In his "Trouble with Libertarianism" chapter (p. 190), Double has an excellent review of three kinds of libertarian theories, based on how each allows indeterminism to enter. One he calls "Valerian"
's decision model (named for the poet Paul Valery). Valerian models introduce indeterminism in the early stages of deliberation, before the decision itself.
The next he calls "Non-Valerian." These allow indeterminism in the decision process itself, which means that
The last is his own theory, which he calls "Delay Libertarianism." The main idea is to recognize that free will is a process that takes place over a period of time. This gives Double the opportunity to locate the indeterminism in a delay between deliberations and resultant decisions.
But he still argues that the deliberations "set the stage" for whatever decision will be made -
. So he leaves himself open to the
.
Double recognizes that the act of the will might be simply to avoid a decision, and send the problem back for more deliberations, which could involve generating more
But in the end, says Double, delay libertarianism fails, for the same reason as the others, the
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Delay Libertarianism
I now want to sketch another Valerian theory that relies on the possibility of quantum indeterminacies, which I call
delay libertarianism. This theory makes the possibility of time gaps a common feature of our decision making, and, to the extent that is empirically warranted, an ubiquitous feature of the rest of our cognitive and biological lives. On this view, for most decisions it is indeterminate whether the decision will follow the deliberation immediately or whether it will be delayed a small fraction of a second. (I leave this imprecise, because the length of the delays needs to be specified empirically.) Sometimes delays may occur in sequence, producing longer delays between the deliberations and the resultant decisions.
Delay libertarianism locates indeterminacy at the point where our deliberations are followed by our decisions. (To make this more psychologically realistic, we could suppose that not all deliberative processes are conscious, but that supposition is tangential to understanding the delay concept. The important thing is that delay theorists want to focus on the point at which the determinists
believe that deliberations cause decisions.) The delay theory holds that, in the case of free choices, the deliberations "set the stage" for the ensuing decision in the sense that the former establish which decision will be made
if any decision is made. The deliberations do not, however, make the decision physically necessary, since the decision is indeterminate, and may either occur or not occur.
If the indeterminate decision occurs, then it immediately follows the deliberation and appears exactly as it would if it were caused by the deliberation. If the indeterminate decision does not occur, there is a delay. In this case, there are two possibilities. First, since most of the psychological factors that went into the deliberation that led up to the initial indeterminate decision remain intact, the stage remains set for the same decision to be made. (Metaphorically, the deliberative state of the agent has another chance to push the decision across the threshold.) If, on the next try, the decision fails to occur (thereby producing an iterated delay), the same process may be repeated, and so on.
The second possibility is that during any of the delays brought about by the failure of the indeterminate decision to occur, agents may think of some other considerations that prompt them to extend their original deliberations, possibly leading them to different decisions than they would have made had no delays occurred. Thus, at no single instant are the two alternatives, e.g., decide A and decide not A, physically possible; yet in free decisions the alternatives of deciding A and not deciding A (that is, having one's decision delayed) are physically possible.
Double recognizes the problem of
when and where quantum effects occur.
There are some reasons why a libertarian might prefer delay libertarianism to the theories considered above. First, it has always been difficult for libertarians who try to avail themselves of quantum indeterminacy to explain why the sub-atomic indeterminacies occur just when we manifest libertarian freedom. It cannot be, for instance, that when we prepare to make a decision, the sub-atomic particles 'know' that they should 'go on a spree'. So, is it not miraculous that the sub-atomic and macro-levels correspond in any significant way? Delay libertarianism answers this objection. Because the possibility of delays is a common feature of our mental lives, there is no problem in seeing how they correspond to free decisions. They are always, or almost always, there.
A second, related, advantage of delay libertarianism is that it allows free will to be as frequent a phenomenon as common sense believes it is. (The libertarian should not claim that delays are sufficient for free will, since unfree agents will also experience delays.)
