May 4

29: MAY 4 More Philosophers on Moral Responsibility and Free Will

Assigned

• Dennett, What is Free Will? 6 minute video [1]
• Greg Caruso and Daniel Dennett, "Just Deserts" [2].

• 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 [3]
• Data visualization on mass incarceration. [4]
• Norwegian prison, [5]
• US Supermax prison, “Red Onion” [6]
• ”When kids do hard time,” Wabash Prison, [7]

Using Rawls to think about Punishment

• Recall our theories of punishment from last class. Here are two thought experiments to help you sort out your views on punishment:

• 1. Imagine you are in the original position in Rawls' theory. You don't know if, when the veil is lifted, you will be a crime victim, criminal, or neither. Moreover, you don't know if you will live in a crime prone area, have good parents, and other factors that affect criminal behavior, like Socio-economic Status (SES). But you do know everything we currently know about the causal factors (both social and individual) that produce crime. You also know how victim's families feel and how you would feel if you were a victim of crime.

• Here are three choices you might make. Does one sound better than the other two? Is there a fourth?

• A. Contractors would choose a retributive punishment system, much like the current US system.
• B. Contractors would choose a "public health model", more like corporatist cultures (Cavadino & Dignan).
• C. Contractors would choose a "dual system" allowing for mix A and B. (Maybe using the tort concept.)

• 2. Faculty sometimes talk about how "punitive" the grading systems in our courses need to be. This can pit "softies" vs. "toughies". As with the moral responsibility and punishment issue in the criminal justice system, some faculty (toughies) worry that if they don't give more C, D, and F grades, students will become lazy. They also might believe that a higher level of performance would occur if we put students in fear of failing the course. (!) However, other faculty (softies) have the feeling that many differences in student performance are "baking in" prior to the first day of class and grading is largely "sorting" the same people over and over again. We need to give students good information about their performance, but we don't need to make harsh final judgements. If this is true, praising and blaming students more severely than needed to motivate the work seems undeserved. Softies sometimes acknowledge the "free rider" problems with their view. Do you find yourself agreeing with one group of faculty over the other? How punitive do we need to make a particular process for it to work? What are the variables? Do you have an analysis? How would you want your kids graded?

Caruso & Dennett, "Just Deserts"

• This dialogue allows you to see how a moral responsibility sceptic (Caruso) and a compatibilist (Dennett) might disagree about moral responsibility. Dennett defends a pretty strong view of moral responsibility but doesn’t think he’s a retributivist. Caruso defends a strong skeptical view of moral responsibility and thinks Dennett is still hanging on to retributivism.

• Caruso: What we do and the way we are is ultimately the result of factors beyond our control. [No Ultimate Resp. thesis - NUR]
• Dennett: [Seems to defend "mitigated free will" but instead of the humunculus, we are in “control” by virtue of the natural developments that produce an NCA.] Some people have mental disabilities that makes them not responsible, but normal people are morally responsibility and deserve praise or blame. Need to distinguish between causation and control. There are causal chains that turned you into an autonomous, self-controlling agent. [e.g. A normal person with a normal upbringing. The "normally competent agent" - NCA]. If you are an NCA, then it’s you who did it, and you can be blamed and (non-retributively) punished.

• Caruso: No problem with NCA, who is "responsive to reasons". NCAs are autonomous and have control. But they don't possess the characteristics that would justify "basic desert" responsibility. People don't deserve to have "something bad happen to them just because they have knowingly done wrong". Totally "backward looking". Retributivism overlaps with consequentialism (Punishing people might reduce harms and therefor achieve utilitarian ends) but the distinctive difference is that retributivist thinks punishment is justified in itself, by desert. I don't because of NUR. There may be "forward looking" reasons to keep certain systems of punishment and reward, like "incapacitating, rehabilitating and deterring offenders" [what we've been calling "penalties and interventions"]

• Dennett: I too reject retributivism, along views of free will [libertarian] that support it. [This will be a major point of dispute between them.] But there is a "backward looking" justification for punishment: [read example of promise breaking]. "deserving of negative consequences". This is something autonomous people accept as a condition of political freedom. Analogy of sports penalties. They can be deserved. Argument against NUR: So what? We grow into our autonomy. [So Dennett’s position seems to be that we deserved to be blamed for our conduct, but not in ways that trigger retributive punishment. So, desert-based MR without retribution.]

• Caruso: [Are you sure you're not a retributivist, DD?] Isn't "deserving negative consequences" retributivism? The consequentialist benefits of punishment don't require "desert" [but just MR as "accountability" -- You did it, maybe on purpose...]. There are good [forward looking] reasons to keep penalties. [References the "moral luck" literature from Nagel.] Luck doesn't "even out", SES affects brain development, educational inequalities....[In a word, lucky privileged people.]

