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Self-Knowledge and the Minimal Conditions of Responsibility: A Traffic-Participation View on Human (Moral) Agency

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Notes

  1. Of course there are also philosophers who defend that we should give up on our practices of moral responsibility, for example, Derk Pereboom, Ted Honderich and Bruce Waller. I am here concerned with the scientist writing on free will. E.g., Gazzaniga, M.S., The Ethical Brain (New York: Dana Press, 2005); Wegner, D.M., The Illusion of Conscious Will (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002).

  2. Cf. Sie, M., “Moral Agency, Conscious Control, and Deliberative Awareness.” Inquiry 52,5 (2009): 516–531.

  3. As is familiar, Haidt contrasts his model with the so-called rationalist picture according to which rational processes precede and determine our moral judgments, not intuitions. In this sense his model is about how moral judgments come into existence.

  4. The rationalist tradition Haidt targets is the one influential in psychology and that is associated with Kohlberg.

  5. E.g., Sauer, H., Educated Intuitions. A Rationalist Theory of Moral Judgment. Dissertation. (Groningen, University of Groningen: FC); Fine, C., “Is the Emotional Dog Wagging Its Rational Tail or Chasing It?” Philosophical Explorations no. 9,1 (2006): 83–98; Mackenzie, C., 2012, “Emotions, Reflection and Moral Agency.” In Langdon, R., and Mackenzie, C. (eds.), Emotions, Imagination and Moral Reasoning (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2012, pp. 237–255); Clarke, S., 2008, “SIM and the City: Rationalism in Psychology and Philosophy and Haidt’s Account of Moral Judgment.” Philosophical Psychology 21,6 (1995): 799–820.

  6. That is, we constantly interact with one another, often even when alone by thinking about others or ourselves viewed from the perspective of others.

  7. I do not think this comes as a surprise to people who are used to reflect on human and moral agency—such as, for example, moral philosophers—but does come as a surprise to many others. I also believe that it is easy to see why moral philosophers focus on post crash agency—what we ought (not) to do with our lives, in dilemma’s or confronted with difficult situations—whereas scientist-‘studying moral agency’ are interested mainly in its participatory nature. Moral philosophers address and are interested in the normativity of the moral domain (what we should do), whereas scientists tend to be interested in describing it (what norms and values are actually disclosed in our practices). However, when, as the TPV understands it, a lot of what we do, we learn by participating in complex social practices and without exactly knowing why we do what we do, describing the moral domain, as I argued elsewhere, is of huge normative importance. Sie, M., “Moral Soulfulness. Is Scientific Study of Moral Agency Relevant to Ethical Reflection?” In Lumer, C. (ed.), Morality in Times of Naturalising the Mind (Frankfurt; Paris; Ebikon; Lancaster; New Brunswick: Gruyter, FC).

  8. Soon, C., Brass, M., Heinze, H.J., Haynes, and John, D., 2008, “Unconscious Determinants of Free Decisions in the Human Brain.” In: Nat Neurosci (Nature Publishing Group, 2008): 543–545; Libet, B., Gleason, C.A., et al., 1983, “Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential): The Unconscious Initiation of a Freely Voluntary Act.” Brain 106(2), 623–642; Gazzaniga 2005, op. cit.

  9. Wolfe, T., “Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died.” Forbes Magazine 158,13 (1996): 210 e.v.; Greene J.D., “Social Neuroscience and the Soul’s Last Stand.” In Todorov, A., Fiske, S., and Prentice, D. (eds.), Social Neuroscience: Toward Understanding the Underpinnings of the Social Mind (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011).

  10. Wegner 2002, op. cit., p. 334.

  11. Dennett, D., Freedom Evolves. Penguin. no. 10,1 (2003):107–111; 107–111. doi: 10.1016/0092-6566(76)90088-X, Hallet, M., “What does the Brain Know and When Does it Know It?” In Caruso, G. (ed.), Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (USA: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, 2013: 255–263) (ISBN: 978-0-7391-7731-0); Roskies, A., “Neuroscientific Challenges to Free Will and Responsibility.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 10,9 (2006): 419–423. Many others regard the neuro-scientific findings as irrelevant to their views on free will. They do not believe that determinist processes are incompatible with free will to begin with, hence, do not understand why deterministic processes in our brain would be, see Sie, M., and Wouters, A.G., “The BCN Challenge to Compatibilist Free Will and Personal Responsibility.” Neuroethics 3 (2010), 121–133; Sie, M., and Wouters, A.G., “The Real Challenge to Free Will and Responsibility.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 12,1 (2008): 3–4.

