2. The Die Is Cast: Chance, Merit, and Inequality

Rawls (1999 (1971)), 87; Sadurski (1985), 122–131.

“Desert is central to our pre-reflective thought.” Sher (1987), ix; Many people have a “pre-theoretical certainty that at least some people deserve something...” Zaitchik (1977), 373.

Wolff (2003), 222.

“People must, in a robust sense be responsible for [X] to be morally deserving of [Y].” Temkin (2011), 55; Cf. Pojman (1997); Cupit (1996a); Feldman (1996); Smilansky (1996).

Parthemore and Whitby (2013).

For the lack of importance between ascriptive and descriptive statements, cf. Feinberg (1970a), 137ff., Cf. Feinberg (1970e), 25, 26n1; for a further division into causal agency and simple agency, not germane to my purposes, cf. Feinberg (1970a), 132–136.

We might refer to these latter two types of statements as moral responsibility and object responsibility statements and, together, they constitute the class of empirical responsibility statements. Note that Fischer and Ravizza use causal responsibility instead of object responsibility. They also usefully point out that moral responsibility is not to be confused with legal responsibility, corporate responsibility, role responsibility, and so on. Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 1–2.

Hurley (2003), 92; From a more juridical perspective, Hart speaks of “liability responsibility.” Hart (1968), 215–227; As an aside, I must note that I do not use accountability in Bok’s sense, that is, to hold accountable is not to “take some action to reflect [an individual’s] will, attribute it to [the individual], and ask what it reveals about [the individual’s] will and character, and about the ways [that will and character] might be improved.” Bok (1998), 152.

This is the “ledger view” of moral responsibility. Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 8–10n12.

Strawson (1962).

Arneson (2003), 236.

This libertarianism should not be confused with the political philosophy of self-ownership to be discussed later in the book.

Smart (1973), 54.

Smilansky (2000).

Taylor (2003).

Ruse (2003).

Pereboom (2003).

Barry (1965), 112.

Unfortunately, both the claim that determinism is true and its opposite are unfalsifiable. Strawson (1994), 20.

Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 11.

Daniels (1996).

Rawls (1985), 238.

Williams (1981).

I am not asking you to examine your beliefs with respect to legal liability. While “strict liability” or “absolute liability” might treat Chris and Ryan identically, morality comes before the law, and I want you to consider the empirically descriptive, backward-looking, moral responsibility of our drivers, not their legal liabilities.

Nozick (2013).

Nagel (1979), 24.

Pereboom (2003), 29.

“[M]ost substantive moral theories hold agents morally accountable only for that for which they are agent-responsible [attributively responsible]...” Vallentyne (2008); “Morals constitute a kind of internal law, governing those inner thoughts and volitions which are completely subject to the agent’s control... where the agent rules supreme and luck has no place.” Feinberg (1970e), 33, “If we charge [individuals] with the consequences of fortuitous events [i.e., chance], the [“moral”] records will lose their accuracy and fail, accordingly, to achieve their purpose.” Feinberg (1970a), 125; For a rare exception, cf. Scanlon (2000), chap. 6.

Arneson (2004); Nelkin (2013); Also, this is a non-egalitarian reformulation of Cohen’s point, “...egalitarian redress is indicated to the extent that a disadvantage does not reflect genuine choice.” Cohen (2011d); Due to its strong support by egalitarians when individuals are disadvantaged due to factors beyond their control, Lake names minor variations on this principle the “egalitarian intuition” or the “responsibility principle.” Lake (2001), 12–13; “An action is free in the sense required for moral responsibility only if it is not produced by a deterministic process that traces back to causal factors beyond the agent’s control.” Pereboom (2003), 3; also cf. 126; Note that this definition of control is of categorical control (what Hurley names regressive control) Hurley (2003), 111 that is thicker than Hurley’s account in which “[Simple] Control … involves maintenance of a variable at a target value in the face of exogenous disturbance, where the variable is caused to take values jointly by factors endogenous and factors exogenous to a control system [Dwyer’s italics].” Hurley (2003), 95. Instead, control means caused to take values exclusively by endogenous factors.

Arneson (2007), 269.

Eastwood (1992).

Lewis and Short (1879), s.v. com-pŏs (conp-), pŏtis, potis, def 1.

Feinberg (1970g), 274.

Strawson (1962).

Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 8.

Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 28–41.

Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 4.