• Dennett: I'm using the "every day" sense of "deserve". I want to avoid "case by case" considerations of MR. You are "entitled" to the praise you get from good things and the "criticism, shame, and blame" from breaking the law. I'm still for criminal justice reform -- shorter sentences, no death penalty, rehab and reinstatement.

• Caruso: It doesn't help to appeal to the everyday sense, since that includes retributivist beliefs -- 1. backward-looking; 2. just deserts, and that's what we are trying to figure out (e.g. you're begging the question). If you say that the murderer deserves to go to prison for "a very long time" irrespective of future consequences, you are a retributivist. [ Think "strike back".] Example of Einstein. We can "attribute" things to Einstein.... You do offer a "forward looking justification for backward looking MR" [Roughly, we don't get the benefits of a stable society without punishing people in the "moral desert" sense.] But that's an empirical question; it's not justified by "moral desert" but only if the consequences follow.

• Dennett: Non-retributive punishment (visiting negative consequences on people because they deserve it) is justified in part by the need to promote "respect for the law" [connect to Henrich] Cites Hobbes.

• Caruso: [a bit frustrated] You say you're baffled that I don't see that you are not a retributivist, but you said that earlier that there are "backward looking" justifications for punishment based on desert. But when you elaborate that, it's all about forward looking justifications. [We're better off punishing.] Cites the "public health argument" from his book. Focusing on backward looking punishment keeps us from looking at the social causes of crime. Obama quote. [Note connection with Cavadino: We're looking at neo-liberal ideology....]. Claims society won't fall apart in the Hobbesian sense.

Traditional vs. Naturalist Approaches to Free Will

• The traditional philosopher's approach:

Whether we have free will or not depends upon our answers to two metaphysical questions:

• "Is determinism true?" and "Are we exceptions to it?". Specifically, does causation permeate nature?
• Libertarians believe that when we act freely, we are exceptions to the the "first cause" (like God, by the way) in a chain of actions. In other words, humans are exceptions to determinism.

• Big Implication of traditional view: At least part of us (the homunculus) is absolutely free. Biological stuff can override our freedom only in case of force or compulsion.

• By contrast, The "naturalist" approach (biologists, cultural evolutionists, and some philosophers) assumes we are products of nature. As far as we know, we are caused to be how we are. But that doesn't mean we can't be responsible for our behavior, just that there are natural limits to human responsibility. These limits are found by understanding agency and paying attention to how cultures shape the idea of free will (Henrich).

• What we have, in normal circumstances is "agency." Agency is "an ability to act in the world and to make myself accountable to others." I do this by conforming my behavior to the idea of a "normally competent agent." Having human agency means that I am determined (by biology and training) to be accountable for values that help us get along together, to "evade" bad outcomes. But, as we have already said, as a biological capacity, agency varies quite a bit by person and circumstance.

• Naturalists want us to pay attention to how we actually talk about Free Will. This will help us understand the culturally shaped concept of FW and the way biology and environment pose real limits to our freedom.

• One tool for doing this is called "ordinary language analysis" -- We know what we mean by free will, just like we know what a "person" is. Maybe it varies a bit by culture.

• Consider these "ordinary language" statements. How is "choosing" and "free will" being used differently in each case:

• I may choose to take up painting as a hobby.
• 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.

• Big implication of naturalist view: Agency is about "degrees of freedom". We are not all equally free. Environments and our own biology and upbringing can constrain our freedom. On this view, free will is not a property most of us have completely (binary), but related to our actual competency in controlling our choices. NCAs can control their choice and are morally responsible for their conduct, but it's a "range concept" (true by degrees, not binary).

Dennett, What is Free Will?

• Interviewer poses the question, “If everything is determined, how can we have free will?
• Dennett: Free will isn’t just hard to reconcile with determinism, but also indeterminism. [If the universe is “indeterminate” that still doesn’t help us to think about being the origin of our actions. Indeterminacy is randomness.] We want to be the one’s determining our actions.

• History of the question: People look to physics to think about FW, but should be thinking about biology. Key: FW is a biological level phenomenon. [That means it exists at the level of the organism and its intentions, not the cellular or physical level.]
• ”Our actions are determined but not inevitable.” Inevitable mean “unavoidable”. But we have gotten really good at “avoiding.” Anticipation, corrective measures.
• ”You can change what you thought the future was going to be, into something else.” [I think this sounds puzzling if you don’t remember that we have causal agency. Determinism doesn’t mean we are like a billiard ball on a pool table, only subject to forces.]
• Physics level vs. Biological level.
• ”We also need to give up absolute blame and responsibility, but there is still responsibility. “We are determined” to control our future and hold each other accountable for doing that.

Dennett's Naturalist view in Freedom Evolves

• The Standard Argument for Incompatibilism that our Folk Psychology encourages. (Should we resist?)

