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Defending Direct Source Incompatibilism

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Abstract

Joseph Keim Campbell has attempted to say “farewell” to a particular version of source incompatibilism, viz. direct source incompatibilism, arguing that direct source incompatibilism is committed to two theses that are in tension, thereby threatening the coherence of the position. He states that direct source incompatibilism is committed to the following claims:

SI-F: there are genuine Frankfurt-style counterexamples.

SI-D: there is a sound version of the Direct Argument.

Campbell argues that both of these theses cannot be simultaneously held since a sound version of the Direct Argument would undermine Frankfurt-style counterexamples, and vice versa. After laying out Campbell’s argument, I will first make some preliminary comments regarding actual direct source incompatibilists and their commitment to SI-F and SI-D. I then object to Campbell’s argument, arguing that one can accept both SI-F and SI-D, thereby vindicating direct source incompatibilism from the charge of incoherence.

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Notes

  1. Campbell uses Widerker’s formulation of ‘NRp’, which stands for ‘p and no one is (now), or ever has been, morally responsible for the fact that p’ in Widerker (2002), 317. I use van Inwagen’s formulation since I will make use of the notion of partial responsibility later.

  2. Pereboom’s Manipulation Argument (2001, 110–119) is drastically different in form than the arguments mentioned so far, especially in that it amounts to an inductive argument for incompatibilism, arguing that there is no difference between various manipulation cases and a causally deterministic case.

  3. An anonymous reviewer suggests that what Campbell means by the CIN ensuring the fact that C1 v C2 is just that the CIN does something to render it true that C1 v C2. Now Campbell does say something along these lines since he states that the CIN “made it the case that C1 v C2 well before S made it the case that C1” (Campbell 2006, 44). However, it is not clear what this means since Campbell does not explain in what way the CIN renders true C1 v C2. Moreover, I later argue that such a claim is not true, and that there is reason to believe that S is the one responsible for rendering true C1 v C2 given my proposed logic of responsibility over disjunctives below.

  4. I will use ‘>’ to stand for the subjunctive conditional.

  5. Even though the CIN ensures the truth of A, that claim is consistent with the claim that S is responsible for A since one of the ways in which A becomes true is through the agency of S in causal sequence c (which is the actual sequence in the FSC).

  6. Obviously, an agent can only be responsible for rendering true (or false) a contingent proposition given that Rule A prevents the agent from being responsible for any necessary proposition.

  7. van Inwagen provides an account of the notion of rendering a proposition true (or false) in (1983), 67–68.

  8. I should note that I am not a DSI proponent since I don’t accept SI-D; however, I think DSI is at least a coherent position.

References

  • Campbell, J. (2006). Farewell to direct source incompatibilism. Acta Analytica, 21, 36–49.

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  • Stump, E., & Fischer, J. M. (2000). Transfer principles and moral responsibility. Philosophical Perspectives, 14, 47–56.

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  • van Inwagen, P. (1983). Essay on free will. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Tony Brueckner for many helpful discussions on the topic and to Joe Campbell for generously offering extensive comments on an earlier draft. I would also like to thank the philosophy department at the University of Oklahoma, to whom I presented a draft of this paper, especially to Linda Zagzebski, Neal Judisch, Ray Elugardo, and Wayne Riggs for helpful comments.

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Yang, E. Defending Direct Source Incompatibilism. Acta Anal 27, 325–333 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-011-0135-z

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