Adina Roskies - Free Will and Moral Responsibility?

Is free will required for moral responsibility? If a person with a brain tumor breaks the law, should that person be judged by lower standards? It's a slippery slope, because if a legal defense is based on a 'my brain did it, not me' theory, and if it holds, law enforcement will suffer. Our jails would be less crowded, but our streets would teem with criminals.


Adina Roskies is a Professor of Philosophy at Dartmouth College. Her areas of specialization include philosophy of science, philosophy of cognitive science, and philosophy of mind.


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[bjm]

We have the freedom to make choices and decisions within the protective laws of reality, both moral and physical, without the constraints of instinct. Free will is a gift, privilege and honorable responsibility.

[sdprz]

I think it’s honestly laughable to try and make the case that without free will we are still responsible. You can say we have free will and are therefore responsible, that’s understandable the opposite is pure idiocy.

[georgegrubbs]

Free will is necessary but not sufficient for personal responsibility. Our decision-making and taking action depend upon us consciously and unimpaired deciding to act. As mentioned in the video, a person suffering from OCD or PTSD or other personality or mental impairment may have free will in the sense of consciously deciding and acting, but not having sufficient capacity to prevent an action that leads to breaking the law, for example.

[javadhashtroudian]

I don't know or care about responsibility. What I know about my actions is that since I accepted I'm a wet robot with no free will (I'm not the doer from an Advaita perspective) is that I suffer less and I act more compassionately (ie more morally from an external point of view). I suppose whether we are moral or not is based on our programming and understanding that we have no free will makes us accept our basic programming more.

[darrennew]

The only time people care about whether physics being deterministic is relevant to free will is when a judgemental omnipotent omniscient deity is involved. Of course you actually make decisions and can be responsible for them. Being able to make a decision that violates physics isn't the kind of free will we care about having.

[stephenlawrence]

Adina talks about "abilities" but free will as ordinarily understood is about the ability to do otherwise. It only seems like a mystery because it's about that. So really the issue is just bypassed.

[antidrasiapologeticacrista]

Nhamm... isn't one of things. It's the central think.

[shamtradtam]

She talks about control. But if we there is no free will, does impulse control exist?

[rotorblade]

“Most people think that without free will you can’t be responsible”. So what, does it mean it’s not true? It is obviously true. It’s doesn’t mean we can’t have rules and penalties. The evolutionary process already gave us a set of instincts that lead us to the state we are now. And now out minds evaluates the possibility of the existence of free will. If there is no free will than people don’t deserve to be judged but I still want the rules and penalties for not following them, only a minority wants anarchy