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Free Will and Responsibility - Coggle Diagram
Free Will and Responsibility
The conditions of moral responsibility: free will; understanding the difference between right and wrong
Free will
Free will and determinism
Determinism
Everything is predetermined
Incompatibilism
Free will and determinism are incompatibalism
Libertarianism
We do have free will and hold people accountable for actions, so the world is not entirely determmined
Compatibilism
The world may or may not be determined, but free will is compatible with determinism
Unrestrained choice
Understanding the difference between right and wrong
Many people are absolved from moral responsibility because we could not expect them to know better
Eg. children
Eg. Valdo Carocane, who had schizophrenia
Aristotle
Distinguishes between ignorance that excuses and ignorance that does not
Voluntary actions and ignorance
Voluntary actions reflect one's character and intentions
Involuntary actions are not fully under the individual's control, and so do not reflect moral virtue
Types of ignorance
Ignorance of the universal
Ignorance of moral or legal principles
Does not excuse the individual from responsibility
Ignorance of the particular
Ignorance of specific circumstances
Potentially excusing the individual from moral blame
Consequences of ignorance
Action out of ignorance of particular facts may be considered involuntary
But, if the ignorance is due to negligence, then the action might still be considered voluntary
Rectification and responsibility
If a person if remorseful and takes steps to correct their action, this response can affect the moral evaluation of the original action
Allows accounting of the complexity of human actions
Angela Smith
Individuals can be morally responsible for their actions based on their moral attitudes
'Moral ignorance'
An agent's ignorance of moral facts can still render them morally culpable if that ignorance stems from a faulty moral attitude or negligence in forming moral judgements
The extent of moral responsibility: libertarianism, hard determinism, compatibilism
Libertarianism, hard determinism, compatibilism
Libertarianism
Satre
'Man is freedom'
'There is no God, so man must rely upon his own fallible will and moral insight'
There is no higher power controlling humans
Moral agents can grasp their free-will nature because humanity possesses a consciousness of their own existence
The very nature of this consciousness is what enables moral agents to have free will
This opens up a distance between a moral agent's consciousness and the physical world
'Bad faith'
Moral agents create a self-deception
The attempt to escape pain by pretending to themselves that they are not free
Accepting this freedom is to live an 'authentic life' in 'good faith'
Both a gift and a curse for humanity
Moral agents are completely free
Hard determinism
As all our actions have prior causes, we are not free or responsible
The universe is governed by immutable laws of nature
Motion
Gravitation
If the causal factors could be understood all actins could be predicted so that, in fact, there is neither chance nor choice
We do not have free choice, we merely think we do
Humans and society can be understood as cause and effect
John Locke
Free will is no more than an illusion
Moral agents only think they have free will because they can reflect before making a moral choice
All such thoughts are the moral agent's ignorance of universal causation
Based his theory on universal causation
All events are determined by an unbreakable chain of past causes
The future must logically be as fixed and unchangeable as the past
All such thoughts are the moral agent's ignorance of universal causation
Compatibilism
Free will and determinism are compatible
Hume
Centers his understanding on necessity and liberty
Necessity
The uniformity observed in the operations of nature
Similar causes consistently produce similar effetcs
Liberty
People's actions follow certain motivational and psychological laws
Individuals act freely when actions stem from internal desires and motivations, without external compulsion or restraint
We hold people accountable because we believe their actions are the result of their characters and desires, even though these are shaped by a web of casual determinants
Freedom is about acting according to one's own motives, rather than existing outside the casual chain of the universe
Acknowledges everything is interconnected through cause and effect, yet upholds the meaningful of human choice and moral responsibility
Free will and determinism in Christianity
St Paul
God chose who would be saved
People have the ability to choose to worship God and accept salvation through Jesus
Similar to compatibalism (shows the difference between the internal and external causes)
St Augustine
People cannot perform a good action without the grace of God
Only those chosen and elected by God can be saved
Similar to compatibalism (shows the difference between the internal and external causes)
John Calvin
Predestination
Humans have a limited understanding of God's plans
People do good because God made them that way and out them in a particular envioronmen. Others are limited by their nature and can only choose to sin.
The relevance of moral responsibility to reward and punishment
Approaches to the treatment of crime
Retribution
Reform
Consequences of moral responsibility theory for reward and punishment
Hard Determinism
Those who break the law did not choose to
Reward/punishment is meaningless
Predestination
Reward/punishmnet is made even more pointless
Rejects the idea of retribution
Skinner
Suggests psychological conditioning as a way of reforming an offender's character
Libertarianism
Kant and some libertarians
Support retribution
Kant's 'ought implies can'
Points to freedom of choice
Retribution is just deserts for those whose moral responsibility was not dimminished
Some other libertarians
Support reform
Helping offenders to face up tp the harm they had caused
Behave differently in future
Compatibilism
Accept moral responsibility for those who could have done otherwise, had they wished
Hume
Actions should be accounted for only where there 'are indications of the internal character, passions, and affections'
Saw punishment as intention to improve society
'Carrot and stick'
Hume rejected any idea of eternal punishment
Disproportionate to 'short-term offences'
Dialogues: Christian understandings of free will and moral responsibility, and the value of conscience in Christian moral decision-making