Extending Compatibilism: Control,Responsibility, And Blame

In this paper, I argue that ‹moral responsibility’ refers to two concepts, not to one. In the first place, we are not ultimately morally responsible or, therefore, unqualifiedly blameworthy, due to the fact that we lack ultimate forms of control. But, second, it is legitimate to consider us to be morally responsible in another sense, and therefore qualifiedly blameworthy, once we have certain forms of control. Consequently, I argue that our normal practice of blaming is unjust, since it requires that we are ultimately morally responsible. I contend that this practice must, on grounds of justice, be tempered by adequate consideration of the fact that we are not ultimately morally responsible. My proposal in this regard is that blaming be replaced by admonishment. I would like to thank Dr. Cara Nine and Dr. David Hemp (University College Cork), and the two anonymous referees at Res Publica for their helpful comments on this paper.     

Interpersonal Judgments: Moral Responsibility and Blame

A deterministic perspective, believing choices are a function of hereditary and environmental factors, could theoretically impact perceived moral responsibility and lead to decreased blame in judging others. However, little consistent support has been found relating individual differences in deterministic attitudes to blame/tolerance for others. Perhaps, though, providing information regarding past background hardships affecting an individual's current lifestyle could potentially mediate harsh moralistic judgments of that individual. In the two studies reported here, we further explored the relation of free will/determinism scales to attitudes toward others as well as the effect of manipulating background information on the assignment of blame. As in previous research, little support was found for the relation of deterministic attitudes to tolerance toward others. However, judgments following manipulated information about hypothetical target persons supported the conclusion that target individuals are blamed less and given more sympathy if more information related to previous hardships is provided. In addition, in the second study perceived similarity to a target individual was associated with decreased blame/greater sympathy for a target with alcohol abuse problems.     

Extraversion and compatibilist intuitions: a ten-year retrospective and meta-analyses

ABSTRACT

The past ten years have seen multiple attempts to estimate the relation between the global personality trait extraversion and compatibilist free will judgments. Here, we contribute to that line of research by conducting a meta-analysis of 17 published and eight unpublished studies (N = 2,811) estimating that relation. Overall, the mean effect size was modest but remarkably robust across materials, locations, and labs (z = .19, 95% CI .15-.24, p < .001). No significant publication bias was detected in the studies (t (23) = 1.88, p = .07). While there was no significant heterogeneity in the studies (Q (24) = 34.42, p = .08, I² = 26.05), a moderator analysis suggested that the effect is strongest in cases that contain highly affective actions (e.g., murder) (z = .22, 95% CI .17-.28, p < .001) and weakest in cases that contain actions with low affect (e.g., asking whether free will is compatible with determinism) (z = .09, 95% CI -.05-.23, p = .22). The meta-analysis provides additional evidence that extraversion is related to compatibilist free will judgments and helps to identify opportunities to discover boundary conditions and more proximal causal mechanisms for the relation. The results of the meta-analysis also have implications for informed decision making.     

Merit,fit, and basic desert

Basic desert is central to the dispute between compatibilists and incompatibilists over the four-case manipulation argument. I argue that there are two distinct ways of understanding the desert salient to moral responsibility; moral desert can be understood as a claim about fitting responses to an agent or as a claim about the merit of the agent. Failing to recognize this distinction has contributed to a stalemate between both sides. I suggest that recognizing these distinct approaches to moral desert will help clarify a central source of disagreement between compatibilists and incompatibilists and assist both sides in resolving the current stalemate.     

Severity effect on compensation and imprisonment recommendations: Deterrence as a mediator in Singapore

Severe, compared to mild, harm results in harsher punishment. According to the model of people as intuitive prosecutors, the severity effect is a deterrence message. The authors tested this hypothesis in two studies in Singapore. In Study 1, participants learnt about the severity of harm arising from an accidental or intentional act, and expressed anger, made attributions, assigned blame, recommended compensation by and imprisonment of the offender, and indicated the degree to which they were guided by the punishment goals of deterrence and retribution. As hypothesized, the prosecutorial mindset was multidimensional, and the deterrence goal mediated the severity effect on punishment. In Study 2, the severity effect held when the punishment goal was unspecified but not when it was experimentally specified as deterrence.     

Putting psychology before metaphysics in moral responsibility: Reactive attitudes and a “gut feeling” that can trigger and justify them

ABSTRACT

In “Freedom and Resentment,” P.F. Strawson argues that since the reactive attitudes are psychologically unavoidable, they do not stand in need of justification from philosophical theorizing about the metaphysical conditions necessary for free action. After reviewing and criticizing this line of argument, we develop an alternative account of how the reactive attitudes can be justified through a feature of our psychology. This new account focuses upon a collection of cognitive mechanisms identified by cognitive neuroscience, which recognize human beings (and other minded beings) and which also give rise to a gut feeling that certain entities are possible targets for the reactive attitudes. By focusing on the justificatory power of this gut feeling, we arrive at an account of moral responsibility that places psychology before metaphysics in a manner broadly similar to Strawson’s original account, but in a way that avoids some of the shortcomings of that account.     

Why compatibilist intuitions are not mistaken: A reply to Feltz and Millan

In the past decade, a number of empirical researchers have suggested that laypeople have compatibilist intuitions. In a recent paper, Feltz and Millan (2015 Feltz, A., &; Millan, M. (2015). An error theory for compatibilist intuitions. Philosophical Psychology, 28(4), 529–555.[Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) have challenged this conclusion by claiming that most laypeople are only compatibilists in appearance and are in fact willing to attribute free will to people no matter what. As evidence for this claim, they have shown that an important proportion of laypeople still attribute free will to agents in fatalistic universes. In this paper, we first argue that Feltz and Millan’s error-theory rests on a conceptual confusion: it is perfectly acceptable for a certain brand of compatibilist to judge free will and fatalism to be compatible, as long as fatalism does not prevent agents from being the source of their actions. We then present the results of two studies showing that laypeople’s intuitions are best understood as following a certain brand of source compatibilism rather than a “free-will-no-matter-what” strategy.     

Counterfactual and semi-factual thoughts in moral judgements about failed attempts to harm

People judge that an individual who attempts to harm someone but fails should be blamed and punished more when they imagine how things could have turned out worse, compared to when they imagine how things could have turned out the same, or when they think only about what happened. This moral counterfactual amplification effect occurs when people believe the protagonist had no reason for the attempt to harm, and not when the protagonist had a reason, as Experiment 1 shows. It occurs for intentional failed attempts to harm and also for accidental near-misses, as Experiment 2 shows, but not for failed attempts in which the harm occurs anyway by another cause, for both general judgments about the event and specific judgments about the individual's actions, as Experiments 3 and 4 show. The implications for understanding the role of counterfactual thoughts in moral judgement are discussed.     

Responses to organizational harm: Mechanism of blaming managers as proxies for a culpable organization

Recent research has shown that perceivers who are culturally oriented to focus on the causal influence of groups tend to assign blame to an organization and extend the blame to an individual representing it (i.e. proxy blaming). The present research investigates the mechanism of this blame extension. Results show that it occurs when punishing the organization is impossible rather than possible (Study 1) and that this blaming is brought about by the perception that the target individual is in the role to represent the organization, not by the perception that he/she is the typical member of the culpable organization (Study 2). Implications of these findings in the responsibility literature are discussed.     

The Limits of Evil and the Role of Moral Address: A Defense of Strawsonian Compatibilism

P.F. Strawson defends compatibilism by appeal to our natural commitment to the interpersonal community and the reactive attitudes. While Strawson's compatibilist project has much to recommend it, his account of moral agency appears incomplete. Gary Watson has attempted to fortify Strawson's theory by appeal to the notion of moral address. Watson then proceeds to argue, however, that Strawson's theory of moral responsibility (so fortified) would commit Strawson to treating extreme evil as its own excuse. Watson also argues that the reactive attitudes do not lend unequivocal support to Strawsonian compatibilism and that the reactive attitudes are sometimes sensitive to considerations which suggest an incompatibilist or skeptical diagnosis. Watson attempts to provide a Strawsonian defense against these difficulties, but he ultimately concludes that the skeptical threats raised against Strawsonian compatibilism cannot be sufficiently silenced. I believe that Watson has done Strawsonian compatibilism a great service by drawing upon the notion of moral address. In this paper I attempt to defend the Strawsonian compatibilist position, as Watson has cast it, against the problems raised by Watson. I argue against Watson that Strawson's theory of responsibility, as well as the notion of moral address, does not commit the Strawsonian to treating extreme evil as its own excuse. I also argue that Watson misinterprets the point of certain reactive attitudes and thereby wrongly assumes that these attitudes are evidence against Strawsonian compatibilism.     

Unintended,but still blameworthy: the roles of awareness,desire, and anger in negligence,restitution, and punishment

Two experiments (Experiment 1 N?=?149, Experiment 2 N?=?141) investigated how two mental states that underlie how perceivers reason about intentional action (awareness of action and desire for an outcome) influence blame and punishment for unintended (i.e., negligent) harms, and the role of anger in this process. Specifically, this research explores how the presence of awareness (of risk in acting, or simply of acting) and/or desire in an acting agent's mental states influences perceptions of negligence, judgements that the acting agent owes restitution to a victim, and the desire to punish the agent, mediated by anger. In both experiments, awareness and desire led to increased anger at the agent and increased perception of negligence. Anger mediated the effect of awareness and desire on negligence rather than negligence mediating the effect of mental states on anger. Anger also mediated punishment, and negligence mediated the effects of anger on restitution. We discuss how perceivers consider mental states such as awareness, desire, and knowledge when reasoning about blame and punishment for unintended harms, and the role of anger in this process.     

