Thoughts on Moral Responsibility
Hi all, I've been working on an idea regarding the structure of moral responsibility and have been thinking about some cases that I'm not sure how to characterize.
My idea is that moral responsibility comes down to the notions of blame and praise. When we blame someone this is a form of rational criticism. We are criticizing the agent for not acting on what they had most reason to act on. When we praise someone we are lauding them for acting according to what they had most reason to do. So judgments about moral responsibility come down to judgments about the reasons for which an agent acted.
My worries involve two types of cases that appear to be structurally identical but that yield differing intuitions.
Example 1: We have one mother who loves and cares for her children because she wants to, she does it freely and willingly. There is also a second mother who cares for her children but not because she loves them but because she feels it is her duty. She has a strong desire to do other things but overcomes these desires and takes care of her children. It seems that we would be inclined to praise the first mother more than the second.
Example 2: Consider two former drug addicts. The first stopped using drugs because he judged that it was the wrong thing to do, he had most reason to stop using drugs and was able to quit cold turkey. The second drug addict struggles much more. He too judges that he has most reason to stop using the drug. But he has a strong desire to continue using the drug. He overcomes these desires and stops using the drug. It seems here that the second drug addict is more praiseworthy than the first.
So the cases are supposed to be structurally similar. The weird thing is that I have opposite intuitions despite this. In example 1 I am inclined to praise the mother who truly loves her kids and cares for them willingly and without struggle. In example 2 I am more inclined to praise the second addict because he has overcome the struggles of his addiction in a way that the first addict has not.
What do you guys think? Do you share these intuitions? If so, how should we account for this?
9 comments:
I don't entirely know what to say about Example 2, but I think you could turn to feminist philosophy for an account of Example 1.
I don't know very much about this subject, but I know enough to give a brief feminist explanation of why we praise the first mother instead of the second. Basically, women are culturally responsible for caring, whereas men are more culturally responsible for all those rational things like justice. Women, within our society, are expected to care unconditionally for their families. It is their societal role. So, we praise the first mother because she is fulfilling her societal role -- a woman is meant to love her children, so good for her for doing so! The second mother is failing the emotional task society gives to her -- she is doing all the right activities, but, as a woman, she is expected to want to do them, to love. So, I think, the appropriate way to cashing this out in your terms is that, within our society, we believe a woman's greatest reason to act ought to be out of love for her family.
This makes Example 1 not structurally similar to Example 2. In both examples, the second person has to struggle more. But, in Example 2, the person's struggle is understandable and acceptable to society. In Example 1, on the other hand, the woman just shouldn't have to struggle in that way, and to struggle at all is to have already failed at the task of loving.
If you want some sort of citation for the type of feminist theory presented above, I could probably find something, somewhere, in some ancient notes of mine.
I think Michelle provides an interesting perspective on the difference between the two examples. However, I think there is a problems with her suggestion, and I want to suggest another way of resolving the conflicting intuitions. She claims that the two are not structurally equivalent because in the mother case the appraisal of the mother who loves her children is done against a background of social norms, which seem to dictate that a mother ought to love her child. Thus, the other mother who fails to love her children, but takes care of them out of a sense of duty is not morally praiseworthy because she fails to meet the normative expectations of a mother. That seems fine and dandy. Now, this example is supposed to be structurally different from the addict case because in the addict case, there are no normative expectations in play. Neither the addict that easily quits nor the addict that struggles is judged against a background of normative expectations. But, I actually think this is wrong. I think perhaps we do judge these two addict against a background of normative expectations (not necessarily moral). We expect it to be difficult to overcome a drug addiction. So, if someone is easily able to do so, we might not applaud him, perhaps because the ease of overcoming his addiction seems to indicate that he was never ‘really’ addicted. Given this, it seems that the structural similarity is what resolves the conflicting intuition. However, I will admit that I have no idea what you mean by ‘structural’ similarity. The scheme I am imagining is below:
Loving mother → meets normative expectation (Love)→ moral praise
Duty mother → does not meet normative expectation (~Love) → possible moral blame
Struggling addict → meets normative expectation (Struggle)→ moral praise
Non-struggling addict → does not meet normative expectation (~Struggle) → no moral praise
I do not get the relevance of struggle--at least not the significance it often gets--in determining moral praise or blame. From a duty perspective, one is praised for the performance of the duty for its (or the moral law) sake. Struggle doesn't indicate any greater devotion to the moral law or an greater duty performed. From a consequentialist's view, praise is meted out based on the achievement of the favorite outcome, so again struggle seems irrelevant as a long as the outcome is achieved. Now from a virtue perspective, struggle does seem to have some relevance, but in the opposite direction of contemporary intuitions. The struggle typically indicates a failure of virtue (as in example 1). But even here, the struggle is secondary. After all it's not that the mother struggles that is relevant, it's the lack of loving care she provides. I do not think that it is all that helpful to look at one's struggle as determining moral worth/praise/blame.
Partially I think this tendency to give struggle too much weight is from the over-emphasis in modern moral philosophy on looking at actions out of the context of the whole of the individual's life and character. For example, why is that the second addict struggles so much with his addiction? Don't we need to understand that before evaluating the role that struggle plays for him? It strikes me that if his struggle is the result of his own habitual and prior choices and actions, that his struggle doesn't count for that much. If his struggle is the result of something external (say a gene that makes him more susceptible to this addiction), then the struggle looks to me more virtuous.
If we ignore the fuller context of the individual and his character(and how he got that way), we miss important and relevant features and so fail properly to attribute praise and blame.
