Abstract
In recent years, many incompatibilists have come to reject the traditional association of moral responsibility with alternative possibilities. Kevin Timpe argues that one such incompatibilist, Eleonore Stump, ultimately fails in her bid to sever this link. While she may have succeeded in dissociating responsibility from the freedom to perform a different action, he argues, she ends up reinforcing a related link, between responsibility and the freedom to act under a different mode. In this paper, I argue that Timpe’s response to Stump exploits concessions she need not have made. The upshot is that, contrary to what Timpe maintains, there is no reason to doubt that Stump's brand of incompatibilism is a genuine alternative to the traditional variety.
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Notes
Frankfurt (1969), p. 829.
Throughout this paper, I will use ‘incompatibilism’ to denote the view that moral responsibility is incompatible with the truth of causal determinism, whatever may be true about the freedom to do otherwise. I shall use ‘compatibilism’ to refer to responsibility-determinism compatibilism. Thus, “semi-compatibilists,” who believe that determinism is compatible with responsibility but not with the freedom to do otherwise, will be considered a subset of compatibilists.
Some influential examples include Stump (1996, 1999a, and b), Zagzebski (2000), Hunt (2000), and Pereboom (1995, 2000, and 2001). Although Kane (1996) rejects Frankfurt’s attack on PAP, he believes that PAP is false and embraces source incompatibilism. Another leading incompatibilist who seems to favor source incompatibilism is Clarke (1996).
Timpe (2006).
Stump (1999a).
Even if I accepted these conclusions, I would have reservations about Timpe’s contention that “Stump...should be considered a flicker strategist contrary to her own claims” (p. 191). After all, even if Stump is committed to a PAP-like principle (a claim I reject), she is not employing the flicker of freedom strategy in defense of such a principle. This is a minor point, however.
Kane (1996) adopts this view, offering a detailed defense in Kane 2000.
This seems to have been Kane’s early view. See Kane 1985.
Frankfurt (1969), pp. 835–836.
John Martin Fischer (1994) coins this expression in the course of arguing that not just any alternative possibility will help the PAP-defender. To plausibly ground responsibility, an alternative possibility must be “robust,” as mere flickers of freedom are not. We shall come to Fischer’s argument in due course.
To anticipate, Stump’s response to the flicker strategy differs from Fischer’s, in that Fischer is concerned to argue that, even if Jones has an alternative possibility regarding action, in the sense that the act-token he performs under Black’s impetus is distinct from the one he actually performs on his own, this alternative may not be robust enough for the PAP-defenders purposes. In short, since it does not follow that it is up to Jones whether he performs the one act-token or the other, the presence of this alternative possibility does not embody the kind of control traditionally associated with moral responsibility. More about Fischer’s response in due course.
Stump (1999a), pp. 303–305.
An important claim of Stump’s is that an action – including a mental act of willing or deciding – comes about only at the end of a neural series like D or R, so that an interrupted series isn’t a partial mental act, but no act at all. See Stump 1999b, pp. 417–418.
Stump (1999a), p. 314
If Stump means for ‘W’ to stand, not for a particular token of the willing-to-vote-Republican type, but for Jones’s doing something or other of that type, the situation looks different. In that case, the flicker strategist would presumably be saying something to the effect that the relevant type in the actual sequence is willing-to-vote-Republican-on-his-own type, and that Jones is responsible for doing something of this type only because he could have avoided doing something of this type (the relevant type in the alternative sequence being willing-to-vote-Republican-under-external-compulsion). In any case, Stump does not develop this line on behalf of the flicker strategist. Moreover, if this is what she has in mind, her denial that doing W on-his-own is an action is misleading. I shall follow Timpe in taking her to be arguing that Jones lacks alternative possibilities regarding act-tokens. (Cf. Naylor 1984.)
As Timpe (2006, pp. 197–98) notes, Stump elsewhere expressly rejects this view of act-individuation. He goes on to question the inherent plausibility of her claim that the act in the actual sequence in (G) is numerically identical with the act in the alternative sequence, as well as to point out tensions between that claim and other commitments of hers. To Timpe’s excellent discussion of these points, I wish to add only that Stump does not explicitly reject this view of event-individuation in the context of the argument I am discussing; and, in any case, the fact that this view is at least plausible gives the flicker strategist a way to resist Stump’s claims concerning (G).
Stump (1999a), p. 313f., note 34.
What is uncontroversial here is that this morally significant difference exists: Jones is responsible for his action in the actual sequence but not in the alternative sequence. What is controversial is whether this difference helps to ground the agent’s responsibility in the actual sequence. If it is indeed up to Jones which sequence comes about – and whether or not he avoids responsibility for his action – it becomes plausible to think that the difference between the two cases helps to explain Jones’s responsibility in the actual sequence. If, on the other hand, the alternative sequence embodies the mere possibility of his not being responsible, rather than the ability to avoid responsibility, the difference between the two sequences arguably cannot play this grounding role. But I anticipate.
Stump (1999a), p. 313f., note 34.
Timpe (2006), p. 197.
Timpe (2006), p. 200.
See note 13 above.
Fischer (1994), ch. 7.
For an influential presentation of this response to Fischer, see Della Rocca 1998.
Mackie (2000).
Cf. Hunt (2005).
Notice that I haven’t said that mere causal indetermination is sufficient for ultimate sourcehood, but, rather, that one can meet the conditions for ultimate sourcehood even if one has no more room to depart from the actual sequence than follows from the fact that one’s action is causally undetermined.
This is what some leeway incompatibilists do say. According David Widerker and Carl Ginet, the fundamental loci of responsibility are decisions that are both causally undetermined and internally simple. In an indeterministic Frankfurt-style case, they argue, the agent is able to decide differently before the intervener has a chance to intervene. Since an alternative possibility containing such a decision is undoubtedly robust, it would follow that indeterminism carries with it more robust alternatives than one might have thought. This response to Frankfurt’s challenge has come to be known as the Kane-Widerker-Ginet defense. See Kane 1985, p. 51, and 1996, pp. 142–43 and 191–92; Widerker 1995a and b; and Ginet 1996.
This reply is based on my comments on a presentation of Timpe’s paper at the 2004 Eastern Division meeting of the American Philosophical Association. I want to thank Kevin for his helpful response to my comments. I also want to thank Derk Pereboom for valuable feedback and discussion.
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Shabo, S. Flickers of Freedom and Modes of Action: A Reply to Timpe. Philosophia 35, 63–74 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-007-9050-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-007-9050-3