Hard Determinism, Moral Responsibility and Free Will

Boston University From the SelectedWorks of Hyun G Lee 2015 Hard Determinism, Moral Responsibility and Free Will Hyun G Lee, Boston University Available at: https://works.bepress.com/hyun_lee/4/

Hyun Gu Lee Crime & Punishment Paper Hard Determinism, Moral Responsibility and Free Will There have been many scientific findings in neuroscience that suggests that people have no free will. 1 Most philosophers, however, have been reluctant to embrace hard determinism. 2 Hard determinism states that free will is incompatible with determinism, that free will does not exist, and that determinism is true. 3 It further states that since moral responsibility requires free will, there can be no moral responsibility. 4 However, must this be the case? Must all good aspiring hard determinists believe in no ultimate moral responsibility? I would like to argue that a good hard determinist may believe in ultimate moral responsibility, that even if an actor has no options to do otherwise, she is still morally responsible for her actions, that it does not follow from the fact that free will is an illusion that there is no legitimate place for responsibility. 5 I will examine the assumption that moral responsibility requires free will, or that it would seem unreasonable to say of a person that she deserves blame and punishment for her conduct if it turned out that she was not at any point in time in control of it. 6 In the following sections, I will examine alternate definitions of moral responsibility that do 1 Eddy Nahmias, Is Neuroscience the Death of Free Will, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 13, 2011, http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/is-neuroscience-the-death-of-free-will/; John Monterosso & Barry Schwartz, Did Your Brain Make You Do It?, N.Y. TIMES, July 27, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/neuroscience-and-moral-responsibility.html?hp&_r=2&; Tom Chivers, Neuroscience, Free Will and Determinism: I m Just a Machine., N.Y. TIMES, Oct. 12, 2012, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/8058541/neuroscience-free-will-and-determinism-im-just-a-machine.html. 2 Philosophical defenses of the hard determinist positions are uncommon. Derk Pereboom, 2 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ETHICS 180 (L. Becker & C. Becker eds., 2nd ed. 2001). 3 Joshua Greene & Jonathan Cohen, For the Law, Neuroscience Changes Nothing and Everything, 359 PHIL. TRANS. R. SOC. LOND. 1775, 1776 (2004). 4 Interview with Galen Strawson (Mar. 2013), available at http://www.naturalism.org/strawson_interview.htm. 5 Joshua Greene & Jonathan Cohen, For the Law, Neuroscience Changes Nothing and Everything, 359 PHIL. TRANS. R. SOC. LOND. 1775, 1783 (2004). 6 Michael McKenna, Compatibilism, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY (Dec. 21, 2009), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/. This is similar to the Control Principle in Moral Luck. Dana K.

not require free will. In other words, I will try to redefine moral responsibility so that actors can be morally assessed for factors outside their control. 7 A. First Alternate Definition of Moral Responsibility The assumption in question depends on how moral responsibility is defined. Though moral responsibility is usually defined in terms of free will, it can also be defined alternatively as to be morally responsible for something is to be worthy of a particular kind of reaction praise, blame, or something akin to these for having performed it. 8 This alternate definition of moral responsibility seems to comport with the law, in the case of putative diminished responsibility whether the accused was sufficiently rational at the time of the misdeed in question. 9 In law, we do not ask whether the actor had free will but rather she was rational, and if rational, then culpable. One way to respond is that the very existence of deliberations, choices, and actions shows that there is in fact free will. 10 However, I can contend that deliberations, choices, and actions may not require the existence of free will but are merely necessary links in the causal chain. 11 Moral responsibility or blameworthiness, then, may plausibly depend on the existence of deliberations, etc., in the causal chain rather than on actor s free will. For example, in law, we find that an actor who commits a willful, deliberate, [or] premeditated murder is more Nelkin, Moral Luck, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY (June 21, 2013), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-luck/. 7 Dana K. Nelkin, Moral Luck, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY (June 21, 2013), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-luck/. 8 Andrew Eshleman, Moral Responsibility, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, (Dec. 21, 2009) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/ 9 Joshua Greene & Jonathan Cohen, For the Law, Neuroscience Changes Nothing and Everything, 359 PHIL. TRANS. R. SOC. LOND. 1775, 1778 (2004). 10 Andrew Eshleman, Moral Responsibility, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY (Dec. 21, 2009), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/. 11 Andrew Eshleman, Moral Responsibility, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY (Dec. 21, 2009), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/.