My diagnosis of the difference intuitions to example 1 and 2 might be that in example 1 we are actually seeing more of the individual's context: we know she's a mother. Knowing this tells us more about how this individual should be relating to others (and I think this relates to Michelle's comments--thought I think there is too much emphasis there on social roles and expectations).
Errol Lord was kind enough to respond. Below are his comments which he posted on his blog http://reflectiveequilibrium.wordpress.com/
Also I think it would be beneficial to allow the public to post comments.
Thanks Errol
Andy at Suphi (I would just put this in their comments, but they don’t allow outside comments. Weird.), presents an ostensible problem for his reduction of moral responsibility to rational praise or blame.
Background: he wants to argue that moral responsibility reduces to claims about praise and criticism with respect to one’s reasons for action. So, when we morally praise someone, we are merely recognizing that she acted in accordance with what she had most (moral?) reason to do. Similarly, when we morally blame someone, we are criticizing them for not acting in accordance with what they had most reason to do. This account seems plausible, especially if moral rationalism is true.
The Problem: Andy thinks that the following two cases present a problem for his account because they are “structurally similar” yet they yield different intuitions:
“Example 1: We have one mother who loves and cares for her children because she wants to, she does it freely and willingly. There is also a second mother who cares for her children but not because she loves them but because she feels it is her duty. She has a strong desire to do other things but overcomes these desires and takes care of her children. It seems that we would be inclined to praise the first mother more than the second.
Example 2: Consider two former drug addicts. The first stopped using drugs because he judged that it was the wrong thing to do, he had most reason to stop using drugs and was able to quit cold turkey. The second drug addict struggles much more. He too judges that he has most reason to stop using the drug. But he has a strong desire to continue using the drug. He overcomes these desires and stops using the drug. It seems here that the second drug addict is more praiseworthy than the first.”
Most have the intuition that in case one the second mother is less praiseworthy than the first because she doesn’t love her children. However, in case two the second drug addict seems more praiseworthy because of he overcomes his strong desires to take the drug. However, everyone ends up doing what they have most reason to do. Thus, it seems as if the reductionist account cannot account for all of praiseworthiness.
The Solution: to me, the solution to this problem is easy. The reason why the first mother is more praiseworthy than the second is that each mother has reasons to love their children. The second mother does not react appropriately to these reasons. Thus, she is less than maximally rational. Thus, she ought not be praised as much as the first mother, who is maximally rational with respect to her children and their care. The second case is a little more complicated. My first answer would be this: the second addict is not morally praiseworthy. He might be more praiseworthy practically. That is, because he had to overcome more psychologically he should be praised more, but not morally praised more. I am not entirely sure if this works, however. Regardless, I think that all that is important is to show that the two cases really aren’t structurally similar. This is because the mothers have reasons that the addicts don’t have analogues of. Thus, the reductionist does not have a problem because of the structure of these cases.
Of course, in order for this to work the reductionist will have to have a more subtle view. Particularly, she will need to say that one is less praiseworthy for doing the act one had most reason to do when one is not maximally rational.
Yeah, it is a little awkward when people outside the department want to enter into a discussion. This is good reason to allow outside comments, I'd agree.
Anyway, I wonder what we would say, according to Errol Lord's account, about a mother whose child is a spoiled, rotten, horrible brat (maybe a sociopath). Clearly, she doesn't have the same reasons to love her child as do most other mothers. Does this mean that we do not still think she is blameworthy for not loving her child? I have mixed intuitions.
Here's a response I sent to Andy about opening up comments to the public:
My main concern is that almost everyone who responded to my initial email said that he/she wanted the blog to be read-only to the public. Another concern is moderation of the comments (once open, spam is inevitable as well as dealing with really weird and obnoxious responses). Another thing is that the idea of this blog was for the graduate students to engage each other, to share what we are working on, and so forth. Let's work on getting feedback from each other and getting more grad students involved before inviting outside comments as well. At some point, I think it would be good to expand the blog to include faculty, alumni graduate students, and possible some undergraduates and open up the comments to the public, but as the blog is just getting going I'd like to shelter it a little first. It's sort of in its "pilot" phase.
In addition (not included in my note to Andy), it is not "weird" or "draconian" not to allow public comments. Plenty of blogs do this and for various reasons. Given the founding purpose of this blog, I think it fits to keep comment privileges among the blog members. I think what Andy has done here, posting Errol's comments, is a perfect compromise on this.
for more of Errol's comments go to his blog at the address above.
I’m not sure what exactly is the worry here Andy. As presented, your theory only says when to praise the agent and when to blame the agent. Whichever act the agent has the most reason to act on is the praiseworthy act; all others are blameworthy. You haven't given theoretical framework for saying how praiseworthy or blameworthy an act is; whether (1) compared to alternate choices available to the agent, or (2) compared to other acts by other agents.
That said, all the agents you consider (both agents in both examples) act according to what they have most reason to do. And this is good for the theory, because all four seem intuitively at least somewhat praiseworthy. As for where our intuitions differ, this seems to be in an area not yet approached by your theory (at least, not by the sketch of it that you posted).
Before I can give any good input on how these examples affect your theory, I’m wondering if you could tell me some basic framework for how you want to deal with degree of blame/praiseworthiness.
Well ok, I lied. I can say at least one thing. Cecilea raises an interesting point that in some sense we might feel like the first addict is not "really" addicted. I propose we take this to the next level and consider a third person who has never taken the drug. (In this case, we need to change vocabulary a little, and consider the act of not taking drugs instead of stopping taking drugs.)
Though maybe not true for every drug (perhaps a certain drug is only harmful the fifth time you take it), I can imagine a case where all three agents have the same reasons for not taking the drug.
No insights, just a suggestion for other people to think about.
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