Responsibility, Foundationalism, and Patty Hearst [Guest Post]
[Stephen Kerhsnar is a professor of philosophy at SUNY Fredonia. Here, he discusses moral responsibility. I will comment in the comment section. —mh]
No one is (morally) responsible. In fact, responsibility is impossible.
Responsibility is a basic notion. By this I mean that it cannot be analyzed. Roughly – I claim – a person is responsible if he is praiseworthy to some amount or degree. On this view, blameworthiness is negative praiseworthiness. This is not an analysis because praiseworthiness is positively-valanced responsibility.
To see why no one is responsible, consider a basic responsibility-maker. A basic responsibility-maker is something that by itself makes a person responsible. The idea behind there being a basic responsibility-maker is that there is either a basic responsibility-maker or a infinite series of non-basic responsibility-makers or a circular series of responsibility-makers. Neither the infinite nor the circular series works because nothing adds responsibility to the sequence. By analogy, goodness cannot consist of, and only of, a regress of instrumentally valuable things. Something must add value to the sequence.
By analogy, consider three people none of whom has any money. Without fraud, they cannot transfer money from one to another. This is true regardless of whether they try to do so via a linear or circular transfer.
A basic responsibility-maker is a responsibility-foundation. It is similar to a foundational belief in the context of knowledge. A foundational belief is self-justified (purported example: “I exist”) or is justified by something that is not a belief (purported example: a perception).
The only plausible candidates for a basic responsibility-maker are a choice or a psychology (specifically, the right sort of psychology at a time). When a person chooses, he stops deliberating and forms an intention. Depending on the theory, a person might also choose when he executes an intention that is, when he wills something. The relevant type of psychology involves a person being able to respond to reasons, having freedom of the will, being sane, or something along these lines.
There is no basic responsibility-maker. Consider a choice. A choice by itself does not make a person responsible. A random choice does not make someone responsible. Consider, for example, when the effect of a quantum event reverberates through a person’s brain and results in a peaceful person choosing to kill someone, and then doing so. Merely choosing does not make the killer responsible. In particular, it would not make him blameworthy because his choice did not flow from his psychology. The analogy here is between a choice as a basic responsibility-maker and a self-justified belief as a basic justification-maker.
Consider a choice that flows from a psychology. A person is not responsible if she chooses something, and her choice flowed from a psychology for which she is not responsible. Consider a hypothetical case in which the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) brainwashes Patty Hearst. Please ignore that actual facts of the Hearst case and imagine that SLA scientists reprogramed Hearst or changed her neural pathways. A moment after they brainwash her, she chooses to kill someone, for example, a filthy capitalist pig. Intuitively, she is not responsible for her choice because she is not responsible for the psychology from which it flowed. Specifically, she did not control her psychology.
On a side note, the way in which the psychology generated the choice need not be deterministic. It might be probabilistic. It might even operate through free will.
Consider a psychology. Merely having the right sort of psychology does not make someone responsible. Immediately following brainwashing, Patty Hearst is not responsible even though she has the right sort of psychology. She has the right sort of psychology because she is able to respond to reasons, has freedom of the will, is sane, etc. Consider, for example, whether you think she is blameworthy for, and only for, having the right sort of psychology the moment after the scientists brainwashed her. Because Hearst did not control her psychology, she is not responsible.
Let us change the case so that an SLA god creates Patty Hearst in adult form from nothing. Again, she is not responsible – or blameworthy – merely for having a horrible psychology immediately after creation. Again, she did not control her psychology.
Lastly, consider a case in which SLA scientists manipulate Patty Hearst so that she chooses to reshape her psychology into that of a cruel and violent Marxist revolutionary. She previously had no such psychology. Intuitively, she is not blameworthy merely for having this psychology, even though she chose it. This is because her choice did not connect to her attitudes.
The above cases support the following principles.
Principle #1: Choice
If a person is responsible for a choice, then the choice flowed from his psychology, and he is responsible for the psychology.
Principle #2: Psychology
If a person is responsible for a psychology, then he chose it and is responsible for the choice.
Consider the first principle. Our intuitions tell us that a random choice does not make someone responsible. This is because her choice did not flow from her psychology. Nor is a person responsible for a choice made immediately after someone brainwashed her. This is because she is not responsible for her psychology. The same is true if a person were created from nothing rather than brainwashed.
