Abstract
According to “voluntarists,” voluntary control is a necessary precondition on being blameworthy. According to “non-voluntarists,” it isn’t. I argue here that we ought to take seriously a type of voluntary control that both camps have tended to overlook. In addition to “direct” control over our behavior, and “indirect” control over some of the consequences of our behavior, we also possess “constitutive” control: the capacity to govern some of our attitudes and character traits by making choices about what to do that constitute those attitudes and traits. Taking this sort of control seriously, I argue, ultimately tips the scale towards voluntarism. First, I address a non-voluntarist case in which an agent is putatively made blameworthy by the reasons for which she acts, even though the particular reasons for which she acts aren’t up to her. I argue that this case looks compelling only if we overlook constitutive control, and thereby miss how the agent’s motivating reasons are under her voluntary control even though non-voluntarists think they are not. I then use the notion of constitutive control to diffuse some of the best putative counterexamples to voluntarism: cases in which subjects are blameworthy either for caring inadequately about others or for wishing them ill.
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Notes
For an elaboration on this commonsense notion of “control,” see Adams (1985, 8–10). Whether voluntary control is compatible with determinism is a further matter that we’ll leave aside.
Some voluntarists include Audi (1991), Carlsson (2017), Fischer and Ravizza (1998), Fischer and Tognazzini (2012), Levy (2005), Moody-Adams (1990), Rosen (2015), and Wallace (1994). Some non-voluntarists include Adams (1985), Graham (2014), Hume (1740/1978), Hieronymi (2008, 2014), Scanlon (2008, 2013), Sher (2006), Shoemaker (2003), Smith (2005, 2008), and Wolf (2011). Philosophers such as Hieronymi (2008, 2014) and McHugh (2017) who think that reasons-responsiveness is a non-voluntary type of “control” and that this is the only type of “control” required for blameworthiness count as non-voluntarists.
See, for example, Fischer and Tognazinni (2012).
Watson (1996) distinguishes this sort of evaluation from what he calls “accountability blame,” and suggests that voluntary control is a necessary precondition for being worthy of the latter but not the former. For another attempt to distinguish accountability blame from other types of blame, see Shoemaker (2011).
A complication in this debate is that, although they both claim to be theorizing about the notion of blame central to practices of holding responsible, I think the voluntarist and non-voluntarist probably do have somewhat differing conceptions of what this amounts to. For instance, Smith (2012) concedes that she thinks of blame in terms of Shoemaker’s (2011) notion of “answerability” as opposed to “accountability.” That is, Smith (2008, 381) thinks that what is distinctive about blame is that it “calls upon the agent to explain or justify her rational activity in some area.” She just also believes that to “address a demand” to an agent in this way is to robustly hold her responsible, and, indeed, that this is the only sort of blame that there is (Smith 2008, 381 and 2012). But I am inclined to rejoin that “addressing a demand” in Smith’s sense is not robust enough to constitute blame as I think of it, and that to appeal merely to this sort of “address” is not sufficient to capture what’s distinctive about resentment, indignation, and guilt. As I’ll soon elaborate in the main text, I think that blame is retributive in the sense that it involves a readiness to make some target feel bad. Yet non-voluntarists and I do appear to be discussing overlapping phenomena, and so the non-voluntarists’ arguments still require a response. Indeed, what is particularly worrisome is that non-voluntarists have produced cases in which agents appear to be worthy of blame as I understand it even for things that aren’t under their voluntary control (such as when agents don’t care adequately about others or wish others ill). Thus, I’ll here be responding to non-voluntarist arguments interpreted as challenges to the view that voluntary control is a precondition for blameworthiness in the voluntarists’ “accountability” sense.