blameworthy than an actor who commits felony-murder. 12 Even if the actor did not have free will, the fact that she deliberated makes her seem more blameworthy. Another way to respond to the alternate definition of moral responsibility is to redefine free will so that it is still required for even this alternate definition of moral responsibility. If free will is redefined to mean that an actor performs deliberations prior to her actions, then yes, free will is required for moral responsibility and even compatible with determinism. However, this is not what is generally meant by free will; most compatibilists and libertarians would say that free will requires not only alternatives and deliberations among those alternatives but also indeterminacy as to which alternative is chosen. 13 Therefore, most compatibilists and libertarians will be unsatisfied with the redefinition of free will and state that free will requires more than mere existence of deliberations, choices, and actions. Third way to respond to the alternate definition of moral responsibility is to question how we can establish this definition at all. If free will is in fact an illusion, why would any act be worthy of any reaction, either positive or negative? In other words, if an actor is not responsible for her actions, why should we ascribe moral responsibility to her actions and hold the actor as either praiseworthy or blameworthy? What other basis is there for ascribing moral responsibility if free will is not available? One answer is to adopt the consequentialist view, in which praise or blame would be appropriate if and only if a reaction of this sort would likely lead to a desired change in the agent and/or her behavior. 14 Alternatively, another answer is found in Strawson s merit-based form of compatibilism, which explains that we feel some agents deserve our 12 Murder, LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE (Aug. 19, 2010), http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/murder 13 Free will requires the ability to do otherwise. Joshua Greene & Jonathan Cohen, For the Law, Neuroscience Changes Nothing and Everything, 359 PHIL. TRANS. R. SOC. LOND. 1775, 1777 (2004). 14 Andrew Eshleman, Moral Responsibility, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY (Dec. 21, 2009), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/. Because consequentialist approaches to punishment remain viable in the absence of common-sense free will, we need not give up on moral and legal responsibility. Joshua Greene & Jonathan Cohen, For the Law, Neuroscience Changes Nothing and Everything, 359 PHIL. TRANS. R. SOC. LOND. 1775, 1776 (2004).

censure or merit our praise if they have violated, met, or exceeded our demand for a reasonable degree of good will. 15 Strawson s account of compatibilism shows that free will is not an objective condition required for the practice of holding people responsible and therefore does not conflict with determinism. 16 His account, in other words, does not require free will, and accepts moral responsibility. 17 If the basis of moral responsibility is found in reactive attitudes such as indignation, resentment, guilt, and gratitude, 18 then free will is not required as a basis for moral responsibility. This alternate definition, however, may prove too much. If moral responsibility only requires a reactive attitude, then do we also have to adopt Strawson s compatibilism as well? I do not think that is necessary. Strawson s account of reactive attitude is enough to provide a basis for moral responsibility but it does not provide a basis for free will. Therefore, Strawson s account is consistent with hard determinism. Similarly, one concern with dispelling the assumption that moral responsibility requires free will is that it likewise proves too much. If moral responsibility does not require alternate choices, then must we also accept compatibilism as argued by John Martin Fischer? 19 I do not think so. Hard determinism does not require lack of moral responsibility; it only requires lack of free will. As long as there is some alternate basis for moral responsibility, it can be consistent with hard determinism. The alternate definition above and below sufficiently provide this basis. B. Other Definitions of Moral Responsibility 15 Andrew Eshleman, Moral Responsibility, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY (Dec. 21, 2009) http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/; P.F. Strawson, Freedom and Resentment, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/dfwstrawson1.htm (last visited May 1, 2013). 16 Andrew Eshleman, Moral Responsibility, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY (Dec. 21, 2009), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/. 17 [A] noteworthy new trend amongst contemporary hard determinists has been the move to offer a revisionist conception of moral responsibility and its associated practices rather than to reject talk about being responsible outright. Id. 18 Derk Pereboom, 2 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ETHICS 179 (L. Becker & C. Becker eds., 2nd ed. 2001). 19 Derk Pereboom, 2 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ETHICS 180 (L. Becker & C. Becker eds., 2nd ed. 2001).

