Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities: The Use and Abuse of Examples

SAM BLACK and JON TWEEDALE

RESPONSIBILITY AND ALTERNATIVE POSSIBILITIES:THE USE AND ABUSE OF EXAMPLES �

(Received 12 November 2001; accepted 7 May 2002)

ABSTRACT. The philosophical debate over the compatibility between causal determinismand moral responsibility relies heavily on our reactions to examples. Although we believethat there is no alternative to this methodology in this area of philosophy, some examplesthat feature prominently in the literature are positively misleading. In this vein, we criticizethe use that incompatibilists make of the phenomenon of “brainwashing,” as well as theFrankfurt-style examples favored by compatibilists. We provide an instance of the kind ofthought experiment that is needed to genuinely test the hypothesis that moral accountabilityand causal determinism are compatible.

KEY WORDS: freedom of will, responsibility, thought experiments

Is moral responsibility compatible with the truth of determinism? Somepeople dismiss a reliance on intuitions in philosophy; they claim that ourreactions to examples, either real or imaginary, should play no part in theresolution of philosophical problems. By contrast, we have no idea how thelongstanding dispute between compatibilists and incompatibilists could betackled without reference to examples and the intuitions they elicit. Manyseem to agree with this assessment. But in our view some of the examplesthat feature prominently in this debate are a hindrance. Even if we haveclear intuitions about the cases described those intuitions get us no furtheralong.

A suitable example must have two elements. First, it must makethe causal determinants of an agent’s behavior relatively transparent;otherwise we are prevented from grappling with the significance of deter-minism. Second, the subjects of these examples must also be relevantlysimilar to ordinary human beings. If they suffer from peculiar intellec-tual shortcomings then our reaction to these individuals provides littleinsight into our reflective attitudes towards ordinary human beings (even if

� This essay was inspired by a presentation of John Martin Fischer’s at Simon FraserUniversity. We owe him an enormous debt: for his engaging conversation, and moregenerally, for the ingenuity he has brought to the defense of compatibilism. Exposure tounpublished work by David Zimmerman has helped us to better frame the issues. Conver-sations with Zimmerman were also the initial impetus for section II. We also wish to thankan anonymous reviewer of The Journal of Ethics who helped us clarify Section IV.

The Journal of Ethics 6: 281–303, 2002.© 2002 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

282 SAM BLACK AND JON TWEEDALE

determinism is true). Examples that feature the victims of brainwashinghave proven influential because they satisfy the first requirement. Thedeterminants of the victim’s behavior are relatively transparent. But theseillustrations fare poorly with the second requirement. There seems to bea considerable difference in the mental lives of brainwashed persons andordinary adults. Frankfurt-style examples – examples that rely on counter-factual interveners to eliminate alternate possibilities – fare better withthe second requirement. Their subjects possess ordinary cognitive capaci-ties. But these examples are defective because the causal determinantsof the agent’s behavior are not sufficiently transparent. Our reactions toFrankfurt-type cases may consequently reflect the tacit assumption thattheir subjects possess alternate possibilities.

Brainwashing examples have nothing to teach us about the ethicalsignificance of determinism; while counterfactual interveners should bescrapped. We substantiate these claims respectively in Sections 2 and 4.In Section 3, we describe the kind of example that we reckon is neededfor making headway on the issue of determinism and responsibility. Westart with some more general reflections on why examples can easily bemisleading in this corner of philosophy (Section 1).

1. THE RECEPTION OF EXAMPLES

References to “choice,” “decision making,” “deliberation,” and relatedconcepts saturate our thinking. We are, after all, a culture that treats “indi-vidualism,” as a personal ideal and the “freedom to choose” as a rallyingcry. It is easy to overlook the kind of dramatic revision to our outlook thatwould be entailed by a proper appreciation of the truth of determinism. Wedo not wish to beg the question by claiming without argument that “choice”and related notions would need to be scrapped, or dramatically revised ifdeterminism is true. Our point is rather that our modes of thought havenot evolved in an environment where determinism is presumed to be true.Grappling with the moral consequences of determinism requires consider-able effort and ingenuity. We should never lose sight of just how unnaturalit is for us to consider human affairs from a standpoint where determinismis presumed to be true. Given this fact of psychology it is not surprisingthat the best contributions to the debate over compatibilism have featuredvivid examples. For the contemplation of well-constructed examples helpsus to grasp the unfamiliar notion that choices between alternative possi-bilities are an illusion. What makes an example well crafted? One featureof any suitable example is that it will render transparent the fact that anagent’s deliberations over the course of her history had a unique outcome:

RESPONSIBILITY AND ALTERNATIVE POSSIBILITIES 283

an outcome that was determined by impersonal causal factors. We shallcall this feature of an example its “causal transparency” or simply its“transparency.” The causal chains leading through an agent can be more orless transparent; transparency comes in degrees. Examples are more trans-parent to the degree that they contain information that alerts their audienceto the causal factors determining the course of an agent’s deliberations.

Why do good examples require relative causal transparency? Thebasic explanation is that causal transparency is needed to overcome theProjective Error: the projection of alternatives for choice into cases inwhich a subject has an opportunity to deliberate. For when we are giventhe information that a subject is able to deliberate there is an overwhelmingtemptation on our part to infer that the subject is choosing among alterna-tives. But this inference is mistaken, because if determinism is true thereare, as a matter of fact, no alternate possibilities. Our tendency to committhis error therefore constitutes an obstacle to fully coming to grips with theconsequences of determinism.

Our habit of falling into the projective error – inferring the existence ofalternate possibilities from opportunities for deliberation – is grounded inthe phenomenology of practical choice. Consider what happens when youengage in ordinary intentional activity. You want to buy a car. A perusalof Consumer Reports persuades you to go for the tan toned Honda Civicrather than the stylish black convertible on which you originally had youreye. We emphasize that this behavior is intentional. It is not like the kindof thing that happens when a shadow suddenly emerges at the periphery ofyour visual field, and a reflex induces you to duck. Nor does it resemblewhat happens when someone yells “Fire” in a crowded theater triggeringa stampede. In the kind of case we are describing your beliefs and desirescause your behavior. You also have the opportunity to reflect on yourdesires, and revise them in response to new information or insights thatcome to light.

When we introspect on the process of deliberation we are normallystruck by the contingency of the outcome. On the basis of what we discoverin Consumer Reports we elect to purchase the Civic. But we are aware(only too aware) how easy it would be to go for the more modish convert-ible: for kicks, or on a dare, or simply out of an inchoate desire to defyanyone who professes a skepticism about freedom of the will. And there ismore. If you decide to go for the impractical vehicle you know that there isnothing to prevent you from changing your mind. No genie will suddenlyappear, no brain circuit will short out, nor will the universe destruct if youstray from the straight and narrow. Insofar as you reflect on what you are


doing when you deliberate, you must be impressed by the sense that thefuture – or at any rate your future – is in your control.

This description of the phenomenology of deliberation is crudelysimplistic. But that does not affect the basic point. We experience prac-tical decision making as a mental process governed by an agency. There issomething behind the scenes that is not merely being acted upon but whichis also acting upon the world: choosing between alternatives. This is for atleast two reasons. First, deliberation by its very nature requires us to adoptan active or participatory stance. We only engage in deliberation becausewe believe that the future depends on whether we make careful choicesnow. By the very act of deliberation we seem bound to believe that thefuture is contingent, and the fork along which the world proceeds dependsupon our decisions.

Second, the information acquired through introspection fails to revealthe causal chains that fully determine our behavior (if there are suchchains). Through introspection we normally discover at most what areincomplete causal chains. For example, we may find ourselves in thegrips of an addiction or a compulsion. But barring psychopathologicalcomplications, we do not discover that our “choices” are for outcomesfor which there is no alternative. Our experience normally furnishes uswith the impression that even when a certain course of action strikes us asbeing the overwhelmingly best course, we could have chosen otherwise.Even if determinism is true, this fact about the world could not be detectedby introspection.1 The truth of determinism is for this reason very nearlyunfathomable.

The basic insight can be encapsulated this way. If we have an oppor-tunity to deliberate, we normally assume our future contains multiplepossibilities. This tendency gives rise to an error of belief, however,because the evidence available through introspection does not lend supportto the conclusion that we possess alternate possibilities. The projectiveerror also has a significant impact on our reactions to others. Given theinformation that an agent had the chance to deliberate prior to acting,there is a powerful temptation to believe that alternate possibilities weregenuinely available to him. This belief is mistaken if determinism is true(it could also be mistaken, of course, for the separate reason that they wereunable to deliberate despite appearances).