It has always seemed to me that theories like those of Campbell, Kane, and Kant, which make free will realized only under the greatest of efforts, were not really accounts of "free will," but of a much narrower concept. Delay libertarianism does not deny that the moral phenomenology that these theories describe occurs, but it explicates free will at a broader, more mundane level that cleaves more closely to the prephilosophical notion of freedom.
Delay libertarianism makes free will more "egalitarian," since you do not need Taoist/ Buddhist receptivity (Kane) or an especially keen sense of duty (Kant, Kane, Campbell) to enjoy it.
Third, more so than the other views examined, delay libertarianism satisfies the intuitive demands of rationality. It clearly does this better than Nonvalerian theories. It is even slightly better on this score than Dennett's or Kane's theories, because delay libertarianism's indeterminacy does not apply to the considerations generated or to the degree of effort expended. The delays simply give agents more time to deliberate. Thus, agents who are especially subject to delays are not, ipso facto, as whimsical or flighty as agents who are particularly prone to the occurrence of new considerations in their deliberations or to having their will power fluctuate. Such agents would simply be
slower. One might say that the indeterminate possibility of delays constitutes the difference between rational decision making (if the delays fail to occur), and even
more rational, one-last-chance-to-reconsider decision making (if they occur).
All this notwithstanding, the hard question is whether delay libertarianism enables us to satisfy the libertarian requirements any better than the previous theories did. Ultimately, I think that delay libertarianism fails. Although it is better at providing one-way rationality than van Inwagen's, Dennett's, or Kane's view, it fails just as clearly at dual rationality. It shows how one choice could be rational provided the delays occur and another could be rational if the delays do not occur, but it does not show how we could rationally select either choice given the actual occurrence or nonoccurrence of the delays. The delay theory also fails to produce a sort of indeterminacy that libertarians want. An agent's ability to choose otherwise is, on this theory, dependent on whether the delays occur. But this condition creates the same type of situation that libertarians find objectionable in Dennett's and Kane's view. Indeterminacy needs to be located at the instant of the choice — keeping all previous factors the same — if it is to satisfy the libertarian notion of genuine categorical freedom. Thus, it seems that only a Nonvalerian view such as van Inwagen's can satisfy the desire that motivates the could-have-chosen-otherwise condition. The story is similar for the dual-control requirement. Delay libertarianism satisfies one-way control much the same way that Dennett's theory does. The 'randomizer' that the delay theory adds to the deterministic one-way control is simply the possibility of time gaps that enable agents to deliberate longer, but such delays do not give agents control over both possible outcomes. A chance to change one's mind that is contingent upon delays does not provide control over the alternative choices that are not made if the delays fail to occur. (pp.211-14)
The Moral Hardness of Libertarianism
(
Philo, Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 226-234)
ABSTRACT The following is a criticism designed to apply to
most libertarian free will theorists. I argue that most libertarians
hold three beliefs that jointly show them to be unsympathetic or
hard-hearted to persons whom they hold morally responsible: that persons are morally
responsible only because they make libertarian choices, that we should
hold persons responsible, and that we lack epistemic justification for
thinking persons make such choices. Softhearted persons who held these
three beliefs would espouse hard determinism, which exonerates all
persons of moral responsibility, or, at least, would not espouse
libertarianism. I do not address the view held by some libertarians
that we do have epistemic justification for thinking that persons make
libertarian choices, a minority position that I believe cannot be
sustained.
I propose four premises to argue that most libertarians are
hard-hearted (unsympathetic, not morally conscientious). (1)
Libertarians believe that we may hold persons morally responsible only
if they exercise libertarian free will. (2) Libertarians believe that
we should hold persons morally responsible. (3) Most libertarians
believe that we have scant epistemic justification that
persons have such free will. I believe, but shall not argue in this
paper,
that libertarians who believe they have epistemic justification for
libertarian
free will are mistaken.