There are other ways to define moral responsibility that is devoid of free will. A. J. Ayer, who was a compatibilist, propose[d] that an action is free in the sense required for moral responsibility only if desires that genuinely belong to the agent play the right role in the causal history of the action. 20 This account of compatibilism can be flipped around and pruned to provide a definition or a basis of moral responsibility consistent with determinism: if actor s deterministic desires play the right role in the causal history of the action, then the actor is morally responsible for her actions. This definition seems to be partially consistent with Harry Frankfurt s notion that what is required for moral responsibility is that an agent endorse[s] her will to perform an action. 21 Determinists would depart from Frankfurt s notion that the agent s endorsement of her will makes it effective or free, and instead claim that even the agent s endorsement is predetermined. Similarly, John Martin Fischer argues that an agent is morally responsible when the way she acts is sensitive to her rational consideration of the available reasons for action. 22 Again, determinists may repurpose this definition and state that an actor is morally responsible if the way she acts is deterministically sensitive to her rational consideration of the available reasons for action. According to this redefinition, if the actor rationally considers different reasons for pursuing different actions, such considerations are determined. Even if her actions and her rational considerations of available actions are all determined, she would be morally responsible under this definition. C. Criticism of the Alternate Definitions of Moral Responsibility The widespread sorts of criticism that plagues these compatibilism accounts may yet infect the definition of moral responsibility altered for hard determinism. The criticism is that the conditions are not sufficient for moral responsibility because one can imagine a hypothetical 20 Id. 21 Id. 22 Id.

in which the actor fulfills the conditions but is still not morally responsible. The hypothetical usually involves an actor who is being controlled in every way possible by an evil scientist to commit some obviously immoral act such as murder. 23 In this hypothetical, we feel intuitively that the actor should not be held morally responsible. If any of the repurposed definitions above as applied to the hypothetical results in the blaming the actor, then we would feel that those definitions are incorrect. Alternatively, we may further alter the definitions so that the result will be the same as our intuitions. Finally, we can say that our own intuitions are wrong in this case and provide a plausible reason why our intuitions are wrong. For the definition from Ayer, alterations to the definition of moral responsibility may provide immunity to the hypothetical. The Ayer s definition was that the actor s deterministic desires must play the right role in the causal history of the action; this definition gives us some leeway in defining what this right role consists of. In this hypothetical of the actor who is controlled by the evil scientist, the actor s desires may not be playing the right role if all her desires are being controlled by one person. Thus the actor is not morally responsible, which aligns with our intuitions. However, the question remains then as to what a right role precisely is, and whether this carving out an exception merely allows us to go with our intuitions every time we are faced with a difficult hypothetical. Furthermore, if we yield in every case to our intuitions, we may erode determinism to the point of compatibilism. The hypothetical s criticism may still stand in the definition of moral responsibility repurposed from Frankfurt. This definition requires that the actor deterministically endorses her will to perform an action. However, the hypothetical of the actor being controlled by the evil scientist may still fulfill the conditions that are required for the actor s moral responsibility; the evil scientist may not only have altered the circumstances but have directly controlled the actor s 23 Id.

