The Smart theory of moral responsibility and desert
| Abstract | The "Smart" of my title is J. J. C. Smart. He has proposed an austere version of compatibilism.1 The generic doctrine of compatibilism holds that the claim--that all human choices are events in the physical world that are caused either deterministically or indeterministically--is compatible with moral responsibility and desert.2 According to Smart’s version, one is morally responsible for a choice one makes just in case praising or blaming, rewarding or punishing one for making the choice would produce good consequences by altering the future behavior of oneself or others. Compatibilism of this ilk does not include the assertion that free will and the causation of choices are compatible, and indeed Smart repudiates the libertarian idea of free will on the ground that it is logically incoherent and does not consider whether some watered-down notion of free will might make sense. If compatibilism plus determinism equals soft determinism, Smart's doctrine merits the label "hard soft determinism.". | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesNoa Latham (2004). Determinism, Randomness, and Value. Philosophical Topics 32 (1-2):153-167.
Seth Shabo (2012). Compatibilism and Moral Claimancy: An Intermediate Path to Appropriate Blame. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (1):158-186.
Richard Double (1991). The Non-Reality of Free Will. Oxford University Press.
Kevin Magill (1997). Freedom and Experience: Self-Determination Without Illusions. St. Martin's Press/Palgrave Macmillan.
Saul Smilansky (2003). Compatibilism: The Argument From Shallowness. Philosophical Studies 115 (3):257-82.
Jeremy Randel Koons (2002). Is Hard Determinism a Form of Compatibilism? Philosophical Forum 33 (1):81-99.
Michael S. McKenna (1998). Moral Theory and Modified Compatibilism. Journal of Philosophical Research 23 (January):441-458.
Manuel Vargas (2010). The Revisionist Turn: A Brief History of Recent Work on Free Will. In Jesus Aguilar, Andrei Buckareff & Keith Frankish (eds.), New Waves in Philosophy of Action. Palgrave.
Richard Duble (1999). In Defense of the Smart Aleck. Journal of Philosophical Research 24:305-309.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads54 ( #18,863 of 549,514 )Recent downloads (6 months)4 ( #19,303 of 549,514 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