1 He we are taking issue with the argument that determinism must be false becausedeterminism is inconsistent with discoveries made through introspection. For a classicstatement of that argument, see C.A. Campbell, On Selfhood and Godhood (New York:Macmillan, 1957).


It is equally difficult for us to contain this natural tendency when weturn our attention to philosophical thought experiments. The danger hereis that the projective error will tacitly inform our reactions to examplesintended to test the proposition that the truth of determinism is compatiblewith personal responsibility (the danger persists when we are consid-ering Frankfurt-style examples, as we make clear in Section 4). Whenthe information implies that a subject had the opportunity to deliberatewe will normally impute to them choices between genuine alternatives.Our suggestion, and this is a claim we will flesh out with illustrations, isthat the only reliable way to keep the projective error in check is to relyon examples in which the causal determinants of behavior are (relatively)transparent. Reactions to thought experiments in which the causal deter-minants of choice are opaque reveal nothing about the ethical implicationsof determinism.

To summarize, nothing in our everyday lives has prepared us forunderstanding what would be entailed by the truth of determinism. Someprodding from examples is indispensable for finding our bearings in thisunfamiliar terrain. But our reactions to purpose-built examples are atrisk of being swayed by the omnipresent inference that opportunities fordeliberation entail alternate possibilities.

2. THE ARGUMENT FROM BRAINWASHING

The obstacles to appreciating the consequences of determinism (thatwe described above) may explain why many philosophers debating thequestion of compatibilism have been drawn to the phenomenon of brain-washing.2 For the brainwashed victim believes he is deciding betweenalternatives – he has the same phenomenology of choice as you or I – butit is equally clear that his manipulators have programmed his “decisions.”The description of the case makes the victim’s lack of alternate possibilitiesrelatively transparent. These details serve to keep the projective error incheck. But the phenomenon is equally suggestive because it is commonlythought that at least some victims of mind control are not accountablefor their actions. If these victims are not accountable because they lackalternate possibilities then the incompatibilist urges that ordinary people

2 For discussion of brainwashing in the context of the free will debate, see Gary Watson,“Free Action and Free Will,” Mind XCI (1987), pp. 151–153; Derk Pereboom, “Deter-minism al Dente,” Nous 29 (1995), pp. 21–45; Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 64–65. Unlike Kane and Pereboom, Watsonis a compatibilist.


ought similarly to be absolved from responsibility for their actions ifdeterminism is true. We shall argue, however, that this strategy is mistaken.

It will be useful to have a well-documented case of mind control onhand. In his book Moonwebs, the Canadian journalist Josh Freed describeshow his friend “Benji” voluntarily joined a branch of the “Moonies” –the Unification Church – based in California. Benji had been a teacherin Montreal. Freed came to suspect that something had gone dramati-cally wrong with his friend, however, when Benji showed no inclinationto return to his job, and rebuffed attempts by his parents and friendsto speak over the phone. Freed relates how he journeyed to California,kidnapped Benji and physically compelled him to endure grueling sessionswith a professional “deprogrammer” stretching over days. These desperatemeasures proved necessary because Benji had come to believe that SunMyung Moon was the Messiah: infallible in his pronouncements andpossessing a God-given moral authority. Benji, along with hundreds ofother devotees, had been sleeping four hours a night, while spending theremainder of his time selling flowers remitting all proceeds to Moon’sorganization. Prior to Freed’s intervention, Benji had resolved to cut allties from the past, and devote the remainder of his life to Moon.3

How does this case, and others like it, support incompatibilism? Theargument seems to go as follows:

1. Victims of brainwashing are not proper subjects for attributions ofresponsibility.

2. If determinism is true then ordinary people are relevantly similar to thevictims of brainwashing.

3. Therefore, if determinism is true then ordinary people are not propersubjects for attributions of responsibility.

Since the argument is valid, compatibilists must deny one or both premises.We think that compatibilists are right to reject (2). But the question iscomplicated by the fact that some compatibilist theories of moral respon-sibility actually seem to suggest that (1) is false. Compatibilists wouldbe ill advised to reject (1), however, because that involves attributingresponsibility in ways that conflict with most peoples’ intuitions. Whatthe compatibilist ought to do is explain why the victims of brainwashingare different from ordinary people.

