The deliberative relevance of refraining from deciding: A response to McKenna and Pereboom |
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Authors: | John Davenport |
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Institution: | 1. Department of Philosophy, 916 LL Lincoln Center Campus, Fordham University, 113 West 60th Street, 10023, New York, NY, U.S.A.
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Abstract: | Readers familiar with Harry Frankfurt’s argument that we do not need leeway-liberty (or the power to bring about alternative
possible actions or intentions) to be morally responsible will probably also know that the most famous and popular response
on behalf of leeway-libertarianism remains a dilemma posed in similar forms by David Widerker, Robert Kane, and Carl Ginet:
either the agent retains significant residual leeway in Frankfurt-style cases, or these cases beg the question by presupposing
causal determinism. In the last few years, there have been several different attempts to defend Frankfurtian critiques of
PAP in response this dilemma. In a novel approach, Derk Pereboom and Michael McKenna present cases in which all deliberatively
relevant or “robust” alternatives are blocked, but the agent’s act or decision is not determined. Pereboom and McKenna argue
that any plausible leeway-condition on responsibility must characterize the required alternatives as robust in two ways: being
voluntary performances and having a practical relevance accessible to the agent’s mind.
I agree with the requirement of robustness, and argue that we can build this notion into a complex concept of agent-possibility,
or “agentive-can.” However, I argue that both McKenna’s and Pereboom’s conceptions of robustness are too demanding: they exclude
alternatives that are intuitively relevant. Moreover, I argue that the alternative of refraining from deciding, or voluntarily
failing to decide, is robust in the right sense. In agreement with a tradition running from Ockham back through Scotus to
Aquinas, I argue that this robust alternative is necessary for responsibility. If the Frankfurt-controller eliminates it,
then the agent’s responsibility is undermined. In particular, I argue that Pereboom’s tax evasion cases do not refute this
leeway-condition on moral responsibility. |
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