The limits of evil and the role of moral address: A defense of strawsonian compatibilism

Journal of Ethics

Volumn 2, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 123-142

  McKenna, Michael S ^a  

^a ITHACA COLLEGE   (United States)

Author keywords

Compatibilism; Control; Evil; Moral responsibility; Strawson

Indexed keywords

EID: 0009284683     PISSN: 13824554     EISSN: 15728609     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1009754626801     Document Type: Conference Paper

References (56)

1. Strictly speaking, excuses and justifications show in different kinds of ways how a particular action does not demonstrate a lack of proper regard for others. Exemptions are designed to show that an agent is exempt from the demands of the moral community. For a helpful explanation of these distinctions see Gary Watson's "Responsibility and the Limits of Evil: Variations on a Strawsonian Theme," in F.D. Schoeman (ed.), Responsibility, Character and the Emotions: New Essays in Moral Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), pp. 256-286
2. and also in J.M. Fischer, and M. Ravizza (eds.), Perspectives on Moral Responsibility (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), pp. 122-124.
3. All references are to the latter. See also R.J. Wallace, Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 119-121. For purposes of convenience I will speak instead in terms of local and global excuses.
4. P.F. Strawson, "Freedom and Resentment," Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. xlviii (1962), pp. 1-25.
5. Also in G. Watson (ed.), Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 72-73. All references are to the latter.
6. Strawson, myemphasis, p. 78.
7. Strawson, myemphasis, Ibid., p. 78.
8. In focussing upon resentment, guilt and indignation, I am restricting the discussion to holding one morally responsible for blameworthy behavior. A full theory would be able to accommodate praiseworthy behavior, as well as morally neutral behavior performed by a competent moral agent. For ease of discussion only, I will focus throughout exclusively upon Strawson's theory of responsibility as it applies to morally blameworthy behavior.
9. Watson, pp. 119-120.
10. This account of Strawson's general theory is based on both Watson's "Responsibility and the Limits of Evil," pp. 129-130
11. John Martin Fischer's and Mark Ravizza's introduction to Perspectives on Moral Responsibility, pp. 12-15.
12. This way of capturing the force of Strawson's argument from excuses was kindly suggested to me by Watson in comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
13. This objection is carefully set out in Paul Russell's, "Strawson's Way of Naturalizing Responsibility," Ethics 102 (1992), pp. 287-302.
14. Watson, p. 126.
15. Strawson, p. 73.
16. Watson, p. 120.
17. Lawrence Stern, "Freedom, Blame, and the Moral Community," The Journal of Philosophy 71 (1974), pp. 72-84.
18. Watson, p. 130.
19. Lawrence Stern, The Journal of Philosophy, Ibid., p. 134.
20. Lawrence Stern, The Journal of Philosophy, Ibid., p. 134.
21. Strawson (my parentheses, my emphasis, Strawson's emphasis), p. 77.
22. These views are influenced by Watson's remarks on an earlier draft of this paper.
23. It is unclear whether Watson thinks that understanding essentially requires a commitment to a shared framework of values. In citing Stern, he seems to endorse the connection (p. 130). However, immediately following an account of the Harris case, he then states that the case is arresting because, unlike the small child or psychopath, Harris, "exhibits an inversion of moral concern, not a lack of understanding" (p. 134).
24. Watson, pp. 131-134.
25. The contrast between Godzilla's ignorance of the moral community and Harris's understanding of it was suggested to me by Carl Ginet.
26. Both Lee and Mclntyre have objected to my account of understanding on these grounds.
27. In fact, Strawson mentions "being morally underdeveloped" as a global excuse (p. 66).
28. Miles Corwin, "Icy Killer's Life Steeped in Violence," Los Angeles Times, May 16, 1982; cited from Watson, p. 134.
29. Watson, p. 137.
30. In fact, Strawson includes amongst a list of global excusing considerations, "being unfortunate in formative circumstances" (p. 66).
31. Kane makes exactly this claim about appeals to unfortunate formative circumstances. See Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 84.
32. It is, perhaps, contestable that this history is nonevidential of an incapacity for moral address. But the crucial point, and the role played by Watson's use of this particular example, is to understand those accounts which are nonevidential of incapacities, but yet do affect our antipathy. Thus, for purposes of this discussion, presume that the present biography does not provide evidence of any incapacity. Though, as Watson makes clear, the biography does provide evidence for understanding Harris's evil behavior as a response to his past: "⋯ our interpretation of who Harris is depends upon his biography, upon our interpretation of his life. Harris's cruelty is a response to the shattering abuse he suffered during the process of socialization" (p. 140).