To illustrate the problems arising from (1), consider John MartinFischer and Mark Ravizza’s recent analysis of the condition – whatthey call “guidance control” – that is required for proper attributions ofresponsibility:

3 See Josh Freed, Moonwebs (Toronto: Dorset Publishers, 1981).


(GC) S performs (with guidance control) some action X that issues from some mechanismM, if and only if (i) M is (at least) a moderately reasons responsive mechanism (pp. 49,61); (ii) S views himself as an agent when his actions issue from M; (iii) S regards himselfas a proper target for the reactive attitudes when his actions issue from M (pp. 210–211);and (iv) S’s beliefs that he is an agent and a target for the reactive attitudes are based on theevidence in an appropriate way (p. 213).4

Do the victims of brainwashing, or “inductees” as we shall call them,satisfy these conditions? Fischer and Ravizza claim they do not.5 Butsomeone who accepts his or her characterization of the conditions forresponsibility may reach the opposite conclusion.

Consider Fischer and Ravizza’s conditions individually. The first condi-tion is meant to exclude from responsibility individuals afflicted withinternal obstacles to the formation of the will. If this condition is inter-preted to pick out individuals with a diminished capacity for instrumentalreasoning then it will not apply to many victims of induction. An agent isinstrumentally rational if it is true that when they desire A, and believe thataction B is a suitable means to A, they perform action B. It is sometimessuggested that the agent’s preferences for outcomes must also be completeand transitive. More robust conceptions of rationality will add the capacityfor planning (the evidentiary requirements in the selection of means andends will be discussed below, and do not at any rate, figure in the standardconception of instrumental reason). Benji clearly satisfied these conditions.He was, in fact, considered something of a prize Moonie because he couldorchestrate complex itineraries when selling of flowers.

Attention may then focus on the specific mechanism that translatesintentions into physical actions. Weakness of will and other recognizablecompulsive disorders signal that the mechanism that causes a person’sactions are not responsive to their assessment of what they have a reason todo. One plausible description of what takes place in the case of compulsivebehavior is this: the individual wishes to shed certain desires, but cannotcause those desires to extinguish. The mechanism that connects reflectiveattitudes with desires in normal human beings is not fully operational inthe compulsive. Turning to epistemic issues, at present the best availableevidence for this kind of non-operability in the “reasons responsive mech-anism” lies in first person reports. Compulsive people normally describethemselves as being plagued by some internal obstacle to the will. Weattribute a failing in their reasons responsive mechanism to them becausethey would actually describe themselves as suffering from something like

4 John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, Responsibility and Control: A Theory ofMoral Responsibility (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

5 Fischer and Ravizza, Responsibility and Control, pp. 197, 235 and 236.


a blockage of the will. To be sure there are some compulsive individualswho would not characterize their condition in this way (a child would not).Yet normally this is because they are simply incapable of complex self-reflexive thoughts. Their blindness to their condition is not restricted totheir compulsive behavior. It shows up across the range of their cognitivelimitations.

The situation of the inductee seems very different. Whatever mech-anism is broken in the inductee it is not the mechanism that links reflectiveattitudes to first order desires, and those desires to action. Many inducteeswill identify wholeheartedly with their new plans and have no difficultiesimplementing those aims. Benji’s difficulties seem fundamentally unlikefamiliar compulsive disorders and garden-variety temptations.

The second and third conditions in Fischer and Ravizza’s analysis aresubjective. They pertain to the agent’s attitudes towards the mechanismthat issues in his behavior: whether they are prepared to “take respon-sibility” for their actions (that issue from a given mechanism). Roughly,these conditions require that before an agent be held accountable he mustbelieve in the efficacy of his will, and regard himself as an apt candidatefor attitudes of praise and blame. We emphasized earlier that individualswho engage in deliberation have an overwhelming tendency to regardthemselves as efficacious agents. They reckon on being able to make adifference in the world through their intentional activities – otherwise whatwould be the point of their deliberating? It seems to us that virtually anyindividual who takes the time to deliberate will normally satisfy Fischerand Ravizza’s subjective conditions, unless they believe themselves to beakratic.