1 I add a fourth premise describing how
soft-hearted
persons would respond to accepting the first three premises, and
conclude
that those libertarians who do not believe they have epistemic
justification
that persons make free choices are hard-hearted. In the first section I
present
my argument. In section two I consider three implausible replies
libertarians
may make to my argument. In section three I examine three replies that
are
not available to libertarians.
1. The Moral Problem with Libertarianism
Libertarians believe that persons choose freely in such a way as to
make them morally responsible at least some significant amount of the
time, and that persons are free and morally responsible only because
they make undetermined choices. Whatever variety of undetermined
choices they postulate, few libertarians purport to provide epistemic
justification that persons actually make such choices. Traditionally,
the existence of agents in agent-cause theories has always been treated
conjecturally, as evinced in the writings of Roderick Chisholm (1976),
Richard Taylor (1966) and Peter van Inwagen (1983). More recent
agent-cause advocates such as William Rowe (1995), Timothy O’Connor
(1995A), and Randolph Clarke (1995) give more details, but provide
little reason to suppose that such choices really occur. Robert Kane’s
event-cause account (1996) sketches how choices made at times of
conflicting motives might
coincide with the amplification of quantum indeterminism in persons’
brains, but Kane provides little reason to believe that such choices
occur. Mark Balaguer (1999) argues that we have as much reason for
believing choices are undetermined as we do for believing they are
determined, because nobody knows how the brain works. But his argument
has to discount the inductive evidence that every other macroscopic
event we understand seems to be causally determined by previous events.
Even if one accepts Balaguer’s point, it provides no more reason to
think that brains make undermined choices than we have reason to think
we make determined choices.
Immanuel Kant proclaims that we can have no epistemic justification for
believing that persons make libertarian choices, but recommends that we
postulate
on faith alone the existence of trans-empirical selves ‘in’ a
noumenal world who (that?) make such choices. William James (1962)
provides
a will-to-believe type of argument for believing that persons make
libertarian
choices, but his reasoning, like his argument regarding belief in God,
is
designed to operate in lieu of epistemic justification, not to provide
it.
Libertarians’ confessed lack of epistemic justification that persons
make libertarian choices raises the issue of moral hardness. By the
libertarians’ own lights, are they being morally conscientious when
they (1) adopt libertarianism as a theory or (2) put their belief in
libertarianism into practice in their own treatment of persons? Because
the former question is intellectual, it might seem that the issue of
moral hardness pertains only to the latter, which
deals with action. But the theory of libertarianism supports the
practice of holding persons morally responsible. If the practices
sanctioned by libertarianism are morally objectionable, the charge of
lack of moral conscientiousness seems
to apply to libertarian theory. Moreover, a theory can be hard-hearted
even
if no one ever acts on it, such as Descartes’s denial of animal
suffering
or certain theodicy-arguments.
Holding persons morally responsible includes a wide range of positive
and negative behaviors: expressed reactive attitudes, verbal
recrimination, praise and blame, retributive punishment and
just-deserts rewards, all the way to eternal torment in Hell and bliss
in Heaven. Libertarians disagree among themselves
over how much of that range moral responsibility includes. But because
even
the mildest of the adverse behaviors harms persons, libertarians use
the
assignment of moral responsibility as a justificatory mantra that turns
otherwise
immoral treatment into just-deserts goods. Whatever the degree of
harshness
of the assignments of moral responsibility they select, libertarians
agree
that to assign those adverse aspects of moral responsibility to persons
who
lack libertarian free will is to act wrongly. Such reasoning, no doubt,
lies
behind many libertarians’ expressed contempt for compatibilism. By
the same reasoning, then, libertarians need to provide a moral
justification for visiting these evils upon persons. By their own
lights, if libertarians are to hold persons responsible while avoiding
the charge of treating persons immorally, libertarians should provide
epistemic justification that persons actually make libertarian choices.
The mere hope will not suffice.