For discussions of fittingness and its distinction from other normative notions, see D’Arms and Jacobson (2000a, 2000b) and Howard (2018). Although many philosophers concur that to be blameworthy is to be a fitting target of blame, there are others who prefer to analyze blameworthiness in terms of whether blame is morally fair, or deserved, or felicitously addressed. See Wallace (1994), Pereboom (2014), and MacNamara (2015), respectively. I confess that not all of these alternatives appear to me to be as distinct from one another as some philosophers take them to be. Desert, for instance, just seems to me to be a species of fittingness. But there are reasons to resist analyses of blameworthiness in terms of alternative normative notions in any case. For one thing, considerations of theoretical unity speak for analyzing blameworthiness in terms of fitting blame. Understanding blameworthiness in terms of fittingness renders it one amongst many evaluative properties analyzable in terms of the response it is fit for. For another, considerations adduced by other philosophers have convinced me that the prospects for extensional adequacy of alternative analyses are not great. For instance Graham (2014, 391–392) argues that it could be fair in a moral sense of “fairness” to blame individuals who aren’t blameworthy, insofar as those people want to be blamed. And Rosen (2015, 82) rightly wonders why, if being worthy of blame is a matter of being an apt communicative target, then what matters in determining whether someone is blameworthy for some behavior are that person’s capacities at the time of action rather than at the time of blame.
Sometimes philosophers distinguish between blame and expressions of blame. I think this can be misleading. Blame (and resentment, etc.) can be unexpressed, but we should not take this to imply that the behaviors displayed in the throes of emotional episodes are not themselves constituent parts of the emotions when those behaviors do occur. On the contrary, I think yelling (in conjunction with other psychological and physiological effects) is a way of blaming (and of resenting). For a similar point, see McKenna (2013, 126).
To say that sanction is fitting is, of course, not to say that it is what is morally or rationally to be done. Rather the test for whether an agent is blameworthy will be to check whether sanctioning and readiness to sanction seem intuitively called for, in a manner analogous to how a funny joke seems to call for laughter even when laughing is neither morally nor rationally the best thing to do.
Graham (2014, 395–396) also raises this sort of case.
I think it is because of Thomson’s (1991) thought experiment that Scanlon (2008) briefly considers the possibility that I might control the particular reasons for which I save the man, not by choosing the reasons for which I save him, but rather by bringing about a change in which considerations I see as counting sufficiently in favor of doing so. Perhaps, the thought is, I could make it the case that I save the man for some reason other than the political situation by making it the case that I see that other reason, and not the political situation, as counting sufficiently in favor of saving him. [In fact, in light of Thomson’s thought experiment, Scanlon seems to think that this is the only way I could bring it about that I save him for one reason and not another (56, 60.)] But Scanlon quickly determines that this strategy won’t work either. For, he thinks, I cannot voluntarily decide to see certain considerations as counting (or counting sufficiently) in favor of a particular action. “Deciding in such a case is not choosing,” Scanlon says, “because it lacks the relevant element of free play” (60). Thus I cannot choose the particular reasons that motivate me—either by choosing what to be motivated by or by choosing what to see as sufficient reason.
See especially endnote 11 (on 202). When “reasons correspond to two different objectives that the act might achieve,” Scanlon writes in this note, “one needs to decide which reason will be the guiding one. But I don’t see a similar possibility in cases that do not require a choice between different courses of action.” I take it Scanlon thinks that the various reasons for which I might save the man in Rescue to Riches don’t correspond to different objectives that my action might achieve, but would think that they do in Rat Man II.
As I mentioned in footnote 15, given that I cannot choose to act-for-a-particular-reason, Scanlon believes that, in order to affect a change in what motivates me, I would have to alter what I see as sufficient reason for acting. However, if I can affect a change in my motivating reasons simply by choosing alternative courses of action, then there is no need for Scanlon to maintain that affecting a change in what motivates me also requires altering what I see as sufficient reason. Moreover, I think it would be strange, by his own lights, if he continued to hold this position, since Scanlon does not think that, in general, I must see sufficient reason in favor of what I do in order to do it. See, for example, Scanlon (1998, 34–35).