endorsing of her will. So the actor would be morally responsible according to the definition, which goes against our intuitive sense. Same may be true for the definition repurposed from Fischer. The condition here for moral responsibility is that the actor rationally considers her reasons for actions; the hypothetical actor controlled by the evil scientist may be forced to rationally consider the different reasons for her actions thus fulfilling the condition for moral responsibility. Yet the evil scientist may very well be controlling the very mental processes of rationally considering her reasons for action. Therefore, the conditions are met for ascribing moral responsibility to the actor, which again contradicts our intuitions. D. Should We Trust Our Intuition? One way to respond to this hypothetical is to claim that our intuitions are wrong, that if some condition for ascribing moral responsibility is met by the actor, then she is in fact morally responsible whether or not there is an evil scientist behind the scenes controlling everything. Is such a drastic step necessary? Our intuitions may function as a basis for defining moral responsibility, as in our first alternate definition using the reactive attitude. And the more powerful our intuitions, the less preferable it is to throw it away. In this instance, our intuitions, or those who subscribe to compatibilism, seem to be particularly strong in wanting to intuitively say that the actor is not morally responsible. If, for some of us incompatibilists, this particular hypothetical is unconvincing, we can use a more extreme or elaborate versions of it, such as The Boys from Brazil problem or the Mr. Puppet problem. 24 If the evil scientist picks out every individual genetic trait of the actor and selects every environmental factors, relationships, social encounters, major life events, etc. to shape the actor, then we would intuitively say that the actor 24 Joshua Greene & Jonathan Cohen, For the Law, Neuroscience Changes Nothing and Everything, 359 PHIL. TRANS. R. SOC. LOND. 1775, 1779-80 (2004).

is not morally responsible for what she does. Thus, since our intuitions seem to be quite strong, we must have a pretty compelling reason to abandon it at least for these types of hypotheticals. Even if we are to claim that in these hypotheticals our intuitions are wrong, we must provide a plausible account of why it is wrong as well as why we should instead accept the alternate accounts of ascribing moral responsibility. Here is one plausible account of why our intuitions are wrong. We may claim that our intuitions are usually right but not for these types of hypotheticals due to our lack of experience dealing with similar situations. Given the highly specific and unusual circumstances of the hypothetical, perhaps our intuitions are not well equipped to make a judgment on the issue of ascribing moral responsibility. Most of us have not and will not encounter a seemingly fullyfunctioning actor who is controlled entirely by another actor. That is why, for example, we have such hard time thinking about robots. 25 Therefore, our intuitions are ill-calibrated and may give us the wrong results. There are other reasons to think that our intuition may be wrong, not only in these hypotheticals but in their entirety. Ascribing moral responsibility is a form of moral judgment. For any situation, if we find the actor blameworthy, this is equivalent to stating that what the actor has done is morally wrong. Conversely, if we find the actor praiseworthy, this is equivalent to stating that what the actor has done is morally good. But our intuitions in forming moral judgments should be questioned as it is shaped by our culture and evolution. 26 In particular, Joshua Greene s work on the trolley problem demonstrates that we sometimes use 25 Leon Neyfakh, Should We Put Robots on Trial?, THE BOSTON GLOBE (Mar. 1, 2013), http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2013/03/01/should-put-robots-trial/ijynaqk7bari4fanenlelo/story.html. 26 Steven Pinker, The Moral Instinct, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 13, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13psychology-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0.

different parts of our brain in making moral choices. 27 If our moral intuition is not always rational, then we should not trust our intuitions so readily when ascribing moral responsibility. Of course, this line of argument requires several assumptions. First, this argument assumes that that intuition is wrong because it went through the evolutionary process, but there does not seem to be a good reason to assume this. Second, this argument assumes that we should use rational reasons to make moral judgments rather than using our intuitions. Although there are good reasons to use rational reasons rather than intuitions, such as the increased ability to communicate with others about our moral judgments, the assumption itself may be a moral claim that lacks a proper basis. The problem with trusting our intuition in these hypotheticals can be framed in another way. If moral intuition can function as a shortcut in helping us determine what to do, then perhaps our intuitions about ascribing moral responsibility functions as a shortcut as well. We assign moral blame or praise intuitively so that we do not have to make messy calculations on whether that person is actually blameworthy of praiseworthy. One could argue that this is exactly how our jury system works. Our intuitions, as a shortcut, works in majority of the cases we encounter, but as a shortcut, we should question whether it works in all cases, especially in complicated ones. If there are reasons to distrust taking this shortcut, then we should take a different approach to ascribing moral responsibility. Because we do have reasons to distrust this shortcut in these hypotheticals, we can take a different approach. Furthermore, we seem to have a built-in defense mechanism from being questioned regarding some of our moral intuitions. Even the act of making some moral calculations may 27 Joshua Greene, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~jgreene/ (last visited May 1, 2013).