  12. Hassin, Ran R., James S. Uleman, John A. Bargh, and ebrary Inc. The New Unconscious, Oxford Series in Social Cognition and Social Neuroscience (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), Gazzinga 2005, op. cit.

  13. Ross, D., Spurrett, D., Harold, K., and Stephens, G.L. (eds.), 2007, in: Distributed Cognition and the Will. Individual Volition and Social Context, MIT.

  14. Wegner op. cit.; Nisbett, R.E., and Wilson, T.D., “Telling More Than We Can Know: Verbal Reports on Mental Processes.” Psychological Review 84 (1977): 231–259. Wilson, T.D., Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2002). Fine 2006, op cit.

  15. The literature on such influences that escape our awareness has grown enormously during the last decades and some there is some controversy over whether such findings show the limitations of our so-called rationality, see for example, Tversky, A., and Kahneman, D., “The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice.” Science 211, 4481 (1981): 453–458; Tversky, Amos and Kahneman, Daniel, 1986, “Rational Choice and the Framing of Decisions.” The Journal of Business 59, No. 4, S251–S278; Thaler, R.H., and Sunstein, C.R., Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008). For an overview see: Sie, M., “Free Will an Illusion? An Answer from a Pragmatic Sentimentalist Point of View.” In Caruso, G. (ed.), Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (USA: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, 2013: 273–289) (ISBN: 978-0-7391-7731-0).

  16. Clarke, T.W., 2013, “Experience and Autonomy. Why Conscious Does and Doesn’t Matter.” In Caruso, G. (ed.), Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (USA: Lexington Books, Rowman & Littlefield, 2013: 239–253) (ISBN: 978-0-7391-7731-0).

  17. Gazzaniga 2005, op cit., p. 94.

  18. Sie, M., FC, op cit.

  19. E.g., Gazzaniga 2005, op cit., pp. 148–152, Dennett 2003, op cit., pp. 244–245, 252, Wegner 2002 op cit.

  20. Haidt, J., “The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment.” Psychological Review 108 (2001): 822.

  21. It is not clear whether people actually believe that we are introspectively transparent, or what it is that they believe in believing that. See Kozuch, B., and Nichols, S., “Awareness of Unawareness: Folk Psychology and Introspective Awareness.” Journal of Consciousness Studies 18, 11–12 (2011): 135–160. Kozuch’s and Nichols preliminary finding suggest that people do in general overestimate the amount of introspective access to their own mental states.

  22. Haidt, J., and Bjorklund, F., “Social Intuitionists Answer Six Questions About Moral Psychology.” In Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology. Vol. 2. The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008a: 188).

  23. Haidt, 2001, op cit.; Greene, J., and Haidt, J., “How (and Where) Does Moral Judgment Work?” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6,11 (2002): 517–523. Also see Uhlmann, Pizarro, Tannenbaum, and Ditto, 2009. “The Motivated Use of Moral Principles.” Judgment and Decision Making 4,6 (2009): 476–491.

  24. Kennett, J., and Fine, C., “Will the Real Moral Judgment Please Stand Up? The Implications of Social Intuitionist Models of Cognition for Meta-ethics and Moral Psychology.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 12 (2009): 77–96; Fine 2006 op cit.; Jacobson, D., “Does Social Intuitionism Flatter Morality or Challenge it?” In Sinnott-Armstrong, W. (ed.), Moral Psychology. Vol. 2. The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008: pp. 219–232); Narvaez, Darcia, 2008, “The Social Intuitionist Model: Some Counter-Intuitions.” In Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology. Vol. 2. The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008: pp. 233–240), Mackenzie 2012, op cit.

  25. Greene and Haidt 2002, op cit.; Bjorklund and Haidt 2008a, op cit., Haidt, J., and Bjorklund, F., “Social Intuitionist Reason, in Conversation.” In Sinnott-Armstrong (ed.), Moral Psychology. Vol. 2. The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008b: 241–254).

  26. E.g., Mackenzie 2012, op cit., Narvaez 2008, op cit.

  27. Davidson, D., 1980. Essays on Actions and Events. Clarendon Press, Oxford (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).

