tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post3728119395450357080..comments2023-10-29T10:32:36.914-04:00Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: On Rosen's MR-SkepticismRichard Y Chappellhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-30821490302433311272013-03-11T16:11:33.631-04:002013-03-11T16:11:33.631-04:00(At least, it's open to us to run the argument...(At least, it's open to us to run the argument using the epistemic sense of reasonableness. I guess in footnote 2 of the paper I remain officially neutral on that. But even if we run the argument in terms of <i>moral</i> reasonableness, we shouldn't collapse this into blameworthiness -- as Rosen agrees, it's one thing to say a person "should have known better", and another to say that they're culpable for this failure.)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-63938490405750703802013-03-11T16:02:07.086-04:002013-03-11T16:02:07.086-04:00I'm using "reasonable" here in an ep...I'm using "reasonable" here in an <i>epistemic</i> sense, and it should be uncontroversial that one can be epistemically unreasonable (or irrational) in making a certain judgment <i>regardless</i> of whether or not one's current irrationality is traceable to some past moral failing.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-89485937045013389542013-03-11T13:57:46.102-04:002013-03-11T13:57:46.102-04:00Coming really late to this but I wonder if you'...Coming really late to this but I wonder if you're begging the question by distinguishing between "reasonable" and "unreasonable" ignorance. Rosen could reply that ignorance is only unreasonable if one is morally culpable for that ignorance, or if the actions (or lack thereof) that lead to that ignorance are morally blameworthy. If establishing that is similarly difficult, we're unjustified in judging a particular case of ignorance unreasonable, and therefore, because it might be reasonable, there's stronger cause for believing it exculpates morally wrong conduct.Dylanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16655480359417356322noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-4664538774952577272009-05-31T05:39:18.645-04:002009-05-31T05:39:18.645-04:00Hi Alex,
Would it help if I spoke of an 'exercise...Hi Alex,<br /><br />Would it help if I spoke of an 'exercise of agency' rather than an 'action'? I'm really only wanting to use this distinction for very clear-cut Jekyll-type cases, so I don't think it should be considered at all fishy. But I'm very open to suggestions about how to make this clearer to readers.<br /><br />"<I>This reminds me a lot of Galen Strawson's well known argument against the possibility of responsibility</I>"<br /><br />Maybe, though I should stress that Rosen isn't committed to any kind of strong '<A HREF="http://www.philosophyetc.net/2008/12/ultimate-responsibility.html" REL="nofollow">ultimate sourcehood</A>' requirement on <I>actions</I>. It is merely passive occurrences (e.g. ignorance) for which being responsible requires <I>being responsible for bringing it about</I>. I actually think the underlying structure and central issues for the two arguments will turn out to be pretty different (despite the surface similarity). But yeah, I should probably look into this a bit more, just to be sure.Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-55598978683711433962009-05-31T04:52:57.736-04:002009-05-31T04:52:57.736-04:00I need to think about this some more Ricard, but h...I need to think about this some more Ricard, but here's a couple of immediate thoughts. (I'm not sure about the second, perhaps I'm misunderstanding the dialetic here):<br /><br />1) This reminds me a lot of Galen Strawson's well known argument against the possibility of responsibility - it might be worth comparing what you want to say against Rosen with what others have said against Galen.<br /><br />2)<br />"Responsibility is better understood as a three-place relation between an agent, an act of theirs (which I will call the 'focal act'), and an event (or set of events) for which the agent's action renders him liable. Intuitively: we are responsible, in acting a certain way, for various outcomes."<br /><br />This strikes me as philosophically perplexing. Often we describe actions in such a way as to be identical with their consequences. In writing a PhD, you might be "securing yourself a job", or "revolutionising the discipline", or "ruining your life". Actions come under descriptions, and some such descriptions seem to just be the consequences of the relevant act. So it's not clear that we can distinguish actions and their consequences so sharply as you wish.<br /><br />It's true that it's harder to blur this line for the Jekyll case. But this is precisely why the example looks a little fishy. It looks like an extremely non-standard case, of which multiple interpretations might be possible. ("Hard cases make bad law", and all that.)