Abstract
This paper revisits the issue of whether responsibility is essentially historical. Roughly, the leading question here is this: Do ways in which we can acquire pertinent antecedents of action, such as beliefs, desires, and values, have an essential bearing on whether we are responsible for actions that are suitably related to these antecedents? I argue, first, that Michael McKenna’s interesting case for nonhistoricism is indecisive, and, second, his brand of modest historicism, while highly insightful, yields results concerning responsibility that ought to be resisted. I conclude by motivating a hybrid view: it implies that responsibility does not require that one have a past, but should one have a past, it must be a past of a certain sort.
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Notes
I use ‘internalism’ and ‘nonhistoricism,’ as well as ‘externalism’ and ‘historicism’ interchangeably, ignoring what may be legitimate differences between members of each pair (see, e.g. Zimmerman 2003). Among historical compatibilists are Mele (1995, 2006), Fischer and Ravizza (1998), Haji (1998), and Haji and Cuypers (2008). Nonhistorical compatibilists include Frankfurt (1975), Wolf (1987), Dworkin (1988), Double (1991), Arpaly (2006), Berofsky (2006), Vargas (2006), and Watson (1999).
References to this paper are to a pre-publication draft.
On this point see Arpaly (2003, p. 128).
Page references to this paper are from a pre-publication manuscript.
See, e.g., Mele (1995, pp. 169–72).
References to this paper are to a pre-publication draft.
I merely assume that young children have some unsheddable values. Lest this strike one as untenable—I certainly have doubts about this assumption—imagine that the little Beths are human-like agents who have unsheddable values.
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Acknowledgments
I thank Gunnar Björnsson, Damir Cicic, Zac Cogley, Michael McKenna, Al Mele, Derk Pereboom, Paul Russell, and Patrick Todd for their valuable comments on a previous draft. Many thanks, too, to the Central European University, Budapest, for the opportunity to present this paper at a workshop on manipulation.
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Haji, I. Historicism, Non-historicism, or a Mix?. J Ethics 17, 185–204 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-013-9146-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-013-9146-x