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Zachery Mathison
Professor Gregory Spendlove
Philosophy 1000
27 November 2015
Term Paper Final Draft
Moral Responsibility and Moral Punishment
In this paper I will argue that physical determinism and human moral responsibility are
compatible. For this I will define physical determinism as it is an inevitable consequence of
what came before it meaning that everything physically happens because something made it
happen. For moral responsibility I will be using the definition given in Kevin Timpes article of
Free Will that states, an agent is morally responsible for an event or state of affairs only if she
is the appropriate recipient of moral praise or moral blame for that event In other words,
someone is morally responsible just in case they are to blame or praise. I will prove this through
these three points, you are morally responsible if you are an appropriate object for our reactive
attitudes, if you knew better but did it anyway, or you are morally responsible for giving us an
explanation for why you did something. These three different theories all have merit for how
Moral responsibility could be compatible with determinism.
Peter Strawson gave us this question to ponder in his article Freedom and Resentment,
and other essays, would, or should, the acceptance of the truth of [Determinism] lead to the
decay or the repudiation of all such attitudes? Would, or should, it mean the end of gratitude,
resentment, and forgiveness? Peter Strawson argued that in order to be morally responsible
for any action all you need to be is an appropriate object for one of our reactive attitudes, such as

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our emotions. In his article Strawson says that we tend to over think what it means to be morally
responsible. He says that there is a difference between being morally responsible and being
responsible. In order to be morally responsible all you have to be is something that its ok to be
mad at, or happy with, for instance if you ran into a tree, the tree isnt responsible for the
accident, and neither is it morally responsible. If a human would whack you in the face, he
wouldnt be responsible for it (due to determinism) but he would be an appropriate object for
your anger, therefore would be morally responsible. So if they are, in our minds, responsible for
something then it would be ok to place our reactive attitudes towards them, e.g. blame or praise,
or punishment or responsibility.
Some philosophers, like Hanna Pickard, argue against Peter Strawson. In her theory she
uses similar terms as Strawson that is there is a thing such as reactive attitudes which she calls
them Effective Blame. She also believes that there is a second type of blame called Detached
Blame, this type of blame is more of a judgement were you believe someone is blameworthy.
Hanna argues that there is a difference between blameworthiness and blame. The point that she
completely disagrees with Strawson is that there needs to be a clearer separation between the
two. She argues that just because they are blameworthy doesnt mean that they should be
appropriate objects for hatred, scorn, or any judgement against their character. Hanna argues that
when we use our blame we should use it to help the individuals. We should help them get better
not to use your reactive emotions because that serves no end.
Strawsons definition for moral responsibility says that someone is morally responsible
just in case that they are an appropriate object for you emotions. Strawson would argue that the
appropriateness of your emotions is different from person to person. That, essentially, the
blame or praise is held in the eye of the judge. People like Hanna Pickard would argue that we

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can say they are Blameworthy but they are not appropriate for blame. We can say that they are
blameworthy for an action, but they are not worth moral punishment. Instead we should
challenge them to do better, therapeutic actions should be taken.
Michael J Zimmerman wrote a paper pertaining to this argument that someone would be
morally accountable when something they do would place a mark in the debt portion of their
moral Ledger. How they would do this is when they are culpable for their actions. What he
means about culpable is that they knew what they were doing was wrong and did it anyways. He
would say that it is rare for someone to be punished and that they are responsible for such
actions, that most people dont actually think about what they are about to do and if it is wrong
or not. Most people dont notice that they are doing wrong, or in some way they feel like they are
actually doing right, i.e. not fastening their seatbelt, gambling.
In the article put forth by David Widerker and Charlotte Katzoff they argue against this
by saying that there are a few different ways that you could get around this argument. For one
they talk about a demon possessing someone so that they had an overpowering desire and want
to kill their neighbors pet. If they did they shouldnt be morally responsible for it but they would
be responsible for not fighting the desire. Another set of evidence that they present was that of
the Nazi soldier. He completely believes in the Nazi ways and in extermination, but one day he
decides to not kill a small Jewish child. Would he be blameworthy of not killing the child?
I would have to say that this might not be the strongest argument because the premise
behind the fact is that we should hold people accountable for what they believe vs. what they
actually do is compatible with a deterministic world. David Widerker does raise a good point,
moral responsibility is more than just what you believe. Though you could say that the only
reason why we wouldnt hold the Nazi soldier morally responsible would be because we do not

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believe in the same things we do, that if we did the things instead of him then we wouldnt be
morally responsible for not killing the child. Although because he believed that all Jews should
be killed and didnt kill one, he would be responsible to himself and to his peers.
The third and more popular explanation why moral responsibility and determinism are
compatible is one that Marina A. L. Oshana presents. Mariana says in her popular article called
Ascriptions of Responsibility [J]udging a person responsible, we are saying the person is
accountable for her behavior, in the sense that we think it appropriate that the person offer an
explanation of her intentions or beliefs about her behavior. She proposes that someone is
responsible just in case there is an expectation that they give an account (explain, give reasons
for) their behavior. That they are morally accountable to explain their actions on why they did
things. In other words she is saying that responsibility isnt a quality associated to a person but
more of how appropriate the explanation is to the action. Someone would be justified for filling a
glass full of water when they say Im thirsty but they would be morally accountable if they
filled it for no reason.
In philosophy moral responsibility means that someone is deserving praise, blame,
reward, or punishment for an act (or lack thereof), in accordance with one's moral obligations.
When some philosophers take a look of this generally accepted definition of what moral
responsibility means and try to apply it to what she is saying some things dont make sense. They
say that the fact that they did it means they had sufficient cause to do it whether or not you agree
with it. For that reason alone every action has the same level of moral responsibility. Just because
you do not feel that the reason is adequate or that the explanation isnt readily available doesnt
mean that it has none at all.

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Going over the logic behind her argument makes sense if we believe in a deterministic
world. For if everything happens because something made it happen then everything has equal
rights to moral responsibility. So, if determinism is true then we need a new definition to what it
means. Her definition has very few flaws and makes the most sense when you try to apply it to
the real world. Also the argument against her theory doesnt solve the issue as well. The point
that we are making is saying that the belief that they owe me an explanation is held by the
individual so if they feel like they need one, and it isnt adequate then they would hold them
responsible.
In this paper I have argued that physical determinism and human moral responsibility are
compatible if you are either an appropriate object for our reactive attitudes, if you knew it was
wrong but end up doing it anyway, or you are morally responsible for giving us an explanation
for why you did something. All three of these theories have great points on how determinism are
possible together. These are three of the more popular views on this and there are many more, my
point is that it isnt impossible to hold someone morally responsible in a deterministic world.

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Works Cited
"Free Will," by Kevin Timpe, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002,
http://www.iep.utm.edu/, 27 November 2015.
Gelonesi, Joe, and Hanna Pickard, A new way to blame. The Philosopher's Zone, October
2015, Web, 27 November 2015
Oshana, Marina A. L.. Ascriptions of Responsibility. American Philosophical Quarterly 34.1
(1997): 7183. Web. 27 November 2015
Strawson, P.F., Freedom and Resentment, and other essays [Routledge] 1974. Print.
Widerker, David, and Charlotte Katzoff. Zimmerman on Moral Responsibility, Obligation and
Alternate Possibilities. Analysis 54.4 (1994): 285287. Web. 27 November 2015.