seem repugnant to us. 28 If this defense mechanism keeps us from making certain moral calculations, then we should not be deterred from making moral calculations for cases in which we have reasons to believe that our intuitions may fail us. One may respond, however, that this defense mechanism seems to trigger more often for simpler hypotheticals rather than for more complicated ones. 29 Even if there are reasons to be skeptical of moral intuitions, we do not need to discount it in its entirety. There may still be good reasons to believe that moral intuitions, at least in some cases, seem to point us in the right general direction. There can be no denying that there are common themes that are shared across all cultures: harm, fairness, community, authority, and purity. 30 If our moral intuitions can be viewed in terms of these themes, then we can recognize the reasons we have particular intuitions and be better equipped to make reasoned judgments in regards to whether our intuitions are misleading us. Furthermore, the fact that some moral intuitions are felt to be universal seems to be at least compatible with if not suggesting moral realism, or the notion that some moral claims actually are true. 31 In fact, the vast agreement across cultures and times may further support the notion of moral realism. 32 If moral realism is true, and if our moral intuitions align with the moral claims that seem to be true, then our moral intuitions may be of some use in helping us make judgments regarding moral responsibility. Of course, even if our moral intuitions are not discounted entirely, we still have reasons to be 28 When Tetlock asked subjects for their opinions on whether adoption agencies should place children with the couples willing to pay the most, whether people should have the right to sell their organs and whether they should be able to buy their way out of jury duty, the subjects not only disagreed but felt personally insulted and were outraged that anyone would raise the question. Steven Pinker, The Moral Instinct, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 13, 2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13psychology-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. 29 See id. 30 Id. 31 Geoff Sayre-McCord, Moral Realism, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY (June 21, 2011), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-realism/; http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/magazine/13psychologyt.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0. 32 C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, Appendix Illustration of the Tao, available at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/lewis/abolition4.htm.

skeptical of it, especially in highly stylized hypotheticals that we have never encountered in real life. If we are to distrust our moral intuition in these hypotheticals, are there reasons to trust the alternate definitions for moral responsibility? This question can be broken down into two parts. First, do the alternate definitions align with our intuition in other situations that are more common, when there are no apparent reasons to distrust intuition? Or framed another way, do these definitions work at least as well as our intuitions in cases that we feel fairly certain that our intuitions are correct? Second, is there a plausible account or theory of why the alternate definitions work better than our intuitions in these hypotheticals? The alternate definitions do align with our intuitions in at least some situations. If, for example, the actor is under constraints, our intuition informs us that the actor is not morally responsible. 33 This result aligns with our definition of moral responsibility from Ayer in that the actor s deterministic desires did not play the requisite causal role because she could not act upon her desires. 34 Similarly, our definition repurposed from Frankfurt also aligns with our intuitions; if the actor is under constraints, then she cannot endorse her will since she cannot perform the action. Lastly, our definition repurposed from Fischer is also consistent with our intuition. Because the actor is under constraints, even if she examines rational considerations for the available reasons for actions she cannot actually perform these actions, 35 and is hence not morally responsible. There are, of course, many other cases in which we feel that our intuitions are correct, and it would be impossible to even identify them. However, because the definitions align with our intuitions in at least one situation, we may tentatively accept that these definitions will work at least as well as our intuitions in some situations. 33 Derk Pereboom, 2 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ETHICS 180 (L. Becker & C. Becker eds., 2nd ed. 2001). 34 Id. 35 Id.

