Are we responsible for our actions?
“Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does”
Jean-Paul Sartre
We are responsible for the choices we freely make but not for events which are outside our control. With freedom comes responsibility and accountability and that can be a heavy burden.
The “Principle of Alternative Possibilities” asserts that “a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise”.
Alternatively, we can say that “a person is morally responsible for what he consents to”.
Generally we can assume others have free will, whether or not they actually do have it, without any contradictions emerging. Indeed, we have no way of being certain that another person has free-will or, if so, to what extent. However, practical problems start to emerge as soon as we enter the area of justice, praise and blame, reward and punishment.
So to what extent, if at all, are we responsible for our actions? To what extent is it fair and just to punish or praise someone for what they have done? The answer depends on our underlying beliefs.
Responsibility under Hard Determinism
Hard determinism asserts that we not responsible for anything we do. We are merely observers as the laws of physics play out so moral responsibility does not exist for a person any more than it does for a machine. It would make no more sense than to say we were responsible for what happens in a football match which we are watching on TV or to say that the sun is responsible for shining.
Responsibility under Libertarianism
Libertarianism would assert that we do have some freedom to choose but that this freedom is limited by external constraints which could be anything from being locked up in prison to having a brain injury.
Libertarianism would therefore draw a distinction between actions for which an agent is responsible and those for which he is not. We react to a person’s action differently depending on whether we believe it was freely chosen and, if it was not, then according to the nature of the constraint or the duress which was applied.
This can be seen when we consider people who, for whatever reason, may be considered to be less culpable because of “diminished responsibility”. They are treated more as automata and less as free agents and the punishment, or therapy, which is meted out reflects this.
Applying measures such as reward or punishment may have benefits in changing the behaviour of the recipient and of others looking on but to use the word “justice” is no more appropriate then applying it to correcting or improving the performance of a machine. There is no intent involved, just automatic responses.
In practice, the main determinant of how an agent is treated is the pragmatic result of reward and punishment in controlling behaviour regardless of its justice or its fairness. A person’s responsibility for their actions is then likely to be defined by whether, or not, their behaviour can be changed by reward or punishment.
Even if we are not just our brains and bodies, we do rely on these for interacting with the world in a similar way that a car driver relies on the car for transport. If there is an accident then it could be down to driver error, for which he would be responsible, or mechanical failure of the car, for which he might not.
Likewise, a particular behaviour might be the responsibility of the person if it was chosen and consented to, alternatively it could be due to a brain malfunction or due to having received false information.
How one tells the difference is problematic. It depends on what we believe constitutes the “driver” and what constitutes the “car”. This has been the subject of many arguments about mitigation by “diminished responsibility” in courts of law.
When we allow for the existence of some freedom of choice, an unknown is where to place the boundary between the person, as an agent, and the external world. For instance, is it our eyes? our optic nerve? The V1 part of the brain, some other part of the brain? Or a separate entity which is connected to the brain in a similar way in which a driver is connected to a car?
Since this is unknown and is the subject of shakily founded beliefs, the way we treat other people is more to do with either producing a desired change in behaviour or to an emotional response to being wronged or blessed by others, regardless of justice or truth.
The tangles we get caught up in when we consider moral responsibility are well illustrated by the song in West Side Story performed in the video below.
This kind of dilemma often happens in courts of law. Some examples are given here.
Without true free will, which is ruled out by physicalism, the concept of justice, as opposed to correction, loses its meaning.
Responsibility under Compatibilism
Compatibilism affirms a deterministic world but redefines “freedom” in such a way that there is no contradiction. This weakened version of freedom leads to a weak version of responsibility and accountability as we see on the next page.