Kolodny (2011, 105) makes the suggestion that I can alter my motivating reasons by selecting different conditional intentions. Kolodny leaves largely implicit the point I am emphasizing here: that forming an intention (conditional or otherwise) and, thereby, controlling one’s reasons for acting requires not choosing to act for a particular reason, but rather choosing what to do.
I take this example from Gibbard (2003, 54).
Although I tried to head off this interpretation in the case’s rendering, one may have imagined my psyche slightly differently. Perhaps you imagined that I am committed to saving the drowning man insofar as doing so is a means of preventing his heir from inheriting, but just haven’t committed one way or the other regarding what I will do if rescuing him ceases to be necessary to this end. On this alternative interpretation, my intuitions regarding whether I’m blameworthy start to fail me. However, this does not show that agents can be blameworthy without making the wrong choices. Rather, whether I am blameworthy seems to intuitively depend on whether I ought to have made a commitment concerning what I’d do if the rescue ceased to be a necessary means of preventing inheritance—which in turn depends on details that haven’t been specified.
If an agent is committed to acting no matter what the conditions and pursuing no further plans, then he is performing that action unconditionally and for its own sake.
Of course, that a person is motivated by some consideration—and thus making a choice—doesn’t imply that she will continue to make that choice and thus continue to be so-motivated. So the view that one’s motivating reasons are constituted by one’s present choices doesn’t imply that people always accomplish whatever goals they are choosing to pursue in being motivated by some consideration.
Walen (2006) also recognizes that agents can determine which intentions they form by making choices about which goals to pursue. Walen makes this observation in the course of arguing that it can be impermissible for agents to form certain intentions. He doesn’t discuss its implications for control over our attitudes more generally, or for blameworthiness.
One may worry that agents can’t give motivational weight to considerations that don’t strike them as bearing any normative weight, and that this may present a problem for my view. If being motivated by some consideration requires seeing that consideration as bearing at least some normative weight, but agents can’t control which considerations strike them as bearing any normative weight, then this seems to imply that agents never have voluntary control over what they give motivational weight to. But it isn’t true that, in general, having voluntary control over something requires having voluntary control over whether one meets the preconditions on which that control depends. In order for Rat Man to have control over whether he kills his wife, it is necessary for him to have been born. But he doesn’t need to have had control over whether he was born in order to have control over whether he kills his wife. Thus, that one must be able to see something against hurting someone in order to be motivated not to hurt her does not imply that one must have voluntary control over whether he sees something against hurting her in order to have control over whether this consideration motivates him. Moreover, I think we can just assume that, insofar as Rat Man is supposed to be eligible for blame at all, so long as it occurs to him that he might refrain from killing his wife, then he will see at least prima facie reason to do so. Plausibly, seeing at least prima facie reason not to hurt any person is part of the basic capacity for moral reasoning that one must possess in order to ever be a fitting target of blame. (I discuss what the voluntarist should say about cases where it just doesn’t occur to agents to do the right thing at the beginning of the subsequent section.)
What if, although Rat Man sees prima facie reason to refrain from killing his wife, he just doesn’t see sufficient reason to do so? In such a case, even if Rat Man can’t make himself see sufficient reason to refrain from killing her, he should still be able to make the right choice. After all, agents do sometimes seem to act akratically, choosing to do things they don’t see sufficient reason to do. Thus, although Rat Man would intuitively be blameworthy for what he does in such a case, what he does will also be under his control.
