Abstract
Compatibilists argue, famously, that it is a simple incompatibilist confusion to suppose that determinism implies fatalism. Incompatibilists argue, on the contrary, that determinism implies fatalism, and thus cannot be consistent with the necessary conditions of moral responsibility. Despite their differences, however, both parties are agreed on one important matter: the refutation of fatalism is essential to the success of the compatibilist strategy. In this contribution I argue that compatibilism requires a richer conception of fatalistic concern; one that recognizes the legitimacy of (pessimistic) concerns about the origination of character and conduct. On this basis I argue that any plausible compatibilist position must concede that determinism has fatalistic implications of some significant and relevant kind, and thus must allow that agents may be legitimately held responsible in circumstances where they are subject to fate. The position generated by these compatibilist concessions to incompatibilism will be called ‘compatibilist-fatalism’.
I am grateful to Ton van den Beld, Richard Double, Richard Gale, David Gauthier, Walter Glannon, Saul Smilansky, Jay Wallace, and Allen Wood for helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this contribution. For further helpful comments and discussion I would like to thank audiences at Simon Fraser, Washington (Seattle), British Columbia, Edinboro (Pennsylvania), Virginia and, especially, the Utrecht conference on ‘Moral Responsibility and Ontology’.
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References
R.E. Hobart, ‘Free Will as involving Determination and Inconceivable Without It’, reprinted in Bernard Berofsky, ed, Free Will and Determinism ( New York: Harpers & Row, 1966 ), 82.
Daniel Dennett is the most prominent contemporary defender of the (classical) refutation argument. As an example of `local fatalism’ he describes circumstances where a person has thrown himself off the Golden Gate Bridge and then asks if this is really such a good idea. For this person, Dennett observes, `deliberation has indeed become impotent’. Dennett, Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 104. The point is, however, that these circumstances are `abnormal’ in a deterministic world and deliberation is generally effective, not futile (p.106).
The sort of fatalistic circumstances that the refutation argument is concerned with (i.e. situations that concern the `causal impotence’ or `futility’ of deliberation - Elbow Room,15,104,106) may nevertheless vary in significant ways. Compare, for instance, Dennett’s `bogeymen’ examples such as being controlled by `the Peremptory Puppeteer’ and `the Hideous Hypnotist’ (Elbow Room,8–9). As Dennett points out, the phenomenology of agency/fatalism is very different in these cases.
There are exceptions to this generalization. See, e.g., Isaiah Berlin, Four Essays on Liberty (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1969), xiii. Although Berlin accepts the refutation argument and its associated understanding of fatalism, he nevertheless argues for the responsibility-incompatibilist claim on independent grounds.
Some incompatibilists, of course, object to deterministic metaphysics on the ground that it implies `mechanism’, and this is incompatible with the sort of purposive explanations that are essential to responsible agency. This distinct and more radical line of incompatibilist reasoning (which Dennett labels as worries about ‘sphexishness’; Elbow Room,10–14) is not essential to their position. On this see Watson’s introduction to Free Will, 11–14.
For a discussion and interpretation of the relevance of the origination/contribution distinction for the free will debate see Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981), 313. Nozick interprets fatalism as denying that our actions have any `contributory value’, and the problem of causal determinism as the suggestion that our actions would be left without `originatory value’.
For an influential and illuminating discussion that articulates these incompatibilist intuitions see Thomas Nagel, ‘Moral Luck’, reprinted in Gary Watson, ed., Free Will (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); esp. 183 on `genuine agency’ and ‘shrinking’ responsibility. Another similarly important and interesting discussion of these matters is presented in Gary Watson, ‘Responsibility and the Limits of Evil:Variations on a Strawsonian Theme’, reprinted in J. M. Fischer & M. Ravizza, Eds., Perspectives on Moral Responsibility (Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press, 1993); esp. 143–44 on ‘origination’ and the ‘historical dimension’ of responsibility. Both Nagel and Watson (consistent with usual incompatibilist concerns) emphasize the relevance of worries about ‘origination’ for issues of responsibility.
It is no coincidence, for example, that Dennett’s account of responsibility is wholly pragmatic and forward-looking in character (Elbow Room,156–65). On this see Gary Watson’s review of Elbow Room in the Journal of Philosophy,83 (1986), 517–22.
Susan Wolf, Freedom Within Reason ( New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990 ), 40–45.
See, in particular, Nagel’s remarks on ‘the contributions of fate’ and their tendency ‘to erode most of the moral assessments we find it natural to make’ (‘Moral Luck’, esp. 176, 180, 180). I note in passing that not all incompatibilists would accept that their position should be interpreted in terms of concerns about ‘origination’. Some, for example, may articulate their incompatibilism in terms of the issue of ‘alternate possibilities’ or ‘freedom to do otherwise’. Incompatibilists concerns of this nature, however, depend on a particular (‘categorical’) interpretation of these requirements which on analysis, it may be argued, reflect (deeper) concerns about origination. It suffices, in any case, that concerns about origination constitute a standard incompatibilist perspective on the free will issue. For the purpose of concise presentation, therefore, I will not elaborate on these complexities.
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Russell, P. (2000). Compatibilist-Fatalism. In: van den Beld, T. (eds) Moral Responsibility and Ontology. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2361-9_15
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