Abstract
In my “The Free Will Debate and Basic Desert,” I argued that against a familiar claim in the free will debate: that the freedom in dispute between compatibilists and incompatibilists is limited to the type required for an agent to deserve blame for moral wrongdoing, and to deserve it in a sense that is basic. In that earlier paper, I sought a rationale for this claim, offered an explanation of basic desert, and then argued that the free will debate can persist even when divorced from basic desert. Dana Nelkin and Derk Pereboom then argued against my thesis. In this paper, I reply to their thoughtful criticisms.
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Notes
As I noted in “Basic Desert, Blame, and Free Will,” this would amount to what Rawls (1971) might call post-institutional desert.
Note that when discussing the prospects for an analysis of desert, Joel Feinberg wrote, “The deserved object must be something generally regarded with favor or disfavor even if, in some particular case, it is regarded with indifference by a person said to deserve it” (1970: 61). I am grateful to Randy Clarke for calling my attention to this passage.
I admit that I might misunderstand those who use these terms, and I also admit that what follows is not something about which I have a high degree of confidence.
Wallace also suggests that a certain interpretation of our practice (a retributive one) need not be thought of as “…necessarily embedded in the self-understanding of ordinary participants in the practice” (1994: 60).
Perhaps this is too quick. Surely some desert judgments do invoke comparative judgments. The fastest person deserves to win the race, and this requires a comparison to the others racing. While there is some force to this objection, it can be accommodated. In these cases, the comparison to others is only one defeasible factor. Notice, for instance, that the first person to cross the finish line in a fair race might not deserve to win. Another person, who might have been faster and trained harder, might have suffered an unexpected bout of illness or been stung by a bee. Still, it would be fair to assign the win to the first person to cross the finish line. (I am indebted to Robert Wallace for raising this issue.)
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Acknowledgements
For helpful comments, I would like to thank Dana Nelkin, Derk Pereboom, Carolina Sartorio, and Manuel Vargas.
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McKenna, M. Further Reflections on The Free Will Debate and Basic Desert: A Reply to Nelkin and Pereboom. J Ethics 23, 277–290 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-019-09293-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-019-09293-3