I’ll Bet You Think This Blame is About You

In his landmark “Two Faces of Responsibility,” Gary Watson suggested that one face of responsibility evaluates agents and actions against standards of virtue while another concerns holding one another accountable through, e.g., demands and sanctions. This chapter elaborates the idea of a sanction before noting that many responses to moral failing fall between evaluation (a kind of belief) and sanction (a voluntary action). Being responsible also involves being subject to a variety of reactions that are “non-voluntary” in a sense here explained. The non-voluntariness of these reactions has two important upshots: First, questions about their justification are complex, in ways here examined. Second, unlike sanctions, they are not well thought of as burdens voluntarily imposed upon the wrongdoer by the responder. By overlooking the non-voluntariness of many reactions to moral failure, we risk misunderstanding the significance of those reactions. In an important sense, they are not about the wrongdoer, but rather about the one wronged.

Learning from Psychopaths

The chapter examines arguments offered by Gary Watson, drawing on the case of psychopaths, for broadening the conditions of moral responsibility that are required for reactive attitudes such as resentment. These broader conditions include what Watson calls accountability as well as attributability. Focusing mainly on ‘negative’ reactive attitudes, of which a few examples are given, there is an examination of associated conditions of responsibility, and in some depth, of Watson’s argument for accountability as a condition for responsibility; the case of psychopaths is the vehicle for this examination.

Transcript of an Interview with Gary Watson

This is a transcript of an interview with Gary Watson conducted by Sarah Buss on November 3, 2016. It commences with some autobiographical context: Watson became interested in philosophy after high school upon meeting a philosophy major at an artist’s colony. The study of political philosophy drew him into considering freedom and responsibility, and autonomy. The case of Harris is covered as an investigation of normative competency. Problems with the notion of weak will and self-control are discussed. Asked for any important changes in his thinking, Watson responds that he conflated issues of autonomy and of responsibility; this bears also on responsibility in a weak-willed agent. Finally, Watson asserts that freedom is not just about responsibility; it’s also about having a capacity to direct your life in a certain way. He hopes to investigate this further.

Gary Watson

This chapter is concerned with Gary Watson’s overall conception of moral responsibility, and in particular the influence on it of P. F. Strawson’s paper, “Freedom and Resentment.”The chapter provides an anti-Strawsonian theory of responsibility, that is, one in which an agent’s being responsible is independently understood and their being held responsible is understood in terms of this independent notion. It also argues that being held responsible is best understood not in terms of retributive emotions like resentment or indignation, as Strawson suggests, but rather in terms of trust.Two points are made about Watson’s account of being responsible: one, that the demand that we give a folk-psychological explanation of an agent’s failure to exercise a capacity he possesses is unreasonable; two, that it is not the case that, as Watson maintains, the distinction between those who fail to exercise a capacity that they have, and those who lack a capacity altogether, is a distinction without a difference. The proffered anti-Strawsonian theory of responsibility is based on this crucial distinction.

Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility Volume 5

No one has written more insightfully on the promises and perils of human agency than Gary Watson, who has spent a career thinking about issues such as moral responsibility, blame, free will, weakness of will, addiction, and psychopathy. The chapters of this volume pay tribute to Watson’s work by taking up and extending themes from his pioneering essays. Themes covered include:: compatibilist views of freedom and moral responsibility, the distinction between attributability and accountability, the responsibility of psychopaths, the nature of blame and its relationship to morality, the relevance of addiction to responsibility, the continuing influence of P. F. Strawson’s work, the connection between criminal and moral responsibility, the philosophical development of Gary Watson and the ways Watson’s views have changed over time. Contributors include: Michael McKenna, Susan Wolf, Pamela Hieronymi, R. Jay Wallace, Michael Smith, T. M. Scanlon, Jeanette Kennett, Antony Duff, Gideon Yaffe, Gary Watson, Sarah Buss, Neal Tognazzini, and D. Justin Coates.