Consider the second principle. Our intuitions tell us that a manipulated person is not responsible merely because she has the right sort of psychology. This is because she did not choose her psychology. The same is true if a person were created from nothing. Nor is a person responsible for a psychology that flowed from a manipulated choice. This is because she is not responsible for the choice.
These two principles show us that responsibility is impossible. This is even true for an infinite being – such as God – who makes an infinite number of psychology-shaping choices and who has an infinite number of the right sort of psychological states. This is even true for a self-created being. Responsibility requires a responsibility-foundation. The self-created being lacks a foundation every bit as much as do the rest of us.
The principles are independent of compatibilism. Compatibilism says that determinism is consistent with responsibility. The truth or falsity of compatibilism does not affect the above argument because neither truth-value affects whether there is a responsibility-foundation. Other debates in the responsibility literature also do not affect this argument. Consider the ought-implies-can principle (If a person ought to do something, then he can do it) and the principle of alternative possibilities (If a person is responsible for an act, then he could have done otherwise).
The following summarizes my argument.
(P1) If a person is responsible, then there is a basic responsibility-maker.
Assumption #1a: Responsibility-Maker: If a person is responsible, then there is (a) a basic responsibility-maker, (b) an infinite sequence of responsibility-makers or (c) a circular sequence of responsibility-makers.
Assumption #1b: Infinite or Circular Sequence: It is false that there is (b) an infinite sequence of responsibility-makers or (c) a circular sequence of responsibility-makers. On these accounts, nothing adds responsibility into the sequence.
(P2) There is no basic responsibility-maker.
Assumption #2a: Candidates. If there is a basic responsibility-maker, then it is a choice or a psychology.
Assumption #2b: Choice. A basic responsibility-maker is not a choice. See Principle #1.
Assumption #2c: Psychology. A basic responsibility-maker is not a psychology. See Principle #2.
(C1) Hence, a person is not responsible.
Consider some objections to my argument. An objector might claim that the responsibility-foundation is a finite sequence of choices and complete psychological states at a time. Let us use ‘C’ to refer to a choice, ‘P’ to refer to a psychological state at a time, and the number to refer to the time of the choice or psychological state. The objector claims that a specific sequence makes a person responsible. Consider these sequences:
C1 → P1
C1 → P1 → C2
P1 → C1
P1 → C1 → P2
This objection fails for the same reason that infinite and circular sequences of extrinsic responsibility-makers fail. Nothing adds responsibility into the sequence. Again, this parallels the problem with an infinite or circular sequence of extrinsic value.
The no-addition problem sinks a related objection: When enough time follows manipulation, a person becomes responsible. The idea is that with a sufficient number of choices or psychological states, a person endorses or identifies with the manipulated change, and this makes him responsible. This works only if endorsement or identification are basic responsibility-makers. They’re not.
A third objector argues that we intuitively know that people are responsible even if we cannot explain why. Perhaps, the objector claims, we’ll be able to do so in the future. The objector argues that our worldview depends on people being responsible; in particular, morality depends on responsibility. It makes no sense, the objector continues, to claim that a non-responsible agent such as a gecko acts wrongfully when he fails to maximize utility, for example, by eating a mealworm rather than a cricket.
The objector might claim that responsibility also undergirds desert, the existence of God, and the meaning of life. In support of the claim regarding God, the objector notes that theism relies on responsibility because responsibility makes God the maximally great being, because of how the free-will defense solves the problem of evil, and because sinners’ blameworthiness makes it fair that God sends them to hell.
The objector is correct in worrying that the impossibility of moral responsibility threatens our worldview. However, he still has to provide a responsibility-foundation or explain why one isn’t needed. He can’t. The intuitions supporting the demand for a responsibility-foundation and lack of one are clear, strong, and cohere with how we think about related areas, such as free will, punishment, and responsibility.
A fourth objector concedes that the above argument shows that no one is responsible. Still, the objector claims, we can – and should – hold people responsible and holding people responsible is really what responsibility talk is about. The objector might claim that even if people are not responsible, there are conditions that make praising or blaming people justified – for example, blame can be deserved, fair, reasonable, or optimific – and this is really what we mean when we say that people are responsible.
This objection fails. We do – and should – blame people because they are blameworthy. The opposite is not true. If people are not blameworthy, then nothing – other than optimific consequences – justifies blaming them. Optimific consequences justifies blaming people who are not blameworthy – for example, punishing the innocent when optimific – but this is a refusal to take responsibility seriously.