Note that Nagel refers to resultant, circumstantial, causal, and constitutive luck. I have chosen terms that both comprehend Nagel’s framework and more clearly distinguish themselves to non-philosophers.

Singer (1972).

Cf. “a paralysing and insurmountable fear of heights...” Olsaretti (2003a), 202; “a person who resolutely masters his fear in order to rescue someone,...” Sher (1987), 135; “Certain sorts of mental disorders—extreme phobias, for instance—may also issue in behavior that the agent does not control in the relevant sense.” Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 35.

Wallace (1998), 12.

This is a variation on a villain in the Batman mythology. Kane and Finger (1942).

Lake (2001), 23.

While it may raise a number of unnecessary new issues, some readers might find an analogy between Two-Face as cursed human and Two-Face as deterministic computer program revealing. Cf. Noorman (2012).

“Merit spans both the moral and the nonmoral realms.” Sher (1987), 109; “Indeed, our Strawsonian view of moral responsibility allows for moral responsibility for ‘morally neutral’ behavior. For instance, one can be morally responsible for simply raising one’s hand (where this is not a signal or in any way morally significant).” Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 5n5, 8n11.

Note that this leaves two options for Arneson, either “character” or “disposition” is autonomous effort or it is a vector of outcomes toward which one exhibits autonomous effort. Arneson (2007).

Feinberg (1970a), 149.

I find this a more felicitous phrase than “autonomous action.” Sher (1987), 37.

Miller makes a similar claim vis a vis desert when considering the case of “a cowardly man [who] performs a courageous deed,” stating, “Indeed, [] we may even regard the merit of the action as increased by its atypical character...” with respect to circumstances of chance. Miller (1999a), 139n1.

This is a key, and often confused, point. At this stage, I will leave it as a puzzling metaphysical statement but note simply that it does nothing to change our non-ideal policy prescription. Cf. Roemer (1998), 8–12.

Cappelen et al. (2010).

Locke (1997 (1689)), sec. 13.

And vice versa again for the above four statements when considering bad outcomes.

Taylor (2003), 15–16.

For a brief review of the public policy discussions of adolescent brain development, cf. Steinberg (2013).

Technically, “most similarly situated” does not mean that the only individuals who could offer relevant information to our assessment of a 55-year-old female are other 55-year-old females. This is a weakness of Roemer’s proposal that leads to undesirable and unnecessary mathematical and theoretical complications as I will discuss in great detail below. Roemer (1998).

Arneson (2007), 265.

“For in any case it does not seem possible to separate in practice that part of a man’s achievement which is due strictly to his free choice from that part which is due to the original gift of nature and to favouring circumstances...” Sidgwick (1999), 53; “Indeed, in arguing that one very basic question about deserts for work seems unresolvable, I have made it plain that I can offer no practical scheme for justly distributing goods in society.” Slote (1999), 217, Slote (1973), “Certainly, it would be extremely difficult to separate the voluntary from the non-voluntary... and so to tell which of a man’s qualities were proper grounds for desert. Perhaps the revised principle for ascribing good desert would be impossible to use in practice.” Miller (1999a), 137, Miller (1976).

For example, Fishkin (2014), sec. II.B.3.

In this way, Outcome Y  is not a “fallible marker for [responsibility, but its] necessary condition.” Wolff (2003), 221.

Circumstances of chance are thus synonymous with Hurley’s “thin luck.” Hurley (2003), 107ff.

Formally, we could write, P(AE = α𝜖 _i|CC = CC _i) = P(AE = α𝜖 _i) for discrete random variables or f _AE(α𝜖 _i|CC = CC _i) = f _AE(α𝜖 _i) for continuous random variables.

This is important as Vallentyne considered partial responsibility underdeveloped in moral philosophy. “In particular, the issue of partial responsibility for an outcome (rather than it being all or nothing) needs further development.” Vallentyne (2008); for a comprehensive and detailed account of partial freedom, cf. Boeninger (2011).

I think this seriously threatens Hurley’s argument that a “regressive account of responsibility” is not coherently compatible with causal (e.g., choice or control) conceptions of responsibility. Hurley (2003), 24–28.

Given this exclusive, exhaustive, independence, I think that Sher’s argument loses its critical force. Sher (2003).

This may be viewed as an extension or corollary of the control principle. Arneson (2004), 3.

While some have argued that such a thin theory of the moral agent may fail to secure the “dignity and autonomy” associated with contemporary liberalism, I do not see the loss of dignity or autonomy–nor do I explicitly seek to attract liberals until Chap. 6. Sandel (1999), 185.