The question remains as to whether these definitions are better guides than our intuitions in the evil scientist hypothetical. One source of plausibility of these definitions comes from law. If these definitions of moral responsibility conforms with what we find in law, then that provides a basis to trust in these definitions, especially if the law disagrees with our intuitions. In criminal law, specifically in the Model Penal Code, purposefully or knowingly taking a person s life constitutes murder. 36 This definition of murder seems consistent with definition of moral responsibility repurposed from Ayer which states that the actor s desires must play the right role in the causal history of the action. The definition repurposed from Fischer may also be consistent with criminal law which considers varying degrees of mens rea. The law may also demonstrate in certain situations that our intuitions are not very good. 37 However, one response to using the law as providing a basis for these definitions of moral responsibility is that the law has developed over time partially from our moral intuitions. This would mean that moral intuitions are in fact the basis for moral responsibility. One theory that can supplement the various moral responsibility definitions is the idea of moral ledger. 38 According to this theory, the practice of ascribing responsibility involves assigning a credit or debit to a metaphorical ledger associated with each agent and that the agent s praiseworthiness or blameworthiness depends upon the credit or fault that belongs to the agent. 39 Our previous definitions of moral responsibility seem to be compatible with this ledger theory, in that more fault can be attributed to the actor when she fulfills the various conditions of the definitions. For example, under the repurposed definition from Ayer, if the actor s desires played the right role in the causal history of the action, then some amount of fault 36 Murder, LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE (Aug. 19, 2010), http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/murder. 37 See, e.g., RICHARD J. BONNIE & ET AL., CRIMINAL LAW 162 (Foundation Press 3d ed. 1997). 38 Andrew Eshleman, Moral Responsibility, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY (Dec. 21, 2009), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/. 39 Id.

can be attached to her ledger. Or, under the definition from Frankfurt, if the actor has made an endorsement of the will to act, then that further counts as fault on her ledger. Finally, under the definition from Fischer, if the actor is sensitive to rational considerations of the available reasons for action, then that rational consideration is counted as fault on her ledger. One response to utilizing the ledger theory is that it does not discount intuition at all. In fact, intuition can be harmonized with the ledger theory, in that if by our intuitions we label the actor as blameworthy, then we count it as fault on the ledger. Conversely, if we feel that the actor is praiseworthy, then we may count it as credit. However, taking our intuition as part of the ledger seems backwards, especially if we subscribe to moral realism, and particularly if the hypothetical results in varying intuitions among different people. Therefore, this ledger view may provide a plausible supplemental theory that may be a basis for the alternate definitions of moral responsibility but is probably not compatible with moral intuition. Another related idea to the ledger theory may be what I call the blame shifting. 40 I propose that if there is another actor that we can shift the fault onto, then the original actor should be less at fault. For example, in the evil scientist hypothetical, the fault on the actor s ledger can be shifted onto the evil scientist so that the actor is not blameworthy anymore but the evil scientist really is at fault (and really is evil). On the other hand, if the actor cannot shift the blame onto another actor s ledger, if there were no evil scientist to shift the blame to, then the fault remains on the actor and so she remains blameworthy. One criticism of this theory may be that even if there is no evil scientist, all fault should be theoretically be shifted to other actors if there is no free will. However, this is not necessarily the case since we can adjust the rules of how or when a fault or credit can be shifted. If there are 40 I m not sure if such a theory has been proposed before, but I m taking inspiration from Adam and Eve, as well as pop psychology.