  28. Wilson 2002, op cit.; Hassin, Uleman et al. 2005, op cit.; Fine 2006, op cit.

  29. Dennett 2003, op cit., chapter 8 and 9.

  30. Chaiken, S., and Y. Trope, Dual-Process Theories in Social Psychology (New York: Guilford, 2002), also see the work of Joshua Greene for the application of dual process theories in the moral domain.

  31. Some moral philosophers might reject my colloquial use the label ‘moral’ because they reserve this label for actions of a very particular nature. It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss this issue in a manner that does justice to it. For the purposes of my argument those philosophers could star the label moral* whenever I use it, and understand it to refer to the mundane way in which sometimes use that label to qualify acts and actions. Nothing in my argument precludes the availability of a separate class of actions deserving the label ‘moral’ as they understand it.

  32. I believe this is actually a widely accepted assumption with respect to reasons among moral philosophers who, quite unlike the popular assumption, do not seem to believe that deliberative awareness and conscious control are all pervasive aspects of our everyday lives. Sie 2009, op cit.

  33. Which is not to say that even in those cases there are aspects of what we did and the way in which we did them that we are not aware of and/or are not capable of articulating.

  34. Sie FC, op cit.

  35. Also, see Sie 2013, op cit., Sie 2009, op cit.

  36. Bratman, M., Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press, 1987).

  37. E.g. Velleman, D., How We Get Along (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

  38. Strawson, P., “Freedom and Resentment.” In Watson, G. (ed.), Free Will, 59–81 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962).

  39. Also see Sie, M., Justifying Blame. Why Free Will Matters and Why it Does Not (VIBS: Rodopi, 2005).

  40. Strawson, op cit., p. 66.

  41. Bjorklundt and Haidt 2008b, op cit., p. 253.

  42. See e.g., Jacobson 2008, op cit., Clarke, S., 2008, “SIM and the City: Rationalism in Psychology and Philosophy and Haidt’s Account of Moral Judgment.” Philosophical Psychology 21,6 (1995): 799–820.

  43. See e.g. Foot, P., 1972, “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives.” The Philosophical: 310 and Mackie, J.L. 1977, “The Subjectivity of Values.” Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong (1977): 42–43. However, and this is what many moral philosophers in contemporary meta-ethical discussions focus on, acknowledging the role of our moral upbringing and ‘internalized social pressure’ to understand the pull of morality, does not answer the question what it means for something to be morally required or what it means for certain judgments to be considered moral judgments, judgment of certain authoritative kind.

  44. This analogy is taken from a Dutch paper, Sie, M., “Keuze-architectuur of Individuele Verantwoordelijkheid? Een filosofische bijdrage.” Management en Organisatie 6 (2012): 127–140.

  45. Strawson famously tried to ‘change the subject’ of this discussion by introducing the idea that treating one another as morally responsible agents is not something we do on the basis of some theoretical assumption such as free will. Rather, so he argued, our moral reactive attitudes to one another are natural and inevitable (and rational).

  46. Velleman, David, “What Happens When Someone Acts?” Mind 101, 403 (1992).

  47. As said, I refer to this as ‘ascriptions of moral responsibility’—which I believe to be quite in line with the original intention of the champion of these attitudes, Peter F. Strawson’s (Strawson 1962, op cit.).

  48. Pettit, P. (2007). Neuroscience and Agent-control. In: Ross, D., Spurrett, D., Harold, K., and Stephens, G.L. (eds.), Distributed Cognition and the Will. Individual Volition and Social Context (MIT, 2007), p. 77.

  49. Ibid. p. 81.

  50. Ibid. p. 84.

  51. Ibid. p. 86.

  52. Ibid. p. 88.

  53. Sie FC, op cit.

  54. Thanks to Nicole van Voorst Vader, Arno Wouters, Philip Robichaud en Filippo Santoni de Sio for discussions on earlier version of this paper, the editors of the special issue for valuable comments and corrections, Myrthe van Nus for proofreading and struggling through Endnote troubles. I also thank the Dutch Organization of Scientific Research (NWO) that financed the research-project from which this paper is one of the results.

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    Maureen Sie

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Sie, M. Self-Knowledge and the Minimal Conditions of Responsibility: A Traffic-Participation View on Human (Moral) Agency. J Value Inquiry 48, 271–291 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-014-9424-2

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