But even if these speculations are misguided it seems likely that Benjiand other victims of brainwashing will satisfy the subjective conditionsthat Fischer and Ravizza lay out. The phenomenon of brainwashing isdisturbing precisely because it induces an individual to believe that theyhave taken up of their own free will goals that others have imposedon them. Its victims normally continue to view themselves as agentsno less than do ordinary people. They have corresponding dispositionsto experience guilt, shame, pride, and to direct related reactive attitudestowards themselves (the encouraging of pride and shame appears to havebeen a powerful tool for keeping Benji and other Moon worshippers inline). It is equally tough to see how adding a historical or diachroniccomponent to the conditions for responsibility improves things. Focussingon Benji’s childhood, for instance, and the development of his capacityfor autonomous agency, changes nothing because there is every indicationthat his childhood was normal. A diachronic component is not what is


wanted here. What is needed, we later suggest, is a rough indication of theobstacles to sound deliberation that encumber the subject in the present (itwould take us too far afield to elaborate our general grounds for skepticismregarding historicist theories of the conditions for accountability).

Turn finally to (iv), the epistemic condition that Fischer and Ravizzasketch. To refresh our memories they claim that, “the agent’s view ofhimself must be based on the evidence in the appropriate way.” We shallcall this the “self-understanding proviso.” We interpret the notion of an“appropriate” grounding in the evidence to mean roughly that the relevantbeliefs – in this case the agent’s beliefs that (i) he is the source of hisbehavior, and that (ii) he is a proper target for the reactive attitudes – mustsatisfy whatever justificatory constraint is given by the correct epistem-ological theory (whichever that happens to be). Let us call this relationbetween evidence and belief the “norm for deliberation” that an agent mustsatisfy.

Do victims of brainwashing satisfy suitable norms for deliberation?Fischer and Ravizza deny this. Though “it is conceivable that the indi-vidual’s view of himself as an agent and an apt candidate for the reactiveattitudes be . . . implanted,” satisfaction of (iv) cannot be implanted in thewrong kind of way they claim.6 But Fischer and Ravizza concede that “therelevant notion of appropriateness [the proper relation between evidenceand beliefs about the self] must remain unanalyzed.”7 Yet even when itis acknowledge that the self-understanding proviso cannot be analyzed– in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions – it would be good tohave a developed understanding of what distinguishes the victims of brain-washing from the average person. Numerous incompatibilists imply thatall, which separates inductees from ordinary people, is that the absenceof alternative possibilities is transparent for the former. We should expectsome guidance – however rough and preliminary – regarding what makesthe victims of brainwashing stand out.

One problem here is that Fischer and Ravizza do not explain what justi-fies ordinary people’s beliefs about themselves (that they are the sourcesof their actions, and are proper candidates for the reactive attitudes). So wecannot appeal to such knowledge in formulating the appropriate concep-tion of the “self-understanding proviso.” To put the point another way,since they do not tell us why ordinary people are warranted in believingthey are agents, it is difficult to evaluate whether the inductee’s viewof himself “is based on evidence in an appropriate way.” Here it shouldbe emphasized that there is no obvious sense in which Benji’s reflective

6 Fischer and Ravizza, Responsibility and Control, pp. 235–236.7 Fischer and Ravizza, Responsibility and Control, p. 236.


attitudes towards his “reasons mechanism” were more ill-informed thanthe average person’s. Benji was presumably aware that he was sleep andfood deprived; and he knew that his new desires had come about as aresult of his exposure to the teachings of the Unification Church. In onesense, he probably knew about as much about his “reasons mechanism”as the ordinary person. Benji’s case is a hard one. In science fictioncases featuring desires surreptitiously implanted by hypnotist, psycho-pharmacologists, or brain surgeons it seems plausible that were the subjectaware of how his desires originated, he would disown them. Benji does notbelieve that the mechanism causing his desires is manipulative. Rather, heembraces his condition as having been authorized by the Messiah.