Indeed, most philosophers have started with the intuition that a moral agent who is agent responsible must exhibit these two conditions. Aristotle (1999), sec. III.1–5.

Young (2016), 967–68.

Cf. Latus (2000).

“There is an irreducible margin of vagueness in the legal concept of responsibility which often leads courts to mechanically apply admittedly arbitrary rules... to cases in which [the true extent of agent] responsibility is essentially uncertain but which require that ‘a line be drawn somewhere’ [Dwyer’s italics].” Feinberg (1970e), 26.

The fact that Feinberg does not believe such deep responsibility is possible does nothing to diminish the excellence of the definition thereof. Feinberg (1970e), 32.

Strawson (1994), 8–9.

Wetzel (2014).

I think Feinberg’s analyses superb, yet they often allow the legal perspective to override the pre-institutional perspective. For example, see the search for “the cause” of some event. Feinberg (1970a), 142–144.

Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 80.

Frankfurt (1969), 829; For various formulations, cf. van Inwagen (1986), 154, 156, 157, 161.

Cf. “Erosion” and “Erosion*,” respectively. Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 157–169.

Pereboom (2003), 54.

Just as dark glasses might impair one’s capacity to see a doorway in a dark room without the dark glasses doing harm to one’s eyes’ and brain’s capacity to process visual stimuli, human cognitive biases might impair one’s capacity to exhibit rational observed outcomes of interest without harming the moral agent’s capacity to ratiocinate. Hurley (2011).

I think Campbell overstates the strength of the predictability argument and thus their tactic to avoid it. Campbell (2003), 58–59.

In this way, Fischer and Ravizza’s three-part analysis of strong reasons-responsiveness collapses to one single element: there are never failures in the connection between what reasons there are and what reasons the agent recognizes, nor between the agent’s reasons and their choice. There are only failures in the connection between choice and action. Fischer and Ravizza (1998), 41–46.

Roemer (1998), 21.

Pace Sher, while it may seem to be “a piece of bad luck” that some must “exert more of what looks a lot like effort to [exert] the same amount of effort,” we shall not be fooled into believing that what looks like effort (observed outcomes of interest) is indeed effort (autonomous effort). Sher (2003), 210.

It is immaterial whether the neurochemical is assumed to be an actual representation of autonomous effort or merely a correlate, and therefore proxy or surrogate measure.

As an individual’s autonomous effort is independent of all circumstances of chance, this completely dismisses Persson’s problem mentioned by Arneson. Arneson (2007), 285.

This normative ideal of the moral agent seems thus to be the “ghost in the machine.” Ryle (1949); nonetheless, compatibilists may rather easily support my argument. Cf. Knight (2009), chap. 5.

Rawls (1999 (1971)), 64.

For an argument against at least Rawls’ “uncritical assumption that people differ in effort-making abilities,” cf. Sher (1987), 28–30.

Rawls (1999 (1971)), 274.

Miller (1999c), 276n20.

Olsaretti (2003b), 13–14.

Cohen (2011d), 12.

Temkin (2011), 75.

To be explicit, I am arguing that there is only one distribution of autonomous effort for all moral agents throughout all time and space. This is an important point that extricates us from the mathematical difficulties of different autonomous effort distributions across types. As Roemer states it, “...if we could somehow disembody individuals from their circumstances, then the distribution of the propensity to exert effort would be the same in every type.” Roemer (1998), 15.

Hart and Honoré (1959).

Feinberg (1970b), 157.

Nagel (1979), 35.

Strawson (1962).

Nagel (1979), 30; Perhaps this is also what Campbell has in mind when they state, “Moral freedom, then, pertains to inner acts.” Campbell (2003), 50.

“A good will is not good because of what it effects or accomplishes, because of its fitness to attain some proposed end, but only because of its volition, that is, it is good in itself… Even if, by a special disfavor of fortune or by the niggardly provision of a stepmotherly nature [circumstances of chance], this will should wholly lack the capacity to carry out its purpose—if with its greatest efforts it should yet achieve nothing and only the good will were left (not, of course, as a mere wish but as the summoning of all means insofar as they are in our control)—then, like a jewel, it would still shine by itself, as something that has its full worth in itself. Usefulness or fruitlessness can neither add anything to this worth nor take anything away from it.” Kant (1993 (1784)), 4.