<br /><br />As I say, I'm not sure about this, but it looks like more could be said in favour of distinguishing actions from their consequences, and that less contestable examples might serve you better.<br /><br />Let me rephrase this: I'm not really objecting to what you say, but I do wonder if there are better ways to make the same point.Alex Gregoryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03836914221864280274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-19028287481925071592009-05-28T06:08:44.471-04:002009-05-28T06:08:44.471-04:00"It seems plausible that an agent is blameworthy i..."<I>It seems plausible that an agent is blameworthy if he refrains from performing an act he believes to be morally required of him.</I>"<br /><br /><A HREF="http://www.philosophyetc.net/2009/02/rational-akrasia.html" REL="nofollow">Not necessarily</A>. Consider Huck Finn, who believes that he ought to return runaway slaves to their "rightful owners", but is sufficiently responsive to Jim's humanity that he ends up acting against this belief. In so doing, he seems entirely praiseworthy. There's nothing at all blameworthy about being moved by [what are in fact] genuine moral considerations (even without recognizing them as such). Being <I>so moved </I>by sympathy as to override one's explicit (false) judgments seems entirely appropriate in this situation.<br /><br />(Of course, if he instead refrained out of sheer laziness, or some such, then that would reflect less well on him...)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-1104619600230155102009-05-28T05:42:58.357-04:002009-05-28T05:42:58.357-04:00Hey Richard, thanks alot for the reply.
Re (2): ...Hey Richard, thanks alot for the reply. <br /><br />Re (2): I wonder if going the way you suggest might yield a funny result. Suppose jones finds himself with a bad character (which he does not have because of prior free choices). Due to his character he forms an unreasonable belief which leads him to think that he is obligated to perform impermissable act X. Suppose also that he can't currently change his belief. It seems plausible that an agent is blameworthy if he refrains from performing an act he believes to be morally required of him. But if we say that Jones would also be blameworthy for doing X then it appears that there is nothing he can do(or could have done) in order to avoid being blameworthy. But then if we were to blame Jones, couldn't he legitimately complain "but what would you have had me do"?<br /><br />I suppose this would only be a problem if something like PAP is true.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03188140463057464846noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-21891593833887089912009-05-28T02:03:06.459-04:002009-05-28T02:03:06.459-04:00Hi Philip,
(1) I think the claim "Jekyll is blame...Hi Philip,<br /><br />(1) I think the claim "Jekyll is blameworthy for vandalizing" is ambiguous. If understood as claiming that he is blameworthy qua vandalizing actor, then it is false. If instead understood as claiming that Jekyll is blameworthy for <I>the event</I> of vandalism occurring, then it's true.<br /><br />(2) No, I don't think we need to assume that past choices contributed to our present unreasonableness. So yes, I think the agent you describe <I>could</I> be blameworthy for his bad first choice. (It helps if we imagine that his false belief is partly caused by malicious motivations -- as I mention in a footnote, it could be the moral vice, not just the epistemic one, that's doing the work here.)Richard Y Chappellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16725218276285291235noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6642011.post-23259859514645857782009-05-28T00:42:16.751-04:002009-05-28T00:42:16.751-04:00Interesting post. two questions:
First, on your vi...Interesting post. two questions:<br />First, on your view (where the agent is not responsible qua act in the derivative cases) will it still be true that Jekyll is blameworthy for vandalizing? This seems seems like the intuitive thing to say but it also makes it sound like Jekyll is responsible for the act. <br /><br />second, do you think that the reason we find it so plausible that in cases of 'unreasonable ignorance'the agent is responsible might be because we assume the agent's past choices contribute to his believing unreasonably, and thus that he is culpable for his ignorance. Imagine an agent who prior to making any choices at all forms an unreasonable false belief which leads him to then make a bad first choice. He is clearly not culpable for the false belief. Would you say that he can be blameworthy for his bad choice?Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03188140463057464846noreply@blogger.com