33. My discussion of Watson in what follows has been influenced greatly by Mclntyre's insightful remarks on an earlier draft of this paper.
34. Watson, pp. 138-139.
35. Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will, Ibid., p. 139.
36. I am uncertain as to whether my discussion properly accords with Watson's views.
37. Watson, p. 140.
38. Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will, Ibid., p. 141.
39. This is a skeptical threat which Watson rejects. He denies the view that determinism could affect our reactive attitudes in the way that they are affected by learning of Harris's history. But Watson's reasons for rejecting this skeptical threat are based on reflections having to do with moral luck and personal identity (p. 141). His rejection is not based upon the considerations which (according to him) give rise to the effect of ambivalence. Thus, Watson's remarks are not sufficient to address this skeptical threat. I believe that it is because Watson asks the question of how determinism would affect us in light of both the phenomena of ambivalence, and of moral luck, that he does not see that his rejection of the skeptical threat posed by determinism is only applicable to thoughts of moral luck. His appeal to conditions of personal identity leaves the problem of ambivalence untouched.
40. Watson, p. 145.
41. These are interesting skeptical challenges. Where most sources of skepticism about responsibility arise out of suspicions regarding the agent to be held responsible, these forms of skepticism focus upon the status of the individual who holds responsible. They allow that a person might be seen as an appropriate object of moral address, but yet they challenge the presumption that it is appropriate for anyone to address her.
42. For a similar line of argument see Wallace, pp. 200-201.
43. Watson, p. 143.
44. This point was made clear to me by an anonymous referee for The Journal of Ethics.
45. Watson, p. 145.
46. George Thomas has pointed out that Joseph Rainsbury has developed an alternative interpretation. According to Rainsbury, one explanation for the influence of these biographical considerations is that sympathetic responses elicited are responses to the innocent child as victim and not to the evil person now before us. In this case our reactive attitudes are directed at different types of moral characters, though they have as their objects, the same person. I am less sympathetic with this alternative because it makes the response turn on the moral quality of the child which later became the evil person. However, it seems to me that our reactive attitudes towards horrific biographies do not turn upon whether the child was a little angel or a little monster. What seems to me to elicit the response is that such harms were done to any child.
47. McIntyre has objected to this reply because, she argues, it makes holding responsible a matter of responding to the datable facts of a person's life (her particular actions, etc.), and not to the person as a whole. But this is not so. I might have distinct responses to a person which are elicited by my learning about distinct aspects of that person's life, without my responses therefore being merely responses to the facts and not to the person.
48. Both McIntyre and Watson have persuaded me of this point.
49. Watson has encouraged this line of thought, and has been instrumental in helping me to get clear the differences between this approach and the approach previously considered.
50. Wallace, p. 76.
51. This is not to suggest that the Strawsonian must be cold hearted and simply dismiss as weak sentimentalism the import of a history like Harris's. It is equally consistent with the account sketched here to maintain that Harris's past makes appropriate a sympathetic response, even though, in light of his evil, psychologically, it might be difficult to sustain such an attitude.
52. Tim Robbins's recent film, Dead Man Walking does an excellent job of illustrating many of these ideas. I am thankful to Kenton Machina for bringing this to my attention.
53. Wallace, Chap. 8, especially pp. 231-235.
54. These remarks are influenced by Harry Frankfurt's work on volitional necessity. See "The Importance of What we Care About," Synthese 53 (1982), pp. 257-272
55. "Identification and Wholeheartedness" in F. Schoeman (ed.), and the preface to Frankfurt's The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). "Identification and Wholeheartedness, " and "The Importance of What We Care About" are reprinted in Frankfurt's own The Importance ofWhat We Care About.
56. As Stephen Schwartz has pointed out in conversation, even here, it is unclear that our reaction is to think that we are in no position to cast blame. We might see how someone could come to do a terrible thing, and we might further believe that we ourselves might have done a similar thing had we been in those circumstances. Even so, we might feel that it is perfectly appropriate for us to respond with antipathy, and that it would be perfectly appropriate for others (and ourselves) to respond to us with antipathy had we acted similarly. Schwartz used the Mai Lai massacres as an illustrative example here.