How much epistemic justification that free will exists must
libertarians provide to avoid the accusation of endorsing unwarranted
recrimination, blame, and retribution? I believe it requires a great
deal, well over a 0.5 probability, which is more than any of the
above-cited libertarians claim exists. If we have insufficient
epistemic justification for believing that persons satisfy the
conditions we deem necessary for them to deserve assignments of moral
responsibility, then, unless there are overwhelming consequentialist
reasons for doing so (I discuss this later), we have insufficient moral
justification for those assignments. Consider a simple case stipulated
so that there are no consequentialist reasons for the assignment of
responsibility: If I lack evidence that you committed an arson, then I
should not blame you for committing that arson—even if you did commit
the arson.
Robert Kane (1985, 1996, and in correspondence) distances himself from
other libertarians by pointing out that Kanian free choosers have only
partial control
over their choices and, hence, are only partially morally responsible
for
their actions. Because Kane’s theory makes indeterministic choices
depend
on and coincide with indeterministic (and indeterminate) quantum
events, he
acknowledges that Kanian free persons lack control over their choices
before
they make them. Kane (1999) disagrees with his critics over whether
losing
antecedent control means losing control per se, which Kane admits would
eliminate
responsibility. Regardless of this dispute, Kane gives a plausible
reason
why Kanian free persons would merit a less strident kind of moral
responsibility
than would non-materialist Kantian trans-empirical selves or Cartesian
souls.
The latter are postulated as dictators of choices irrespective of the
influences
from their bodies, including all genetic and environmental influences.
Traditional
libertarians will dislike this implication of Kane’s view precisely
because lessened control fails to underpin the strong type of
responsibility
that libertarians historically have wished to assign. It would be
difficult
to over-emphasize the importance to libertarians of justifying the
practices
of holding persons morally responsible.
Despite the plausibility of the claim that partial control merits
partial responsibility, Kane at most mitigates this paper’s objection
without rebutting it. Regardless of the strength of moral
responsibility they endorse, all libertarians are committed to
exonerating all persons of all moral responsibility if they came to
believe that persons are determined. All libertarians who confess that
they lack epistemic justification that anybody chooses
indeterministically should exonerate everyone of moral responsibility,
whether the most blood-chilling type of blame or Kane’s milder variety.
2. Three Unsatisfactory Replies: Digging in One’s Heels, Conceptual
Schemes, and the Pragmatic Value of Believing in Libertarianism
A first reply by libertarians might be to insist that moral
responsibility requires libertarian free will and that nothing could
ever make them surrender the belief that persons make libertarian
choices, despite their lack of epistemic justification. One could put a
happy gloss on this by seeing it as intransigence for a good cause, but
this would be bad epistemology. Surely the belief that persons make
libertarian choices—an a posteriori claim that is acknowledged as
unknowable by almost everyone—is a paradigm of a defeasible claim. This
is a strategically inapt place to dig in one’s heels.
A second reply might be that libertarianism, although not epistemically
warranted in the face of deterministic skepticism, is acceptable
because
of its centrality to our conceptual scheme as persons.
2 If we are to
see
ourselves as persons who deliberate about our actions, then we must see
ourselves
as making libertarian dual-choices, even if we have no knowledge that
we
are the libertarian deliberators we take ourselves to be. Thus, the
following
are synthetic a priori truths; if we take ourselves to be persons, then
we
must take ourselves to make libertarian choices.
In response, I see little merit in "conceptual frame" arguments to
support substantive philosophical theories. I concede to the
libertarians that we cannot deliberate about choices we believe are
going to occur irrespective of our choosing them, but to my knowledge
no compatibilist has ever maintained that determinism entails this
absurdity. As to whether deliberation requires two-way, metaphysically
open libertarian choices, I think it is clear that the only openness we
need is an epistemological openness in which we do not know what we
will choose until we choose it (Kapitan, 1986). Clearly, this is
consistent with determinism.
