Against Moral Responsibility (MIT Press)
Bruce N. Waller
Language: English
Pages: 368
ISBN: 0262016591
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
In Against Moral Responsibility, Bruce Waller launches a spirited attack on a system that is profoundly entrenched in our society and its institutions, deeply rooted in our emotions, and vigorously defended by philosophers from ancient times to the present. Waller argues that, despite the creative defenses of it by contemporary thinkers, moral responsibility cannot survive in our naturalistic-scientific system. The scientific understanding of human behavior and the causes that shape human character, he contends, leaves no room for moral responsibility.
Waller argues that moral responsibility in all its forms -- including criminal justice, distributive justice, and all claims of just deserts -- is fundamentally unfair and harmful and that its abolition will be liberating and beneficial. What we really want -- natural human free will, moral judgments, meaningful human relationships, creative abilities -- would survive and flourish without moral responsibility. In the course of his argument, Waller examines the origins of the basic belief in moral responsibility, proposes a naturalistic understanding of free will, offers a detailed argument against moral responsibility and critiques arguments in favor of it, gives a general account of what a world without moral responsibility would look like, and examines the social and psychological aspects of abolishing moral responsibility. Waller not only mounts a vigorous, and philosophically rigorous, attack on the moral responsibility system, but also celebrates the benefits that would result from its total abolition.
might suffice. For example, Daniel Dennett states: I take responsibility for any thing I make and then inflict upon the general public; if my soup causes food poisoning, or my automobile causes air pollution, or my robot runs amok and kills someone, I, the manufacturer, am to blame. And although 28 Chapter 2 I may manage to get my suppliers and subcontractors to share the liability somewhat, I am held responsible for releasing the product to the public with whatever flaws it has. Common
many contemporary libertarians have followed: minimal free will. This is a free will of the gaps. Campbell acknowledges that science may explain how our desires were shaped and the causes of much of our character and behavior. But science has no causal account of the inner act of exerting or withholding will power, and that leaves a gap for the exercise of “contracausal free will,” in which a special human creative activity of willing Moral Responsibility in the Gaps 77 chooses which path
their lives or choices or narratives. Perhaps the last sentence of Fischer’s Metaphysics of Free Will (1994), echoed in the title of his more recent book, reveals what Fischer really wants: he wants to do it “my way,” he wants to place his own individual stamp on his life, write his own unique narrative without interference or coercion. Fischer does do it his way, with grace, style, and ingenuity. But he was fortunate to have the talents, background, and environmental history to weave those
took responsibility. We can agree that Ed took responsibility and still dispute whether Ed is morally responsible, so clearly these are very different concepts. Or, from the other side, suppose that Ann takes responsibility for organizing the symposium, and it runs splendidly. Ann says: “I took responsibility for the symposium, and it was great, so I justly deserve special credit.” Someone might say, “Well, yes, it was a great symposium, and you took responsibility for it, but in fact the
in this passage: “There is room for the thought that there is something ‘in me’ by virtue of which I would not have become a vicious person in Harris’s circumstances. And if that factor were among my essential properties, so to speak, then that difference between Harris and me would not be a matter of moral luck on my part, but a matter of who we essentially were” (Watson 1987b, 279). And it is echoed by McKenna: “The thought that we ought not blame does not seem compelling in these cases since