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Notes
All references to Fischer and Tognazzini in this rejoinder are to their (2009) reply to me in this issue of the journal.
This passage is reproduced in Fischer and Tognazzini (2009, note 11), and I invite the reader to come to his or her own conclusions regarding its most natural construal.
Compare Otsuka (1998, p. 692, note 20).
In Otsuka (1998), I distinguish the Principle of Avoidable Blame from the Principle of Alternate Possibilites as follows:
unlike the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, the Principle of Avoidable Blame does not impose, as a requirement of blameworthiness for performing an act of a given type, that one have been capable of refraining from performing an act of the given type for which one is worthy of blame. So long as one could instead have been entirely blameless while performing an act of this type, one can be blameworthy for performing, even if one could not have refrained from performing, an act of this type (p. 690).
I also offer the following remarks on nomenclature:
like the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, the Principle of Avoidable Blame states that the presence of an alternate possibility is a necessary condition of blameworthiness. Were it not for the fact that the Principle of Alternate Possibilities is already so well known by that name, I would have given it a name that differentiates it from the Principle of Avoidable Blame and subsumed both it and the Principle of Avoidable Blame under a genus by the name of “Principles of Alternate Possibilities” (p. 688, note 10).
Fischer and Tognazzini (2009, note 19) mention that some have offered a “Dilemma Defense” of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities against the onslaught of Frankfurt’s counterexample. I believe that what I have just said in the paragraph in the main text above to which this note is attached can be deployed in order to show that the Dilemma Defense fails as a defense of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities against Frankfurt’s counterexample. My own defense of the Principle of Avoidable Blame, in this rejoinder to Fischer and Tognazzini’s critique, involves a charge of question-begging that is, in certain respects, analogous to one of the moves that comprises the Dilemma Defense of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities. But this does not render my approach “identical to or reducible to the invocation of the Dilemma Defense on behalf of [the Principle of Alternate Possibilities],” since I do not invoke, but rather reject, such a defense of the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, and my approach does not otherwise overlap to any great extent with the Dilemma Defense.
See Otsuka (1998, pp. 692–693) for further remarks in elaboration of this point. Fischer and Tognazzini (2009, note 18) misdescribe these remarks as an attempt to show that one of the horns of the dilemma that I pose in Otsuka (1998, p. 691) is problematic. The remarks in question are not about this dilemma. They further mischaracterize these remarks when they write that I stated that “in order for Black to intervene in such a way that Jones could not have behaved blamelessly, Black would have to set things up such that he would literally force Jones to commit the murder in the alternative sequence.” Rather, I stated that neither intervention that involves irresistible force nor intervention that does not involve irresistible force would succeed in ensuring that Jones could not have behaved blamelessly in any alternative sequence. I am also puzzled by their claim that “a successful counterexample against [the Principle of Avoidable Blame] does not require that Jones is blameworthy in the alternative sequence; rather, blameworthiness in the actual sequence is sufficient.” Given the logical structure of the principle, a successful counterexample is, as I write in Otsuka (1998, p. 691), one “in which Jones is blameworthy (under at least one description of what he has actually done) but could not instead have behaved in a manner for which he would have been entirely blameless.” It follows that blameworthiness in the actual sequence is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition of a successful counterexample. It is not a sufficient condition because one also needs to establish that Jones could not instead have behaved in a manner for which he would have been entirely blameless. Moreover, Jones’s blameworthiness or blamelessness in any alternative sequences that might be available to him is of obvious relevance to the question of whether he could instead have behaved in a manner for which he would have been entirely blameless.
In Otsuka (1998, Section II), I attempt to provide a positive case for the Principle of Avoidable Blame that goes beyond a defense of it against Frankfurt-type counterexample. I grant that this positive case is in need of further development. I should note, however, that I state a bit more than that for which Fischer and Tognazzini give me credit. That extra bit involves a presentation on p. 697 of contrasting “How dare you …” complaints that are available against, on the one hand, someone who knew she could have behaved less badly and, on the other hand, someone who could not have behaved less badly [I should also note that, while I endorse the claim that an agent is blameworthy only if she could have behaved less badly, I do not endorse the stronger claims attributed to me by Fischer and Tognazzini that “an agent is blameworthy only if she knew that she could have behaved less badly” or that “for an agent to be blameworthy, she must have known (or at least ought to have known) that she was free to behave less badly.” I endorse a more restricted version of the latter claim that applies to agents who malevolently inflict pain, but I refrain from generalizing this particular claim to all agents who behave badly].
References
Fischer, J., and N. Tognazzini. 2009. Blame and avoidability: A reply to Otsuka. The Journal of Ethics 13. doi:10.1007/s10892-009-9056-0.
Frankfurt, H. 1969. Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility. The Journal of Philosophy 66: 829–839.
Otsuka, M. 1998. Incompatibilism and the avoidability of blame. Ethics 108: 685–701.
Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to John Fischer and Neal Tognazzini for their challenging, illuminating, and lucid critique. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank John in print for leading me down the path to becoming a philosopher by providing me with such a compelling introduction to the subject when I was an undergraduate, and he an assistant professor, at Yale in the mid-eighties. I thank Kieran Setiya and Karin Boxer for discussion of this critique that has informed my rejoinder and Pete Graham for comments on this rejoinder.
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Otsuka, M. A Rejoinder to Fischer and Tognazzini. J Ethics 14, 37–42 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-009-9057-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-009-9057-z