As a counter-balance to the above libertarian argument, consider Peter
Strawson’s (1963) famous argument for the irrelevance of determinism to
moral responsibility based on his non-libertarian analysis that
reactive attitudes would persist irrespective of what we learned about
the determinism of human behavior. Even
if Strawson were right about this, a highly questionable assumption,
the
fact that both compatibilists and libertarians can use conceptual
scheme arguments
to support their contradictory views suggests caution regarding such
arguments.
A third reply might defend the claim that persons make libertarian
choices, despite its lack of epistemic credentials, by claiming that
our believing in libertarian free will and moral responsibility has
salutary moral effects, a claim Kant shares with James. Of course, this
claim is debatable armchair psychology. To the best of my knowledge,
psychologists have not studied the results of the belief and non-belief
in moral responsibility, so the whole issue seems to me conjectural.
But so long as we are conjecturing, perhaps there are moral advantages
to rejecting moral responsibility, as Saul Smilansky (1994) avers, or
even advantages that make doing so morally superior to libertarianism,
as B. F. Skinner (1948) and Bruce Waller (1990) claim. Libertarians are
not obviously right on this conjecture.
But let us concede libertarians the dubious psychological premise and
see if it helps to rebut my objection. Any libertarian who stresses the
pragmatic value of believing in libertarianism is committed to
consequentialist cost-benefit analysis. So, even if the psychological
speculation were true, the benefit of inculcating better moral behavior
among the public at large must be weighed against the possible cost of
the unfairness of assigning moral responsibility to persons who do not
deserve it. Instead of reveling in the hope that we might have
libertarian freedom, a compassionate incompatibilist would consider the
injustice we do to persons when we retributively punish them under the
banner of libertarian free will and then consider the probability that
we actually have such freedom. To ignore the probability that we have
libertarian freedom when we adopt libertarianism is as confused as
ignoring the probability that we will win the sweepstakes because we
are inveigled by the size of the
prize. Moreover, the belief in moral responsibility may do considerable
damage
even if persons generally are morally responsible: for example,
retributive punishment dispensed to individuals who are mistakenly
thought to have committed crimes.
Therefore, libertarians who endorse this pragmatic argument, by their
own premises, find themselves in an unenviable position. They are
committed to believing that an improbable moral good (encouraging
better moral behavior at large) outweighs the probable moral evil of
inflicting negative reactive attitudes, blame, and retributive
punishment on undeserving victims. In sum, by their own lights,
libertarians should not use the presumed pragmatic advantage of
believing in libertarianism to justify imputing libertarian choices to
persons. The probable cost of the pragmatic strategy should be enough
to make
any rational, morally sensitive libertarian reconsider using the
pragmatic argument.
I find it odd for libertarians to do two things: (1) to condemn
behavior modification as the sole rationale for punishment, because,
following Kant, doing so treats persons as mere means, thereby doing
them a moral injustice. Kant writes:
Judicial punishment can never be used merely as a means to promote some
other good for the criminal himself or for civil society, but instead
it
must in all cases be imposed on him only on the grounds that he has
committed
a crime. (Kant, 1965, 100)
(2) to impute to persons libertarian free will (without epistemic
justification) in order to make them act better morally. Both
strategies of behavior modification and imputing libertarian free will
have consequentialist motivations, and if the former strategy uses
persons, so does the latter. Worse, there is a
second degree of using persons operative when libertarians endorse the
pragmatic
strategy. Libertarian fans of the pragmatic argument impute libertarian
free
will to persons not simply to improve humanity’s moral conduct, which
could be done just as well by endorsing compatibilism’s route to moral
responsibility. Libertarians wish to improve moral conduct while
holding
on to their incompatibilist conviction that only libertarian free will
underpins
moral responsibility.
If "using" seems too strong, I could rephrase the last point.