no other actors that caused the immediate circumstances of the act or the internal thoughts of the actor, then perhaps we do not allow fault to be shifted. For example, if a natural phenomenon such as rain causes the actor to have murderous thoughts for some reason, then there is no other actor that we can shift the fault on to. Another possible rule is that if there are multiple actors that contribute to a single cause, then perhaps the fault on the ledger of the one actor cannot be shifted on to these multiple actors. For example, suppose that multiple students bully a kid who then commits murder. The fault on the ledger of the kid cannot be shifted in its entirety to all the students, or only a small portion of that fault is shifted and dispersed among the many students. This theory seems to be pretty flexible and provides a further plausible supplemental basis for accepting different definitions of moral responsibility. Question remains as to whether this theory can accommodate our moral intuitions as well. Since the blame shift theory is based on the ledger theory, perhaps all the criticisms still remain. However, moral intuition does seem compatible to it, in that moral intuitions can play a role in defining the rules that shift the blame around. E. Cases in which moral responsibility is compatible with determinism The assumption that moral responsibility requires free will can be called into question in another way. There are plenty of cases in which an actor s conduct seems blameworthy even when she claims to have had no control over her actions. 41 For example, suppose the actor finds her spouse committing adultery and subsequently murders her spouse. She may claim that she did not have a choice, that in the heat of passion she lost control. Though we recognize that she may be in some ways less culpable and lessen the charge to manslaughter, we still hold the actor 41 [W]hen it comes to countless particular cases, we morally assess agents for things that depend on factors that are not in their control. Dana K. Nelkin, Moral Luck, THE STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, (June 21, 2013), http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-luck/.

ultimately morally responsible even though she describes her experience as having lost control or of lacking free will at the moment of her conduct. There are, of course, many ways to respond to this argument. First, some would respond by saying that this hypothetical is very contrived, that it requires a very specific set of circumstances and that such conduct does not comport with vast majority of our everyday experiences. I would agree with the fact that our everyday experiences tell us that we have control in most of the choices we make. However, I do not need to show that every conduct exhibits lack of control, or that for every such conduct the lack of control negates moral responsibility. All I need to show is just one single plausible hypothetical in which a conduct that exhibits lack of control does not negate moral responsibility. If the hypothetical exhibits actor s lack of control without negating her moral responsibility, then moral responsibility may be compatible with hard determinism and at least not totally incompatible. I can also respond that there are plenty of other insanity and mental disorder cases that would demonstrate that the actors did not seem to exercise free will and yet we would still be morally responsible. These cases, however, may be less convincing intuitively because some may view these actors less morally responsible. Secondly, for the hypothetical of the murderous spouse, some may respond that despite the actor s description of her own state of mind, she did in fact have control of her actions. After all, does not the law still punish her even though we reduce the charge to manslaughter? And if we still punish her, are we not saying that she did in fact have control? I would respond first by pointing out that law punishes the state of mind of the actor, not necessarily whether she had free will. 42 Second, in this hypothetical, the very nature of heat-of-passion crimes would incline us to believe her observations about her own state of mind. Most of us at some point in our lives 42 JOHN KAPLAN ET AL., CRIMINAL LAW 213 (4th ed. Aspen 2000).

experience situations in which we know what we are doing is wrong and yet are compelled to do the wrong thing anyways, especially at a point of great emotional distress. In my hypothetical and in many heat-of-passion cases, it is very plausible that the offender recognizes that what she s doing is wrong and yet due to her emotional condition feels utterly compelled to perform that wrong act anyway. Because she felt as though she had no other choice, she really lacked free will at that point in time. Yet we still would hold her responsible for her actions. Thirdly, free will is not required to explain the actor s emotional state after the conduct. After the conduct, she may feel guilty, and if we accept the alternate definition of moral responsibility using reactive attitudes, then the feeling of guilt may indicate that she was in fact morally responsible. F. Conclusion I have tried to lay out different definitions of moral responsibility so that free will is not required. The first definition relied on the blameworthiness or the reactive attitude towards the actor to assess her moral responsibility. The other definitions looked for some condition that the actor fulfilled that would make her morally responsible. One particular criticism of these conditional definitions is the evil scientist hypothetical. The hypothetical was challenged by examining our intuitions and by accounts of why these other definitions may be more compelling than our intuition in certain instances. Finally, another hypothetical was introduced in which the actor seemed to lack control and yet was still morally responsible. I hope that this paper may have convinced hard determinists to remain one and to also believe in moral responsibility (without resorting to consequentialism).