NOV 21

26: NOV 21.

Assigned

• Sapolsky, Chapter 16: Biology, the Criminal Justice System, and (Oh, Why Not?) Free Will (580-613) (Part Two 598-613)

• Over the next few classes, try to watch some of these:
• Some videos/websites about prisons and incarceration:

• Prison Policy Initiative Prison Policy Initiative]: A good up-to-date overview of prison facts and some popular myths about the US prison system. Updated to 2023!
• The Atlantic, data visualization on incarceration of African Americans [1]
• Data visualization on mass incarceration. [2]
• Norwegian prison, [3]
• US Supermax prison, “Red Onion” [4]
• ”When kids do hard time,” Wabash Prison, [5]

In-class

• Some limits on Ultimate Moral Responsibility: Trying not to be the inquisitor.
• How can anyone be a compatibilist?
• How should we treat people who make mistakes?

Some arguments against Ultimate Moral Responsibility

Lines of argument regarding individual moral responsibility:

• 1. Strawson's Impossibility Argument.

• We cannot be "ultimately" responsible for how we are. What follows from his argument?

• 2. Mele's Self-modification argument and the "Benji" response.

• We can self-modify, but some of our ability to do that is not up to us.

• 3. Growth of Knowledge argument - Sapolsky (604-605)

• The more we learn about human behavior, the harder it is to make retributive punishment and "end in itself".

Lines of argument at the social and cultural levels:

• 1. Knowledge of the social determinants of crime and dysfunctional behavior.

• The more we know (also a growth of knowledge argument) about SES and the "epidemiology of crime" the harder it is to blame people absolutely and, hence, retributively.

• 2. Cultural evolution and the evolution of the idea of free will.

• While we feel certain about free will, that certainty might also be a product of cultural psychology (Henrich).

Some arguments supporting the idea that we are all equally responsible for our actions

• 1. We experience our own responsibility as comprehensive and applying to new circumstances. If I'm responsibility for everything I do, you can be too.

• 2. Sure there are biological explanations for what we do, but you can always get help or decide not to do those things. We have many examples of people summoning more will power to solve their problems.

How Can Someone be a Compatibilist? Or, Agency Views of Free Will

• Agency as a source of causal powers for normally competent individuals

• Even if determinism is true, normal human beings have agency. Agency is a causal power. The ability to control ourselves and affect the world around us.
• Agency includes our ability to "do what we want"; even if we lack ultimate powers to determine what we want.
• Free will may be something like "doing what I want to do" and having wants and desires that are "mine."
• Agency is our capacity to control outcomes and take ownership of some of actions.
• A normally competent agent (NCA) can learn the expectations of their society and conform to them.

• Note: We often talk about an action being "ours" even when we say we are determined or influenced to do that action. Perhaps physics is the wrong place to look for free will?

• Problem: What sort of approach to punishment does this compatibilist picture support?

• One line: Well, if it's really your wants and desires that you're acting on, and you chose them, then you can be db-MR for failures.
• Another line: It's fine to say that your actions were "yours," and that's a good reason to knock on your door if you break the law, but that doesn't mean you chose. You may have "taken ownership" of the causal forces that made you the way you are, but they still did make you this way and not some other way.

Ordinary Language and Free Will

• Free will looks less mysterious if you focus on our "agential capacities," rather than determinism. Consider these "ordinary language" statements. How is "choosing" and "free will" being used differently in each case? Is this way of talking "compatible" with determinism?:

• I may choose to take up painting as a hobby.
• My grandmother had a big influence on me and that's why I chose to become a doctor.
• I cannot choose to become a concert violinists at this point in my life.
• I can choose whether or not I get ready for class.
• I have no choice, I have to turn you in to the police.

• I can't choose not to love you, but I can't see you any more.
• I've decided I don't love you any more. (aww...)

• Parent to child: You can do anything you put your mind to. (Yeah, right.)
• Parent to child: You need to try harder.
• Parent to (older) child: You're doing fine. Just keep that up.

Sapolsky, Chapter 16: Biology, the Criminal Justice System, and (Oh, Why Not?) Free Will (580-613) (Part Two 598-613)

• But does anything useful actually come of this?

• Grounds for skepticism about using neuroscience in the courtroom: Stephen Morse. Neurolaw sceptic, ok with M’naugton, but thinks cases are rare. Reviews valid criticisms he makes: 1. Juries might overvalue neuroscience images, 2. Descriptive vs. Normative.

• Morse supports a strong distinction between causation and compulsion. Causation is not itself an excuse. But Sapolsky argues that this still involves walling off a “homunculus” and that’s not plausible.

• Acknowledges an apparent problem. Neuroscience typically can’t predict individual behavior very much. Fictional exchange with prosecutor. 600

• Explaining lots and Predicting Little

• But is the lack of predictive power a problem in the argument? S. works through some cases in which probability of prediction decreases, but no less likely that it could be a case of compulsion. 601

• 602: Important methodological point: There's no less biology in the leg fracture vs. the other disorders, but level of biological explanation is different. Leg fractures are less connected to culture. Behavior is multifactorial and heavily cultural. (Oh god, another Henrich digression. Free will has a history.) Example: how much does biology predict depression? Factors are diverse biological mechanisms, including cultural factors. (But, point is, someone can be disable by depression, just like the leg fracture.)

• Marvin Minsky, “Free will: internal forces I do not understand”. Sapolsky adds “yet”.

• Growth of Knowledge argument: Neat charts showing historic trend to connect social behavior and biology in research journals. 604-605.

• If you still believe in mitigated free will:

• Case of Dramer and Springer and the spiritual explanation for epilepsy. Biblical version with Jesus.
• Sapolsky imagines an Inquisitor (witch burner). Must be puzzled occasionally by fact pattern. Mom has epilepsy.
• Growth of knowledge argument 607-608. read list. How will they view us?: Most likely option is that our kids will look at us as idiots about moral responsibility and culpability.

• 608: practical outcomes. Not about letting violent criminals free. On the biological view, punishment can’t be an end in itself (restoring balance). Retributive punishment is an end in itself.

• Brain imaging suggests culpability judgements activate the cool and cognitive dlPFC, but punishment judgements activate more emotional vmPFC. “A frothy limbic state”. Makes sense that punishment is costly. But we need to overcome our attachment to punishment. It is involved in a lot of unjustified suffering.

• Recaps the transition we've made with epilepsy 610.

• Car free will. A kind of reductio argument.

Mistake/Accident Cases

• Generally, we don't hold people equally blameworthy for mistakes and accidents as for intentional wrongdoing.

• Kimberly Potter - police officer who mistook her taser and gun, killing a citizen.
• Amber Guyger - the police officer, off duty, who mistook her neighbor, Botham Jean, for an intruder and killed him.
• A man has a heart attack / epileptic attack while driving and kills a pedestrian. (Consider variations.)
• A man is working two jobs to support a family, nods off at the wheel and kills a pedestrian.
• A man knows his car is close to a dangerous malfunction. When it occurs, he loses control and kills a pedestrian.
• The tragic case of the man who left his baby in a hot car.

Small Group Discussion

• Does a focus on "agency" do a better job of capturing our intuitions and evidence about free will?
• What view of moral responsibility does an agency model support?