Libertarians underestimate the likelihood that their theory
(incompatibilism and the belief in undetermined choices) is false and
then discount the harm done if that theory is accepted and is false. If
libertarians were softhearted, they would not risk hurting persons by
imputing unknowable libertarian free will (and moral responsibility) to
them simply on the strength of their libertarian vision. Fallibilism
about one’s views is a desirable quality in general, but it is morally
obligatory when dogmatism has potentially harmful repercussions for
persons.
I can see two ways for libertarians to respond to my objection to the
pragmatic argument. The first appeals to some barbarous moral thinking
under the guise of an unjustifiable metaphysical premise. The second
leads directly to compatibilism.
The first response would go like this. Libertarians could reply that if
persons lack libertarian free will, then none of us have moral worth,
and,
hence, it does not matter if libertarians mistakenly subject persons to
blame
and retributive punishment. Libertarians might as well assume that
persons
exercise libertarian free will, because if persons do not, nobody can
treat
anybody immorally. One cannot treat a being lacking in moral worth
immorally.
(Kant thought our duties to beasts were only indirect: One must not
mistreat
beasts only because it may lead to mistreating humans.) A zany variant
on
this would be to insist that because "ought" implies a libertarian
"can," if libertarianism is false, no one ought to do otherwise
than they do, which includes refraining from assigning unwarranted
moral
responsibility. The premise behind this response would be question
begging
against compatibilists. Worse, this response is unspeakably
hard-hearted,
using an unjustifiable philosophical premise to support a cruel moral
position.
For a second response to my objection, consider Daniel Dennett’s (1984,
164) suggestion in Elbow Room:
we simply hold persons responsible for their conduct (within limits we
take care not to examine too closely). And we are rewarded for adopting
this strategy by the higher proportion of "responsible" behavior we
thereby inculcate (1984, 164).
Dennett’s cavalier position appears heartless until Dennett adds to it
the compatibilist premise that determined persons can be morally
responsible. Until Dennett does this, his recommendation not to look
closely at the causation of human actions will seem to overlook what
incompatibilists see as the gross injustice of holding determined
persons morally responsible. Thus, to avoid my objection to the
Kant/James pragmatic line, Dennett needs to claim that determined
persons could be responsible. As a compatibilist, Dennett happily
endorses this premise, although, Dennett’s idea of moral responsibility
is a milder variety than most libertarians endorse. Unfortunately for
libertarians, accepting this premise would be to surrender
libertarianism for compatibilism.
3. Three Replies Not Available to Libertarians
The following are reasonable responses to my argument, but each is
unavailable to libertarians. First, libertarians might treat their
theories as hypothetical: "I believe that if persons are morally
responsible, they need to make libertarian choices; but because I have
no epistemic justification for the claim that anyone makes such
choices, I shall not hold anyone morally responsible until I find
some." Someone who says this combines conviction about incompatibilism
with a reasonable skepticism about the likelihood of libertarian
metaphysics, thus avoiding the worst excesses of dogmatism and
heartlessness. The problem for the libertarian is that adopting this
agnostic position would be a tentative acceptance of hard determinism.
This position is contrary to
what most historical libertarians want: If one’s libertarian theory
recommends that one act like a hard determinist, then on epistemic and
practical grounds, one probably should be a hard determinist. Erstwhile
libertarians who adopted this move would, of course, leave open the
possibility of endorsing libertarianism should new evidence for
libertarian choices emerge.
One variation on this theme would be for the libertarians
to refuse to endorse the negative aspects of moral responsibility, but
continue to endorse the positive ones. This proposal reminds one of the
compatibilist Susan Wolf’s (1980) proposal that blame requires
libertarian free will, but praise does not. The problem with this
modulated proposal is that it is
not consistent with the traditional libertarian aim of vindicating the
whole
range of morally responsibility. It would be tantamount to accepting
hard
determinism for the part of moral responsibility that is most important
to
most libertarians and compatibilism for the rest.
