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Free Will and Moral Responsibility Free Will and Moral Responsibility Recall from our previous classes that the main difference between compatibilists and libertarians lies in their definition of free will: 1. The ability to act without being forced to do so (the compatibilist definition) 2. When we act, we could have done otherwise (the libertarian definition; note that hard determinists use the same definition) We need to distinguish determinism from fatalism, the belief that events are inevitable, and there’s nothing we can do to change them (as with Oedipus Rex). Under fatalism, your actions have no effect on whatever was fated. Under determinism, your actions do have effects; it’s just that your actions are themselves determined by many factors, including your beliefs about whether your actions make a difference. Questions of free will and moral responsibility are especially relevant with respect to criminal behavior, but the same principles apply in areas of life without state-sanctioned reward and punishment. Possible types and justifications for punishment: • No punishment, thus no need for a justification • retribution: punish the offender because they deserve it • deterrence: punish to deter both the offender and other people from committing crimes in the future • quarantine: punish to protect the rest of society from the offender, who is taken out of circulation • rehabilitation: punish (and take related actions) to turn the offender into a better person who won’t commit crimes in the future Which punishment types and justifications follow from different positions on free will and determinism? no punishment libertarian free will retribution hard determinism deterrence compatibilist free will quarantine rehabilitation no punishment retribution deterrence quarantine rehabilitation Much empirical research studies the effects of rewards and punishments. One of the classic studies (Fehr and Gächter, 2000) involved a cooperation game: • Participants were given $20 to start and played 20 rounds. • During each round, each participant was part of a four- person group. Each participant could contribute up $1 to a common pool. For every $1 contributed, all group members received 40¢. • Group members were chosen randomly, worked anonymously at their computers, and were never matched with the same person twice. • For the first ten rounds, punishment wasn’t an option. Cooperation on the first round was about 45% of the available funds and fell to about 15% by the tenth round. •Then the researchers introduced the possibility of punishment. After each round, participants could pay $1 to punish any other player (again, anonymously) by $3. • In the eleventh round, contributions shot up to 65% of the available funds. • During rounds eleven to twenty, most players punished at least once, usually targeting someone who made a low contribution in the last round. • By the twentieth round, contributions averaged 90% of the available funds. • This and other studies show that people willingly absorb costs to punish norm violators. The result (intended or not) is deterrence and increased levels of cooperative behavior. Free will illusionism, as developed by the philosopher Saul Smilansky • Free will (at least in a libertarian form) does not exist. Nevertheless, both individuals and society will be better off if the belief in free will persists. • If people stop believing they have free will, they will engage in immoral acts and make excuses for themselves. According to Smilansky, the concept of blame disappears. • Furthermore, people won’t take positive actions (charity, kindness, etc.) or work hard to accomplish anything. According to Smilansky, the concept of credit disappears. • Smilansky embraces aspects of both hard determinism and compatibilism. However, he wants to keep the knowledge of hard determinism confined to an elite few. • Smilansky advocates an act of omission rather than commission. People already think they have free will; Smilansky says we should not tell them otherwise. Many studies support Smilansky’s claims about the effects of believing (or not) in free will. There are two main ways to test these effects: experiments and surveys. The former are better at internal validity (establishing causation), whereas the latter are better at external validity (generalizing to the “real world”). To study free will beliefs experimentally, researchers create situations where the treatment group gets exposed to information that strengthens (or weakens) their beliefs in free will or determinism. Experiments have found that inducing weaker beliefs in free will, or stronger beliefs in determinism, causes people to do the following: • Cheat more often • Steal more often • Behave more aggressively toward a stranger • Show less willingness to help someone suffering from personal and financial difficulties • Set fewer goals • Feel less guilty about past mistakes To study free will beliefs through surveys, researchers ask people questions about free will and/or determinism, then use statistical analyses to relate those beliefs to particular behaviors while controlling for other influences. Statistical analyses have found that people with weaker beliefs in free will, or stronger beliefs in determinism, tend to: · Perform more poorly at their job, as measured by supervisors · Put less effort into their job · Perform worse in school · Expect lower occupational success · Show less satisfaction with their relationships · Show less satisfaction with their lives overall Smilansky’s position draws from those findings..
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