Various objections have been raised to P. F. Strawson`s general theoretical approach to moral responsibility, his assumptions about human psychology and sociality, and his arguments for reconciling determinism and responsibility. A number of factors can undermine leadership control. If a person`s behavior is provoked by hypnosis, brainwashing, or truly irresistible impulses, then that person may not be morally responsible for his behavior because he or she does not lead it thoughtfully in the manner required for accountability (Fischer & Ravizza 1998:35). Specifically, an officer is unlikely to be responsible in the above circumstances because he or she “does not respond to the reasons – his or her behaviour would be the same, regardless of why” (1998: 37). Thus, Fischer and Ravizza characterize the possession of leadership control as dependent (in part) on responsiveness to reasons. In particular, leadership control depends on whether the psychological mechanism that influences an agent`s behavior responds to the reasons. (Lead control also requires an agent to have the mechanism on which it acts.
According to Fischer and Ravizza, this requires making historical conditions responsible; See §3.3.3.) If the possession of free will requires the ability to act differently than one actually does, then it is quite easy to understand why free will has often been considered incompatible with causal determinism. One way to resolve this incompatibilistic concern is to focus on how the execution of a particular action should depend on an agent if he has the kind of free will required for moral responsibility. As indicated by the argument of influential consequence (Ginet 1966; van Inwagen 1983: 55-105; Wiggins, 1973), the truth of determinism seems to mean that an agent`s actions are not his fault, since they are the inevitable consequences of things over which the agent has no control. Here is an informal summary of this argument from Peter van Inwagen`s important book, An Essay on Free Will (1983): Fischer and Ravizza`s report has attracted much attention and criticism. Some critics emphasize the contrast (just mentioned) between the conditions they impose on susceptibility to reasons and those they place on responsiveness to reasons (McKenna 2005, Mele 2006a, Watson 2001). In addition, many are unhappy with Fischer and Ravizza`s representation of their representation of the powers of mechanisms as opposed to agents. This has led some authors to develop agent-based accounts of reason and responsiveness that address the concerns that led Fischer and Ravizza to their mechanism-based approach (Brink & Nelkin 2013, McKenna 2013, Sartorio 2016). For Strawson, the largest group of released officers includes those who are significantly altered, at least for a while, to normal interpersonal relationships. These agents can be children or mentally retarded such as “schizophrenics”; they may exhibit “purely compulsive behaviour” or their minds may have been “systematically perverted” (P. Strawson 1962 [1993:51]). Alternatively, released officers may simply be “completely absent”.
in the moral sense” (P. Strawson 1962 [1993: 58]), perhaps because she is interested in “particularly unfortunate. formative circumstances” (P. Strawson, 1962, 1993: 52]). These agents are not candidates for the range of emotional responses involved in our personal relationships because they do not participate in those relationships in the right way to meaningfully apply such responses to them. Instead of adopting interpersonal attitudes (that demand respect) towards released officers, we adopt an objective attitude towards them. The released officer is not “considered a morally responsible agent”. as a member of the moral community” (P. Strawson, 1962, 1993: 59]); although it can be seen as an “object of social policy” and as something “to be managed or manipulated, healed or trained” (P.
Strawson 1962 [1993:52]). These considerations can lead to a number of skepticisms about moral responsibility (and especially blame). First, we could advocate a form of epistemic skepticism on the grounds that we rarely have a sense of whether a malefactor was acractic at an appropriate time in the etiology of a particular action – that is, was a conscious culprit (Rosen 2004). Alternatively or in addition, one could advocate a more substantial form of skepticism, because so many normal criminals do not exhibit the kind of reprehensible know-how supposedly required to be held accountable. In other words, perhaps many, many wrongdoers do not know that they are wrongdoers, and their ignorance in this regard is not their fault because it does not stem from a reasonable prior instance of wrongdoing. In this case, many, many ordinary criminals cannot be morally responsible for their behavior. (For skeptical suggestions along these lines, see M. Zimmerman 1997 and Levy 2011.) The epistemic dimension of responsibility has more to offer than what is contained in the skeptical argument above, but the argument brings out much of what is interesting in this area. On the one hand, it is based above all on a tracing strategy. This strategy is used, for example, in accounts that show a person who does not meet the conditions of control or knowledge of responsibility at the time of the action, but who still appears morally responsible for his behavior. In such a case, the Agent`s liability may be based on the fact that its failure to comply with certain conditions of liability is due to previous actions of the Agent when it has fulfilled these conditions.
For example, a person may be so intoxicated that they have no control or awareness of their behavior, and yet it may still be appropriate to blame them for their drunk behavior as long as they have voluntarily taken steps to become intoxicated. The tracing strategy plays an important role in many accountability relationships (see e.g. Fischer & Ravizza 1998: 49-51), but has also been heavily criticized (see Vargas 2005; for a response, see Fischer and Tognazzini 2009; for more information on tracing, see Khoury 2012, King 2014, Shabo 2015 and Timpe 2011). An interesting question is whether the psychopath`s inability – or at least the constant failure – to respond adequately to moral incentives is primarily the result of motivational rather than cognitive failure: does the psychopath somehow know what morality demands and simply does not care? If the latter question is answered in the affirmative (Fischer & Ravizza 1998: 76-81; Nichols 2002), then it seems likely that the psychopath may be responsible for at least some of his bad behavior. And some have argued that even though psychopathy is primarily cognitive impairment, psychopaths may still possess sufficient ability to distinguish right from wrong – or possess sufficient related abilities – to be held accountable, at least to some extent and in some way (Glannon 1997, Greenspan 2003, Maibom 2008, Schuhmacher 2014, Vargas & Nichols 2007).