Another variation on this theme suggested by Lee McCracken
in correspondence is that libertarians might concede that human beings
could never know whether persons make libertarian choices, but God
would. So, libertarians might deny persons the right to hold persons
morally responsible, but grant it to God. There are three things to
note about this riposte. First, the result
would be that libertarians should act like hard determinists, as noted
above.
This applies with even more force against libertarians such as Kane
(1996,
81-89) who allege that an extremely wide array of qualities require
libertarian
free choices: not simply free will and moral responsibility, but
creativity,
autonomy, individuality, dignity, and worthiness of love and
friendship.
The more extensive the qualities the libertarians make depend on
libertarian
free will, the more extensive the qualities libertarians should
withdraw
in light of the epistemic problem.
Second, if we do not have epistemic justification that persons have
free will, how could we have epistemic justification that God knows
they do? An omniscient God would know all truths, but the question at
stake is precisely whether persons make libertarian choices.
Postulating that God would know who makes libertarian choices if they
do is no more epistemically justified than our belief that persons make
libertarian choices.
Third, I find it a curious metaphilosophical motivation to endorse a
theory for which one has little epistemic justification, not to improve
humanity’s lot (as do Kant and James, whose pragmatic argument I have
criticized), but to exonerate a postulated entity. The theist might
reply that ‘vindicating God’s justice,’ to paraphrase Leibniz, does
serve humanity or, at least, makes some theists happy. If it difficult
to see, though, the practical benefit to persons of being assured that
if God exists, and if He discovers that persons make libertarian
choices, then His punishment will be just.
A second libertarian response would be to become agnostic
about incompatibilism to defend the belief in responsibility.
Libertarians
might say that the belief in responsibility is so important that even
if
persons cannot be shown to be morally responsible by incompatibilist
lights,
they are willing to reconsider those lights and adopt compatibilism, at
least provisionally. This modest position looks much like Alfred Mele’s
"agnostic autonomist" (1995), but it also is not libertarianism.
Finally, erstwhile libertarians might defend responsibility by saying
that both determined choices and undetermined choices can be free. [In
Double 1996
and 1999 I call this Free-Will-Either-Way Theory.] But because this
view
endorses compatibilism’s positive claim that one can be morally
responsible
for determined choices, it, too, is not libertarianism.
4. Conclusion
Libertarians can answer this paper’s objection if they (1) reject
incompatibilism, or (2) quit holding persons morally responsible, or
(3)
provide epistemic justification that persons make enough libertarian
choices
to support the practices of expressing reactive attitudes, blaming, and
punishing
retributively. Because libertarians cannot do either of the first two
and
remain libertarians, and seem unable to do the third, the three
strategies
are unpromising. All in all, the wisest and kindest strategy for
libertarians
would be to let go of moral responsibility—for the time being, at
least.3
NOTES
1 Some famous libertarians have offered arguments for libertarian free
choices, but I have never found one that provided epistemic
justification. C. A. Campbell (1957, 168-70) thinks we can tell by
introspection that we make uncaused choices,
but his view is epistemically worthless. My intuitive ‘feeling’ that I
can choose in multiple ways given my complete mental state immediately
preceding my choice is explained just as well by the hypothesis that
there are determinants of my choice of which I am unaware as it is by
the postulation of libertarian dual choices (Double, 1991). Sartre
proclaims that "man is freedom," but one cannot settle a substantive
metaphysical problem by stipulation. Van Inwagen (1983, 206-9) deduces
that persons make libertarian choices from the premises that (1)
incompatibilism is true, and (2) we know we are morally responsible for
our actions. Needless to say, both premises are highly disputable.
2 I owe this suggestion to Kenton Machina.
3 I thank Mark Balaguer, Robert Kane, Lee McCracken, and Bruce Waller
for helpful comments on previous drafts of this paper. Also helpful
were the members
of the Philosophy faculties of Illinois State University and Illinois
Wesleyan
University to whom I read a version of this paper. Finally, I am
grateful
to the editor of this journal, Quentin Smith, for correcting several
mistakes
and infelicities.
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