• If Determinism is true, everything is inevitable. (recall physics consult)
• If everything is inevitable, the future has no real possibilities. (No "open futures")
• If everything is inevitable, you can't blame someone for not doing otherwise than they did. (No "alternative possibilities.")
• If you can't blame someone for their actions, then there is no MR and retributive punishment is unjust.

• If you are like most people, you will not accept this argument. And you shouldn't. The question is, who has a better solution? Naturalists suggest that our folk psychology is confusing us about the consequences of determinism, maybe because it wasn't designed for these kinds of questions. So their solution is to give an analysis of the implications of determinism that makes room for free will and to show how "freedom and free willing" might arise from nature.

• Rethinking Determinism. Here are three key challenges to the standard argument for incompatibilism (above) from naturalists:

• 1. Determinism doesn't make things inevitable.
• 2. There are real present and future possibilities in a determinist world, just not the "open futures" of folk psychology.
• 3. Freedom evolved in us in nature.

• In other words, the naturalist thinks free will and freedom (and some version of responsibility, if not punishment) are possible in a deterministic world with no "open futures". As we will see, part of the strategy is to show just how complicated we are, to be creatures who engage in inquiry and use knowledge to avoid back outcomes and create good ones. So, we might be "Determined (by nature) to improve the future!".

• Where does all that improvement show up? In culture, but only if things go right (remember Rapa Nui!). As we know from our studies this semester, "going right" in culture means benefiting from cooperation and acquiring cultural "packages" of mental adaptations that address the basic dilemmas of social creatures like us. Ultimately, surviving and thriving.

• So that's where we're headed. Now let's look at the naturalist's analysis in a little detail.

• 1. Determinism doesn't make things inevitable.

• Artificial Life research models how design can emerge from a set of artificially defined "creatures" moving in a completely deterministic manner, as in a video game. (Nerdy digression: Artificial life models can create "touring machines," which means they can solve computational problems.) Some creatures could develop "avoidance capabilities". The birth of "evitability"! You could imagine the computer programmers are acting as "hacker gods" to add design (they don't have to), but imagine instead that the creatures develope R&D capabilities, as we have. Not so implausible that nature designed us to be good "avoiders". We also have circuits for rewards and searching!
• In evolutionary theory, we describe the emergence of multi-cellular organisms as solving problems of parasitic genes and achieving a stable organism that persists.... Nature is full of "evitability" -- ways organisms avoid harm.

• 2. There are real present and future possibilities in a determinist world, just not the "open futures" of folk psychology.

• If something can be "determined to change" then it has, in a sense, an "open future." (Still not the folk psychological one exactly.) In us, meta-cognitive and social processes feed into our decision making, allowing us to re-evaluate the "weights" we give to different possibilities.
• The way we actually think about possibility when we are engaged in inquiry is compatible with determinism. Analysis of: "I could have made that putt." Makes sense if you mean "If the world hade been slightly different. In inquiry, and with our big brains, we imagine possible worlds in which the wind didn't blow or I wasn't thinking about my taxes while making the putt. But it doesn't make sense to say, "No, I mean that I could have made the putt in this world!", because you didn't.
• We create real possibilities in the present and future by using reason to replay scenarios and approach them differently. Examples: Improving your social skills, academic skills. If it feels like your "in charge", well, you are. All of these causal forces intersect with you and you happen to have a brain.

• 3. Freedom evolved in us in nature.

• If freedom means avoiding bad outcomes and having lots of real possibilities in your life, then it might be possible to account for that in a deterministic world.
• The evolution of freedom happens through the evolution of the socially evolved behaviors and structures we've been studying. (Dennett's research based isn't as up to date as ours!) Cooperation, culture, accumulated knowledge, complex societies supporting lots and lots of education provide us more freedom than our ancestors.
• Obvious example: Without vaccines we would be less free.
• Contrast with traditional concept of free will: binary, metaphysically opaque. Evolved freedom admits of degrees. Lots of potential implications for responsibility and punishment.
• Implication: We are not all equally free. Freedom is powerful and fragile.
• Implication: You can hold normal people responsible for their behavior, but there's no justification of absolute responsibility here. You can hold people responsible because they are designed to be responsible.

Concluding Course Comments

• Last reminder: What is Morality? What are Values? How are they enforced?

• Morality is about problems that can be addressed by values.
• Values are expectations of others to think, speak, feel, and act in particular ways (and sometimes to refrain from thinking, speaking, etc. in particular ways).
• We enforce values in social life by many means, from conversation about expectations, gossip about others’ behavior, and, of course, the justice system.

• Finally, “How can I use my profound knowledge of morality to improve the world?” (Or, What can I do now that I couldn’t do (as well) 15 weeks ago?)

• Final Reminders:

• Cooperation is not guaranteed. It is an achievement.
• We are constrained by evolution, but we have also achieved some freedom from it.
• On the interpersonal level - Turn up the volume on positive and reinforcing behaviors, not only with your friends and family. Go to the empathy gym. Model your value ideals. Have high expectations of yourself and others!