Introductory description

This module explores a range of contemporary problems relating to free will, moral responsibility, and retributive blame.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1: Determinism & the Ability to do Otherwise
A great deal of the contemporary debate on freedom and responsibility began with van Inwagen’s consequence argument and a dispute about whether determinism rules out the ability do otherwise. Philosophers have since then proposed a range of ways of analysing ‘able to’ claims, where rival analyses seem to have a direct bearing on the compatibility of the alternative possibilities with determinism.

Week 2: Frankfurt-Style Counterexamples and the Relevance of Alternative Possibilities
Prior to Frankfurt’s famous article, it was typically taken for granted by all sides that alternative possibilities are a necessary condition for both free will and moral responsibility. However, Frankfurt’s argument challenges this assumption by arguing that alternative possibilities are irrelevant to moral responsibility, a point he aims to establish by appeal to a famous and much disputed example, which continues to be subject to lively dispute.

Week 3: Actual and Alternative Sequences
Inspired by Harry Frankfurt’s argument, many philosophers suppose that moral responsibility depends solely on features of the ‘actual sequence’ of events leading to the agent’s action and does not depend on either the possibility or the nature of any ‘alternative sequence’ of events. These include views that appeal to higher order volitions or to fundamental values or the ‘true self’, as well as views that rest on ‘reasons-responsiveness’ or sensitivity to value.

Week 4: Freedom as an Emergent Phenomenon
What is the relationship between what is possible at the level of fundamental physics and what is possible at the level of agency? The level of agency may be said to ‘supervene’ on the level of physics. This means that agential phenomena may be ‘multiply realisable’. Drawing on this, List argues that we may have alternative possibilities at the level of agency even if the universe is deterministic at the level of physics. Does this view give us a novel approach to reconciling alternative possibilities with determinism? We may also wonder whether the atemporal nature of microphysics gives us reason to question the usual directions of causal asymmetries at a macro level, where such causal asymmetry seems crucial to our reasons for supposing that determinism is a threat to freedom.

Week 5: Determinism, ‘Ought’ Implies ‘Can’ and Duty.
Some philosophers think that determinism rules out the ability to do otherwise. Another popular claim is that ‘ought’ implies ‘can’: If an agent is unable to do something, then that agent cannot be obligated to do it. If we accept both, and we accept that the same sense of ‘can’ is being invoked by both claims, then it seems that determinism would restrict what we can be obligated to do. This has been used in different ways by different philosophers. Some use this as a basis to say that regardless of whether determinism has any bearing on free will, it directly rules out all obligations. Others argue that we are unable to take this implication seriously, and use this as the basis for a ‘transcendental argument’ for the denial of determinism: Since we are practically committed to normative reasons, they suppose that that we are practically committed to supposing that determinism is false, and that we are free to do otherwise, in the traditional libertarian sense.

Week 6:
Reading Week

Week 7: Indeterminism and Luck Problems
While debates about free will have traditionally focused on the potential threat of determinism, recent work tends to give just as much focus to the threat indeterminism. If our choices are not causally determined, aren’t they just random occurrences? And how can anyone be held responsible for something that simply happens at random. There are various versions of this worry, but all throw into doubt whether freedom and moral responsibility could be rendered consistent with indeterminism. This has led some philosophers to suggest that determinism is required for moral responsibility and others to suggest that neither determinism nor indeterminism are consistent with moral responsibility. The task for those who suppose that indeterminism is consistent with or required for moral responsibility is to sketch out an account of freedom and control that can make sense of how an agent might have control with respect to something that results partially just from chance.

Week 8: Reactive Attitudes and Blame
P F Strawson’s argument for a broadly compatibilist account of moral responsibility has been enormously influential. He argued that responsibility attributions are closely tied to the ‘reactive attitudes’ – attitudes we have in response to the quality of a person’s will, such as resentment, forgiveness, indignation, remorse, and gratitude. From a practical perspective, Strawson was doubtful that considerations relating to anything as abstract as the truth or falsity of determinism could undermine our reasons for holding one another responsible, since these attitudes are at the heart of our responsibility judgements and these are thoroughly and essentially embedded in our social lives. Philosophers continue to explore Strawson’s picture of responsibility and the role of reactive attitudes in relation to our desert-entailing practices.

Week 9: Punishment and Retribution
What is the basis for retributive punishment? Do our penal practices rest crucially on assumed moral responsibility? Is the harm inflicted by our desert-entailing practices morally justifiable? Most legal system use a combination of backward-looking retributive considerations and forward-looking more consequential considerations. While we might hope that various positive goals are served by our penal system (deterrence, public protection, reform), it is undoubtably true that there are also serious harms

Week 10: Neuroscience, ‘Willusionist’ Arguments & Moral Responsibility
Advances in neuroscience have often been thought to pose serious challenges to our way of thinking about freedom and moral responsibility. Libet famously found that our awareness of consciously making a choice is usually preceded by an unconscious earlier neural event (a readiness potential). Some theorists have suggested that studies into the unconscious neural precursors of conscious choices show that free will is an illusion. Moreover, as neuroscientific evidence starts to be used in legal contexts, questions arise about how neuroscientific evidence should be taken to bear on legal and moral responsibility.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Clearly understand and articulate a range of contemporary theories and ideas relating to freedom and moral responsibility.
• Analyse different approaches and explore potential criticisms and defences.
• Identify key points on which disputes on this topic hinge and think independently about how we resolve these disputes and weigh up different viewpoints.
• Engage effectively and critically with the literature, understanding and analysing texts, and practicing good scholarship.

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Specific reading list for the module

Research element

The student will be expected to write essays, which will usually include some of their own research.

Interdisciplinary

While the key topics fall squarely within philosophy, elements of this course will also require engaging with work in psychology and jurisprudence, and much of the discussion borders on other fields.

Subject specific skills

A comprehensive understanding of relevant theories and literature.
An ability to navigate arguments and theories relating to freedom and moral responsibility.
An ability to engage with relevant literature and to structure and formulate independent discussions.

Transferable skills

Reading and comprehension of difficult and complex texts and ideas.
Time management.
Coherently organising and structuring thoughts and arguments.
Research and scholarship skills.
Communicating ideas and arguments effectively both verbally and in written work.
Skills of logical reasoning and analysis.