Abstract
In this article I develop several responses to my co-authors of Four Views on Free Will. In reply to Manuel Vargas, I suggest a way to clarify his claim that our concepts of free will and moral responsibility should be revised, and I question whether he really proposes to revise the notion of basic desert at stake in the debate. In response to Robert Kane, I examine the role the rejection of Frankfurt-style arguments has in his position, and whether his criticism of my version of this argument is sound. In reply to John Fischer, I argue that the reasons-responsiveness central to his account of moral responsibility is not best characterized counterfactually, and I provide a suggestion for revision.
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Notes
Alternatively, one might propose that the relevant concept changes, and that we should find a new term for the new concept. This proposal comes close to the view I advocate, but it is not, I think, what Vargas would recommend.
Tax Evasion (2): Joe is considering claiming a tax deduction for the registration fee that he paid when he bought a house. He knows that claiming this deduction is illegal, but that he probably won’t be caught, and that if he were, he could convincingly plead ignorance. Suppose he has a strong but not always overriding desire to advance his self-interest regardless of its cost to others and even if it involves illegal activity. In addition, the only way that in this situation he could fail to choose to evade taxes is for moral reasons, of which he is aware. He could not, for example, choose to evade taxes for no reason or simply on a whim. Moreover, it is causally necessary for his failing to choose to evade taxes in this situation that he attain a certain level of attentiveness to moral reasons. Joe can secure this level of attentiveness voluntarily. However, his attaining this level of attentiveness is not causally sufficient for his failing to choose to evade taxes. If he were to attain this level of attentiveness, he could, exercising his libertarian free will, either choose to evade taxes or refrain from so choosing (without the intervener's device in place). However, to ensure that he will choose to evade taxes, a neuroscientist has, unbeknownst to Joe, implanted a device in his brain, which, were it to sense the requisite level of attentiveness, would electronically stimulate the right neural centers so as to inevitably result in his making this choice. As it happens, Joe does not attain this level of attentiveness to his moral reasons, and he chooses to evade taxes on his own, while the device remains idle (Pereboom 2003; for earlier versions, see Pereboom 2000, 2001, 18ff; for the original example, see Frankfurt 1969).
I also discuss Kane’s response to Tax Evasion in Pereboom (2008b).
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Pereboom, D. Hard incompatibilism and its rivals. Philos Stud 144, 21–33 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9371-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-009-9371-0