Fischer and Ravizza on Moral Sanity and Weakness of Will |
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Authors: | John J. Davenport |
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Affiliation: | (1) Department of Philosophy, Fordham University, Lincoln Center, 113 West 60th Street, New York, NY 10023, USA |
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Abstract: | This essay evaluates John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza'smature semi-compatibilist account of moral responsibility, focusingon their new theory of moderate reasons-responsiveness as a model of``moral sanity.' This theory, presented in Responsibility andControl, solves many of the problems with Fischer's earlier weakreasons-responsiveness model, such as its unwanted implication thatagents who are only erratically responsive to bizarre reasons can beresponsible for their acts. But I argue that the new model still facesseveral problems. It does not allow sufficiently for non-psychoticagents (who are largely reasons-responsive) with localized beliefsand desires incompatible with full responsibility. Nor does it take intoaccount that practical ``fragmentation of the self' over time may alsoreduce competence, since moral sanity requires some minimum level ofnarrative unity in our plans and projects. Finally, I argue that actual-sequenceaccounts cannot adequately explain sane but weak-willed agency. This isbecause without libertarian freedom, such accounts have no way to modelthe perverse agent's determination to be irrational or weak. |
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Keywords: | akrasia compatibilism control free will Harry Frankfurt insanity John Fischer libertarianism Mark Ravizza Michael Bratman moral responsibility narrative unity Peter van Inwagen reasons-responsiveness sanity self weakness of will |
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