There are some voluntarists, however, who will argue that agents are not blameworthy for acting wrongly if they have false beliefs about what they are obligated to do (at least where this “moral ignorance” does not derive from some earlier culpable failure to adhere to their procedural epistemic obligations) (Zimmerman 1997; Rosen 2003, 2004; Levy 2009). Their thought is that (i) agents can only be held accountable for what it is reasonable to expect them to do and (ii) it isn’t reasonable to expect (non-culpably) morally ignorant agents to meet their obligations, because morally ignorant agents lack the capacity to rationally choose to do what they ought to. [For this line of argument see, for example, Rosen (2004, 306) and Levy (2009, 735–739).] But other voluntarists deny (ii) and hold that it is reasonable to expect morally ignorant agents to act rightly because agents can rationally choose to do things they don’t now think they should. [See, for example, Wallace (1994, especially 163–164) and Kane (1996, especially 132–133).] So, as far as voluntarism commits one, intuitions that agents like Rat Man can be blameworthy for acting wrongly even when they have false beliefs about what is required of them can be perfectly correct.
Interestingly though, I think that probably the best reason for a voluntarist to reject (ii) actually involves appealing to the thought that an agent’s choices can constitute not just what motivates her, but also what she sees herself as having sufficient reason to do. [See Kane (1996, 2007).] (ii) says that agents can’t rationally do what they don’t see sufficient reason to do. But this seems to presuppose that what an agent sees all-things-considered reason to do is always settled prior to her choosing what to do. And this assumption seems false. Sometimes it is only in making a choice that a person settles what she thinks she should do. In such cases an agent’s choices do appear to constitute what she sees sufficient reason to do. So I actually think the idea that an agent’s choices sometimes constitute what she gives normative weight to merits further discussion in the context of disagreements between voluntarists about culpability in cases of moral ignorance.
See, for example, Smith (2005).
One may object that if it never occurs to an agent to take steps to remind herself of something, then she cannot have had control over her failure to take such steps, and thus cannot be blameworthy for forgetting. But some voluntarists will hold that agents do have voluntary control in such cases so long as their failures to remind themselves of what to do are constituted by their making other voluntary choices instead (Fischer and Tognazzini 2012). Alternatively (on my favored reply), the voluntarist can just respond to this objection by conceding that if it never occurs to an agent to take steps to remind herself of something, and this failure isn’t itself traceable back to any point at which it did occur to the agent to do something, the probable result of which would have been that she remembered (or remembered to do something else which probably would have led to her remembering) then the agent isn’t blameworthy. But then, cases in which agents are intuitively blameworthy for forgetting something are not generally like this; normal agents do have the opportunity to remind themselves of the things they are supposed to remember, because it generally does occur to them that, say, their friends’ birthdays are approaching, or (if not that then) that their friends are people to whom they ought to demonstrate care. Moments when such things occur to us present opportunities take action that will help us to remember to demonstrate adequate care to the people in our lives. If there is a person to whom it never occurs that others require demonstrations of care, then I take it that said person is either not a morally competent agent (and so doesn’t meet the preconditions for blameworthiness), or has had some sort of rare and abnormal brain glitch (in which cases we shouldn’t hold her responsible for forgetting).
Pun intended.
Here I combine two cases proposed by Graham (2014).
For the distinction between these types of desire, see, for example, Nagel (1970, 29).
Rosen (2004, 302–303) shares the intuition that when a person suffers from schadenfreude that he disavows, then “it’s simply obtuse to hold him responsible for his reaction.”
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their rich and careful commentary. For helpful conversations and notes on earlier drafts, thanks to Olivia Bailey, Jeff Behrends, Sanford Diehl, Sam Dishaw, Lidal Dror, Nick French, Ned Hall, Elizabeth Harman, Douglas Kremm, Emma McClure, Lowry Pressly, Mathias Risse, Alison Simmons, Angela Sun, and Kate Vredenburgh, as well as to participants in Athena in Action: A Networking and Mentoring Workshop for Graduate Student Women in Philosophy, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics Graduate Seminar, and the Harvard Moral and Political Philosophy Dissertation Workshop. Especial thanks to Selim Berker, Christine Korsgaard, and Tim Scanlon for multiple rounds of written commentary and illuminating discussion.
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Achs, R. Blameworthiness and constitutive control. Philos Stud 177, 3695–3715 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01403-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-019-01403-z