No one is responsible. In fact, responsibility is impossible. Bummer.
 | A guest post by
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Thanks to Stephen for his stimulating post. Three comments:
(1)
First, I think responsibility comes in degrees. Some acts are more or less responsible than others. I assume, then, that Stephen’s view would be that no person is *to any degree* responsible for *anything*.
This implies, for example, that Stephen Kershnar is no more responsible for the content of this post than Hilary Clinton is; Hitler was no more responsible for World War II than Moo Deng is; etc. But that is absurd.
Stephen mentions the objection that “we intuitively know that people are responsible even if we can’t explain why.” His response is that the objector “still has to provide a responsibility-foundation or explain why one isn’t needed.” Why would the objector have to do that? The objection says that we know there is responsibility without being able to explain why; so why would the objector have to explain why?
I guess Stephen’s view is that you can’t know intuitively that a conclusion is wrong without knowing what is wrong with the argument? But in fact, that is very common. Consider arguments that motion is impossible, that 1=2, that no one ever knows anything, etc. Philosophers are experts at constructing arguments with absurd conclusions where you don’t know what is wrong with them. It’s practically our job description. Accepting the conclusions of all such arguments is not a way of being rational; it’s a way of losing your mind.
(2)
I am not convinced of Principle 1,
"If a person is responsible for a choice, then the choice flowed from his psychology, and he is responsible for the psychology."
Why can’t a person make a radically free choice, one that is just caused by the agent?
Stephen asks us to consider a choice that is caused by a random quantum event. Surely the person is not responsible for that choice. But that isn’t a free choice. A free choice must be caused by the agent (by the mind/the soul/consciousness), not a random quantum event of some non-conscious particle.
(3)
I’m not convinced of Principle 2,
"If a person is responsible for a psychology, then he chose it and is responsible for the choice."
A person can be responsible for his psychology in virtue of
a. Having made other choices that led to his having that psychology, without having chosen the psychology itself. According to Aristotle, one becomes virtuous by acting as a virtuous person would on many occasions, over a long period of time. If that happens, one would be responsible for one’s virtue, though one need not ever have chosen the virtue.
b. Having failed to do anything to change his psychology, when he could have. Suppose that I never developed virtue because I never did any of the virtuous acts that would have developed it. So I remain with the psychological traits that resulted from a combination of genetic propensities and social influences, which I did not choose. I’m still responsible for having those traits because I failed to change them. Of course, this is only true if I could have changed them, which, in my view, requires some kind of libertarian free will (see (2) above).
This post seems to assume a narrow and univocal view of what responsibility is (briefly, praiseworthiness and blameworthiness, or at least the underlying state that calls for praise or blame). That seems questionable.
Responsibility consists also of the willingness to try to bring success, and clean up after failure. If I am responsible for something, and things get out of hand, I am the one who is on the hook to clean things up, or pay compensation to those harmed, or if none of that is possible, to provide what reconciliation is possible. Whether this is just and whether it is the case are different things. The post seems to assume I can only be responsible if it is just for me to hold the bag.
Responsibility is a social phenomenon, part of the game we are playing. Persons can seek responsibility if they want the authority that comes with it. They can seek to avoid it if there is no such authority, and only liability and blame. One can volunteer for it, claiming responsibility. And others might accept the claim or reject it. Social norms and precedents have emerged that give people an idea about who is responsible for what and when, how to gain responsibility and how to shuck it.
So what is a responsibility maker? If agreement is unanimous regarding who is responsible for what, does it matter? It is a social game. What if there is disagreement about who is responsible? People either work it out informally or move it to a formal legal claim.
Responsibility is related to legal liability, but not identical. Responsibility means holding the bag when things go bad. And someone always gets left holding the bag, even if it is just the victim.
This might indicate that the responsibility maker is a bit arbitrary, on,y very loosely connected to justice. Someone can be responsible for something without being blameworthy if it ends badly. It just means they are the person who must clean up the mess.
It is possible to get rid of responsibility in most cases. People often do not want to, because it comes with practical and social costs. Someone who systematically rejected all responsibility would seem likely to end up in a prison or an insane asylum. Even there, they might not be able to escape from some responsibilities. The exception would be if they found a guardian willing to take on their responsibilities for them.
So there are aspects of responsibility. One is blame and praise. Another is being on the hook to prevent or recover from disaster. A third is to be in control of something. Perhaps the discussion would be clearer if we separated these, though it might be difficult.
We could also get into stuff about the self, if “we” choose our psychologies, but I have droned on long enough.