Akademische Abhandlung--Helsingfors. / "Verzeichnis der experimentall-psychologischen Litteratur über das Wollen": 4th p. l.

Inaug.-diss.--Halle. / Vita.

Inaug.-Diss.--Halle. / Curriculum vitae.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Northwestern University, 1915. / Vita. "Chapters II and VII (with some changes) have appeared in the Monist and the Philosophical review.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006.

Inaug.-Diss.--Würzburg. / Includes bibliographical references and index.

There seems to exist a tension between our metaphysical and phenomenological commitments in the free will debate. On the one hand, I argue that at the metaphysical level we cannot coherently defend the belief that we are morally responsible in the sense that we deserve to be rewarded and punished for our actions, where desert-entailing moral responsibility is the primary understanding of moral responsibility presupposed in the free will debate. I argue that we are responsible for our actions but only in the weaker sense, termed ‘attributability’ by Gary Watson. On the other hand, we are allegedly unrenounceably committed at the phenomenological level to conceiving of, and treating, ourselves and one another as morally responsible beings in the desert-entailing sense. P. F. Strawson famously defends this claim in his seminal work, ‘Freedom and Resentment’. In my thesis I will set out this tension by exploring both commitments in turn. I then aim to show that the tension can be dissolved by arguing, contra P. F. Strawson, that our phenomenological commitment is not in fact unrenounceable. The dissolution of this tension entails, I argue, that we must examine our conception of self and other. We must explore the implications of adopting a position which denies that we are morally responsible beings for our life-hopes, personal feelings, inter-personal relationships and projects. Most importantly, I argue that we must renounce our current retributive condemnatory practices which are based on the unjustified belief that we are morally responsible beings.

This thesis shows the ways in which the concepts of freedom and responsibility are related, and how indeed they illuminate each other. In Part One, it is shown that both are based on a concept of action, and it is thus with an analysis of action that a theory of freedom and responsibility must begin. Actions are first differentiated from events, so that conditions which must obtain from an event to be an action are specified. The concept of responsibility may then be used to illuminate action by showing how excuses indicate ways in which actions can fail. From this analysis, an analysis of action in the full sense emerges, namely, that an action in the full or unqualified sense is that to which no excuses are applicable. Action in the full sense is thus linked to responsibility in the full sense. The analysis of action shows that the breakdown of an action is the loss of control over its effects, and action in the full sense thus obtains where no breakdown occurs. Conscious control over an action is the control of an action's effects, which is the realization of intentions, and the control of intentions, which is what may be analyzed as rationality. Conscious control over an action, or agency, constitutes freedom on the plane of individual action. Thus, from the concept of responsibility emerges a concept of action and of agency which indicates what freedom is. Yet, it is the actual structure of action upon which the action of responsibility rests. The theory of freedom is defined in Part Two against the incompatibilist position that if determinism is true, neither freedom nor responsibility exist. It is shown that causal determinism does not rule out actions being free in the sense required for an individual to be responsible; for them as a theory of action shows that it is not an action's being caused but the nature of its causes which makes it free or unfree. If the action is caused so that it is in the conscious control of the agent, it is free. The rest of Part Two examines moral practices such as praise and blame in light of the limits determinism places on them. It is necessary to show what rational or justifiable grounds there could be for practices such as praising and blaming in any theory of freedom and responsibility. Part Three shows that agency, or control over an action, is extendable over the values upon which actions are based. Control over values is achieved by the individual consciously choosing values in awareness of being responsible for those choices and values. What the Existentialists call "Authenticity" is thus a fuller degree of freedom and of agency. This analysis of authenticity does not focus on how authenticity is a response to a value question posed by nihilism; but on how authenticity is an extension of our regular concepts of freedom and responsibility. It is shown that authenticity, when it is accompanied by full agency (as that notion is developed in Part One) is freedom and responsibility in the highest degree. / Arts, Faculty of / Philosophy, Department of / Graduate

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