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Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments by R. Jay Wallace
R. Jay Wallace advances a powerful and sustained argument against the common view that accountability requires freedom of will. Instead, he maintains, the fairness of holding people responsible depends on their rational the power to grasp moral reasons and to control their behavior accordingly. He shows how these forms of rational competence are compatible with determinism. At the same time, giving serious consideration to incompatibilist concerns, Wallace develops a compelling diagnosis of the common assumption that freedom is necessary for responsibility.
- GenresPhilosophy
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 17, 2016
I mean the five star rating I give this book; and not only because I agree with almost all of it. In addition to making an argument for compatibilism and concerning the ground of moral responsibility, an argument that I have wanted to make for a couple of years, Wallace also treats his subject quite exhaustively and with entire respect and patience for opposing views. I agree with him that incompatibilism is ultimately a simple mistake, a mistake concerning the nature of our moral intuitions about responsibility. But while the view itself might be seen as condescending, Wallace does not discuss it condescendingly. This is not even to mention that brilliance of not only disputing the incompatibilists' claim, but also providing an alternative to incompatibilism that actually deals with incompatibilist concerns, and even more diagnoses the lure of incompatibilism. Wallace's discussion of the various confusions that could make us think that the Principle of Alternative Possibilities is one of our fundamental moral principles was thorough and compelling. He leaves no stone unturned.
His argument is that incompatibilism is ultimately an attempt to say what is unique about human action that makes it worthy of moral evaluation. Though incompatibilism gives an incorrect answer to the question, many compatibilists ignore the question entirely. Wallace says that the question is a good one, and its answer is that human action is uniquely worthy of moral evaluation, in other words, is responsible action because humans possess the capacity to understand and respond to moral reasons. This capacity that grounds responsibility is not incompatible with an abstract universal thesis of determinism.
Since incompatibilism itself arises from a moral principle, that it is unjust to hold a person responsible if he could not have done otherwise, Wallace decides to address the question also from within our existing practices of holding people responsible. He addresses the excuses and exemptions from responsibility discussed by P.F. Strawson in "Freedom and Resentment." He determines that incompatibilism holds that determinism would universalize one of these ordinary excuses or exemptions, making all people exempt from responsibility for their actions. He then examines each type of excuse or exemption and finds that none of them universalizes given the thesis of universal determinism. He finds that the Principle of Alternative Possibilities is ultimately a "misread" of our moral intuition that one cannot be responsible when one did not perform an action intentionally, or when one's capacity to appreciate moral reasons is impaired. The real ground of responsibility would not be threatened by the truth of determinism.
In the end, the book is about so much more than the free will debate, precisely because it shows that the free will debate is itself about so much more, namely, about the very nature of human action and moral responsibility. The insights of this book are indispensable.
His argument is that incompatibilism is ultimately an attempt to say what is unique about human action that makes it worthy of moral evaluation. Though incompatibilism gives an incorrect answer to the question, many compatibilists ignore the question entirely. Wallace says that the question is a good one, and its answer is that human action is uniquely worthy of moral evaluation, in other words, is responsible action because humans possess the capacity to understand and respond to moral reasons. This capacity that grounds responsibility is not incompatible with an abstract universal thesis of determinism.
Since incompatibilism itself arises from a moral principle, that it is unjust to hold a person responsible if he could not have done otherwise, Wallace decides to address the question also from within our existing practices of holding people responsible. He addresses the excuses and exemptions from responsibility discussed by P.F. Strawson in "Freedom and Resentment." He determines that incompatibilism holds that determinism would universalize one of these ordinary excuses or exemptions, making all people exempt from responsibility for their actions. He then examines each type of excuse or exemption and finds that none of them universalizes given the thesis of universal determinism. He finds that the Principle of Alternative Possibilities is ultimately a "misread" of our moral intuition that one cannot be responsible when one did not perform an action intentionally, or when one's capacity to appreciate moral reasons is impaired. The real ground of responsibility would not be threatened by the truth of determinism.
In the end, the book is about so much more than the free will debate, precisely because it shows that the free will debate is itself about so much more, namely, about the very nature of human action and moral responsibility. The insights of this book are indispensable.
October 8, 2007
Good stuff. Feels a bit like two really short books to me, though. It's not clear why the second half, a very interesting and well argued theory of responsibility as the possesion of moral capacities, couldn't be separated from the first half, which was on a Strawsonian theory of reactive attitudes. Clearly, they're related. But I felt like more plausible (i.e. less strictly Strawsonian) theories of what's actually going on in the practice of holding responsible could be attached to the normative theory of responsibility presented in chapter 4 and following.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews