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BOOK REVIEW

Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility

By DANA KAY NELKIN

Oxford University Press, 2011. xii + 194 pp. 30.00

What must the world be like, and what must we agents be like, in order to be morally

responsible for our actions? In Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility, Dana

Nelkin develops and defends what she dubs the rational abilities view (RA) of moral

responsibility. On this compatibilist view, an agent is morally responsible for an

action, in a sense which makes it appropriate to hold her accountable for that

action, if she has the ability to do the right thing for the right reasons, or a goodthing for good reasons (7). The most distinctive features of Nelkins view are that (i)

the conditions for moral responsibility are asymmetric, (ii) those conditions are com-

patibilist, that is, consistent with a deterministic world, (iii) in which causal relations

hold between substances (rather than events) some of which are agents. An agent

exercises her rational abilities when she is determined by her nature to act for certain

reasons.The rational abilities view, Nelkin argues, coheres with many of our convictions

regarding morally responsible action. Nonetheless, each of these distinctive parts ofher thesis requires considerable defence. The asymmetry of her view implies that

whereas acting in a praiseworthy way (doing the right thing for the right reasons)

does not require the ability to do otherwise, acting in a blameworthy way, when one

does not do the right thing for the right reasons, does require that one has the ability

to so act. (Readers will note the similarities between this aspect of Nelkins view and

that of Susan Wolf (Wolf, 1980, 1990). Nelkins view considerably advances the

debate, showing how such a view can be defended against recent strands of argu-

ment.) An asymmetrical view of the conditions for moral responsibility is vulnerableto two lines of attack: (i) from those (typically incompatibilists) who argue that all free

and morally responsible action praiseworthy, blameworthy and morally neutral

requires the ability to do otherwise; (ii) from those (typically compatibilists) who

argue that no morally responsible agency requires this ability.

One of the central arguments for (i) addressed here is that fairness requires thatpraiseworthy and blameworthy actions meet the same conditions (3151). Suppose

two agents, R and S, who both act well, both exercising their rational abilities, but

only S could have done otherwise. What could be unfair about praising R? Nelkin

argues that considerations of fairness do not motivate the reservation of praise only

for those agents who could have done otherwise, as is the case for blame and otherforms of sanction. Further, focusing on moral desert, Nelkin observes that having the

ability to do otherwise does not make it harder for S to act well, so the agent who

could have done otherwise is not thereby more deserving of praise. And praising R (if

Analysis Reviews Vol 0 | Number 0 | 2012 | pp. 14 doi:10.1093/analys/ans152 The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Analysis Trust.All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected]

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we shift to a concern about distributive fairness) does not deprive S of something she

otherwise would have had (praise is not a divisible and finite good). The intuition that

alternate possibilities are required for holding an agent to account can be assuaged by

noting that compatibilist principles closely aligned with it may in fact be driving such

intuitions (such as that the agent must not have done what she did only because shecould not do otherwise (6163, cf. Frankfurt 1969)).

Having shown that arguments which require the ability to do otherwise for all

morally responsible actions do not succeed, Nelkin then considers whether her

claims might not establish too much: perhaps the ability to do otherwise is not a

necessary condition for blameworthy action either? Persuasive arguments from com-

patibilists in the past half century have suggested as much. Examples such as the

following (paraphrased from Nelkins discussion (65) of Fischer and Ravizzas case

(1999: 377)) are intended to incline us to conclude that while the agent lacks the

ability to do otherwise, she is nonetheless blameworthy:

(E) Two agents, M and J want (for some unknown reason) to kill a child, C. J

has decided to do so by pushing C to her death. M has secretly placed a moni-

toring device in Js brain, so that he can monitor Js decision and intervene were

J to decide not to push C. But J does, unwaveringly, so decide, and M, the

counterfactual intervener, in fact plays no role in Js decision and action.

Such cases would provide troubling counter-examples to Nelkins asymmetrical view:

J cannot do otherwise, but is intuitively blameworthy. Nelkin responds to this worry

by clarifying the sense of ability to do otherwise that is at issue. We are not con-

cerned with robust metaphysical alternatives (of the sort inconsistent with determin-ism), which J clearly does not have. These are alternatives in what Nelkin refers to as

the inevitability undermining sense (67).The proper sense of ability, Nelkin proposes, is that of ability in the interference-

free capacity sense (66). What is important is that the agent has the capacities, skills

and talents necessary for so acting, and is not interfered with or prevented from using

them on a particular occasion (66). J does have the ability to do otherwise in this

sense, so long as the counterfactual intervener remains purely counterfactual. Nelkin

acknowledges that this is a revisionary understanding of ability to do otherwise (70).

I think it is also one which causes trouble for her asymmetry thesis a point to which

I will return shortly.Does determinism undermine an agents abilities, in this interference-free sense?