Blame game in private investigation reports: The case of Deloitte examination at Telenor VimpelCom

Business and public organisations hire fraud examiners to conduct private investigations when there is suspicion of misconduct or financial crime. Fraud examiners carry out their investigation based on a mandate. Often, individuals in the organisation are suspects. The blame game hypothesis is concerned with factors that cause blame attribution to some individuals but not to others. In this case study, only executives were blamed who had not disclosed corruption information to a major shareholder and to the chief executive officer.     

Moral Responsibility, Determinism, and the Ability to do Otherwise

In his classic paper, The Principle of Alternate Possibilities, Harry Frankfurt presented counterexamples to the principle named in his title: A person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise. He went on to argue that the falsity of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities (PAP) implied that the debate between the compatibilists and the incompatibilists (as regards determinism and the ability to do otherwise) did not have the significance that both parties had attributed to it -- since moral responsibility could exist even if no one was able to do otherwise. I have argued that even if PAP is false, there are other principles that imply that moral responsibility entails the ability to do otherwise, and that these principles are immune to Frankfurt-style counterexamples. Frankfurt has attempted to show that my arguments for this conclusion fail. This paper is a rejoinder to that reply; I argue that he has failed to show this.     

Blame Game and Rotten Apples in Private Investigation Reports: The Case of Hadeland and Ringerike Broadband in Norway

Blame game is a term often used to describe a phenomenon that happens in groups of people when something goes wrong. The blame game hypothesis postulates that private investigators may be misled in their search for suspects and that suspected individuals do not necessarily become subject to a fair investigation by financial crime specialists and fraud examiners. The rotten apple hypothesis postulates that it is comforting to assume that one bad apple within an organisation is essentially responsible for the crime that is all too prevalent. The rotten apple view of white‐collar crime is a comfortable perspective to apply to business and public organisations as it allows them to look no further than suspect a single individual. Based on a case study of the Norwegian company Hadeland and Ringerike Broadband, this paper discusses blame game and rotten apple issues in an internal investigation report written by an external financial crime specialist. The study finds support for both hypotheses, as blame is mainly isolated to the criminal and his superior, and both board and top management are protected from scrutiny. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The benefits of collective responsibility: How ingroup reputation concern motivates prosociality in intergroup contexts

Collective responsibility processes have been investigated from the perspectives of the outgroup (e.g., collective blame) and the ingroup (e.g., collective guilt). This article extends theory and research on collective responsibility with a third perspective, namely that of the individual actor whose behavior triggers the attribution of collective blame. Four experiments (n = 78, 118, 208 and 77, respectively) tested the hypotheses that collective responsibility processes influence the individual actors' appraisals, emotions and behavior. The possibility of collective blame for their individual action prompted more prosocial behavior among participants (Experiment 1). Participants also experienced more ingroup reputation concern and in turn more negative emotions (Experiment 2–4) for a past wrongdoing if it could reflect negatively on the ingroup in the eyes of outgroups. The increased negative emotions then motivated participants to improve the ingroup's image (Experiment 4). The effects were moderated by perceived ingroup entitativity, in that activating collective blame increased ingroup reputation concern and negative emotions only for ingroups perceived as highly entitative (Experiment 3).     

Deep Incarnation and Kenosis: In,With, Under,and As: A Response to Ted Peters

In this response to Ted Peters, I relate the proposal of deep incarnation to Luther's theology of the real presence of the humanity of Christ in creation. Based on a typology of four distinctive models of kenosis, I furthermore argue that a kenotic view of incarnation and divine creativity does not necessarily imply a divine absence and withdrawal from creation, as presupposed by Professor Peters. Deep incarnation is consistent with a compatibilist view of kenosis, but not with ideas of divine abdication, or metamorphosis. Finally I situate the view of deep incarnation to Scandinavian creation theology and to research programs at the Centre for Naturalism and Christian Semantics, Copenhagen University.     

An account of the relationship between fluid intelligence and complex learning in considering storage capacity and executive attention

Although fluid intelligence and complex learning are conceptualized differently and assessed by apparently different measures, both theoretical accounts and empirical evidence suggest a relationship between the two constructs. In this study, major working memory aspects including the storage capacity and executive attention were proposed to account for the relationship between fluid intelligence and complex learning. A sample of 184 participants completed fluid intelligence and complex learning scales, as well as working memory measures that each included two or three treatment levels differing in the demands on capacity or executive control. The differences among the treatment levels provided a favorable precondition for employing fixed-links models to separate the core processes of storage capacity or executive attention from the auxiliary processes. Results indicated that both storage capacity and executive attention contributed significantly to fluid intelligence and complex learning. A further analysis showed that the two working memory aspects, particularly the storage capacity, accounted for most of the shared variance between fluid intelligence and complex learning.