Moral Responsibility and Free Will
Free will matters largely because it seems required for moral responsibility, for deserving praise and blame. This topic examines what responsibility consists in and whether it survives the challenge of determinism.
Definition
Moral responsibility is the status of being an appropriate target of reactions such as praise, blame, and the reactive attitudes, in virtue of one's agency.
Scope
Covers Strawson's reactive-attitudes account, accountability and attributability senses of responsibility, the relation between control and responsibility, and free will skepticism that denies basic desert responsibility.
Core questions
- What does it take to be morally responsible for an action?
- Are the reactive attitudes the basis of responsibility?
- Does responsibility require the freedom to do otherwise?
- Could we be justified in giving up blame if no one is responsible?
Key concepts
- Reactive attitudes
- Basic desert
- Accountability
- Attributability
- Guidance control
- Free will skepticism
Key theories
- Reactive-attitudes account
- Strawson argues that moral responsibility is constituted by the reactive attitudes such as resentment and gratitude that pervade interpersonal life, so the practice need not rest on a prior metaphysics of determinism.
- Mesh and reasons-responsive theories
- Frankfurt and, later, Fischer and Ravizza tie responsibility to internal structure or reasons-responsive control rather than to libertarian freedom, defending responsibility as compatible with determinism.
- Free will skepticism
- Pereboom argues that no one is responsible in the basic desert sense, whether determinism is true or false, and explores how moral practice and reform might proceed without backward-looking blame.
History
Strawson's 1962 lecture redirected the debate from the metaphysics of determinism to the reactive attitudes embedded in moral practice. Compatibilists such as Frankfurt and Fischer tied responsibility to control rather than alternatives, while free will skeptics such as Pereboom questioned whether basic desert responsibility exists at all.
Debates
- Is basic desert responsibility real?
- Compatibilists and libertarians defend genuine desert-based responsibility, whereas free will skeptics argue that no one truly deserves praise or blame and that moral practice should be reconceived accordingly.
Key figures
- P. F. Strawson
- Harry Frankfurt
- John Martin Fischer
- Derk Pereboom
- Gary Watson
Related topics
Seminal works
- strawson1962
- pereboom2001
Frequently asked questions
- Why is moral responsibility tied to free will?
- Holding someone responsible, with praise or blame, seems fair only if they had the relevant control over their action. The free will debate matters because it asks whether determinism, or indeterminism, undermines the kind of control that desert-based responsibility requires.