Nelkins first step in defending a compatibilist rational abilities view is to argue

that determinism does not hinder an agents exercise of those abilities to any greater

extent than indeterminism a version of the familiar claim that no greater control is

afforded an agent simply by introducing indeterminism into the picture (75). Nelkin

then tries to establish that, on other counts, a compatibilist account is on stronger

ground than an incompatibilist view, as she advances in Chapter 4 what is one of the

most novel and interesting arguments of the book. There, Nelkin articulates a con-

ception according to which all causal relations hold between substances, some of

which are agents. Agent-causation occurs, on this view, when an agent is determined

(by her rational nature) to act for certain reasons. This account avoids various worries

that face both event-causal and standard agent-causal views respectively, such as the

disappearing agent problem which besets event-causal pictures of the world

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(on which events cause events, and agents dont seem to bring about anything); and

the disappearing reasons worry, which besets indeterministic agent-causal views,

seemingly unable to explain not only how reasons figured in an agents action

(such that she did A, rather than something else), but why she acted when she did

(9094).Nelkin then supplements her defence of the asymmetrical, compatibilist, rational

abilities view, by arguing that attention to the ought-implies-can principle provides a

clear rationale for this view: this deontic principle explains why it is important that

blameworthy action requires the ability to do otherwise (such that one can fulfil ones

obligation). But its corollary, that ought-implies can-do-otherwise (can do wrong, in

the case of praiseworthy action) cannot be established, and so does not entail that

alternatives must be available to the agent who acts well (103).

In the remaining two chapters, Nelkin turns her attention to an account of delib-

eration. Understandings of deliberation might appear to suppose that we must con-

ceive of ourselves as choosing between undetermined options, thus motivating alibertarian understanding of responsibility. Nelkin provides more robust support

for her compatibilist view, on which the best understanding of deliberation is as

requiring the commitment that we see our decisions as the difference-maker in bring-

ing about an action (142). This is entirely consistent with a deterministic picture of the

world. Likewise, the sense of freedom to which we must be rationally committed as

deliberators, Nelkin argues, is not a libertarian sense, but simply that of our actions

being up to us (our decisions being difference makers) such that we are accountable

for them (150) a sense entirely consistent with compatibilism (contra the libertarian)

and motivated by our strong and unshakeable sense of freedom (a burden for the

skeptic to explain).Nelkins arguments are rich and lucid, as she engages with the recent challenges to

compatibilism and to an asymmetrical view of responsibility. However, I remain un-

convinced that Nelkin has succeeded in establishing the asymmetry at the heart of her

view. This is because I think there is equivocal use of the notion of ability to do

otherwise. The two senses that Nelkin introduces are what we can refer to as (i)

robust metaphysical alternatives (RMA): the ability to do otherwise in the

inevitability-undermining sense; and (ii) compatibilist abilities alternatives (CAA):

the ability to act in the interference-free sense.

This distinction is introduced after Nelkin has argued that the ability to do other-

wise is not required for praiseworthy action. The sense of ability to do otherwise

rejected here seems to be RMA, and it remains unclear that CAA is not also required:

simply put, doing a good thing for good reasons just is to exercise ones rational

abilities without interference with or prevention of the exercise of those

capacities. The ability in this sense is required for both praiseworthy and blameworthy

actions.

Suppose that in example (E) above, all else remains the same but Js act is that of

saving a child, and M would intervene to ensure that this action is performed. If Ms

role remains counterfactual, then again J can surely be held accountable and praised

for her action. But if Js capacities are interfered with, such that M does intervene toensure she acts well, it is not at all clear to me that J is praiseworthy because it is not

at all clear that we can properly consider the action as Js own, manifesting an exercise

of her rational abilities. Rather, she is a conduit for Ms agency. So surely praise-

worthy action does require that an agent have the ability in the interference-free sense

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(CAA) and the asymmetry is lost. A further confounding factor is that we in fact find

two different statements of the interference-free sense of ability:

(2a) the absence of actual interference with or prevention of the exercise of

those capacities [rational abilities] (66).

2(b) that nothing is actually preventing you from acting otherwise (though it

would under different circumstances) (67)

These are not equivalent: (2a) is consistent with determinism (insofar as it does not

interfere with, or prevent the use of ones rational abilities). But (2b) is not: a deter-

ministic world does actually prevent an agent from acting otherwise. So Nelkin surely

cannot commit to (2b) as the correct understanding of CAA. But if (2a) is taken as the

correct interpretation that nothing actually interferes with or prevents the exercise of

an individuals rational capacities then it seems to me that the absence of such

interference is as much a requirement for praiseworthy action as it is for blameworthyaction, as my modification of the example makes plausible.

This worry does not damage Nelkins compatibilism, for we can accept her argu-

ment for the claim that determinism does not hinder the exercise of an individuals

rational abilities thus construed. Nor does it undermine her claim that, were praise

and blame to be asymmetrical, there would be no unfairness there. Nelkins develop-

ment of a compatibilist agent-causal view will surely cause compatibilists to recon-

sider carefully their rejection of such a metaphysical picture. But I do not think that,

on this revisionary understanding of ability to do otherwise, we should accept

Nelkins claim that the conditions for moral responsibility are asymmetric. Acting

well and acting badly both require that the agent act on the basis of her own rationalabilities, and that there is no actual interference with or prevention of their exercise.

JULES HOLROYD

University of Nottingham

University Park, NG7 2RD, UK

[email protected]

References

Fischer, J.M. and M. Ravizza. 1999. Responsibility and Control, A Theory of MoralResponsibility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Frankfurt, F. 1969. Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility. Journal of Philosophy66: 82939.

Wolf, S. 1980. Asymmetrical freedom. Journal of Philosophy 77: 15166.

Wolf, S. 1990. Freedom Within Reason. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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