Fleshing out the required details may prove difficult, moreover, becausethere is a general problem looming for any proposed characterization ofthe “self-understanding proviso.” On the one hand, the compatibilist willwant to raise the bar for the satisfaction of the proviso high enough sothat inductees fail to satisfy it. If the compatibilist’s preferred analysisof accountability implies that inductees are morally responsible for theirbehavior, then they will lose many supporters from the get go (Benji’sparents and friends were surely sensible not to resent him for being aloofwhile he was a member of the Unification Church). On the other hand,the compatibilist will want to avoid raising it so high that ordinary peoplealso fail to satisfy it. A high bar entails the conclusion that few if anypeople are accountable for their actions (this would be independent fromthe truth of determinism). Here is an illustration of the dilemma’s secondhorn. Some people may believe that certain duties apply to them, that theyare a candidate for the reactive attitudes, indeed that they are an agent atall because it is God’s will. Their view of themselves is thoroughly rootedin their religious convictions. Ordinarily we hold people like this account-able for their actions. The mere fact that their beliefs about themselvesare sustained by virtually no evidence, and are made true only if certainsupernatural facts obtain, does not absolve them from responsibility. Byparity of reasoning, if inductees are not accountable in virtue of the factthat their corresponding beliefs about themselves lack evidentiary support,then we run the risk of having to absolve many religious persons fromresponsibility.

But while the difficulties that induction examples pose for compatibil-ists are not negligible, they arguably do not undermine compatibilism. Thisis for at least two reasons. First, the difficulties we have in specifying whatdifferentiates the victims of mind control from everyone else, do not implythat there are no such differences. Brainwashing gives every appearanceof succeeding by creating an obstacle to proper information processing


in subjects. The victim’s desires originate in and are then sustained bythis obstacle. We can be confident about this assessment if for no otherreason than the fact that following their “deprogramming” Benji, andothers like him, show no inclination whatsoever to return to the Unifica-tion Church. By contrast, if their allegiance to the Church had stemmedfrom a full appreciation of the relevant facts about – (say) the hedonicvalue of the Moonie lifestyle – then a desire to be affiliated with theChurch would continue to retain some pull over them. The contrast withthe reformed smoker who continues to speak wistfully of post-cocktail orpost-prandial cigarettes helps illustrate this difference between eliminatingan epistemic blockage responsible for generating corrupted desires, andsimply changing your mind in response to more information. There areconsequently good preliminary grounds for believing that the majority ofinductees embrace their condition because they are not fully informed.It must be emphasized that the appropriate conception of full informa-tion involves not merely registering the facts, but truly appreciating theirsignificance (something that may require the intervention of an experi-enced “deprogrammer” in cases of induction). Fischer and Ravizza gestureat a reliabilist account of the norm for deliberation.8 It would be interestingto see whether this promissory note can be redeemed, and whether it willprove more plausible than the full informational accounts of rational desirethat have generally found favor in the literature on intrinsic value.9 But

8 Fischer and Ravizza, Responsibility and Control, pp. 236–237.9 According to Richard Brandt a desire is rational if it survives exposure to the facts.

Brandt further emphasizes that part of this process requires that subjects be informed aboutthe original stimulus for their desires. In a representative discussion Brandt describes anindividual who discovers that her current aversion to dogs is the result of stimulus gener-alization: a response to the fact that as a child she was bitten by a dog. As she comes torecognize that the aversion originated in an atypical encounter, the aversion extinguishes.If the norm for deliberation is interpreted along Brandtian lines, then many victims ofbrainwashing may be accountable for their actions. For we should not lose sight of thefact that Benji had some awareness of the conditions under which his desires were formed.They arose as a result of his newly discovered connection with the teaching of ReverendSun Myung Moon, the new friends he met at the Unification Church, and so forth. Benjiwas not, in other words, mistaken about the proximal stimulus for his new life plans. Otherproponents of a full-information requirement, such as Peter Railton, have defended muchmore demanding versions of that requirement. But Railton is also careful to emphasize thatno actual person could ever satisfy the standard he describes for being fully informed. Sothe consequences of his views for the theory of responsibility are opaque. Full-informationaccounts of rational desire encounter difficulties with brainwashed individuals. But it isunclear how a reliabilist interpretation of the norm for deliberation will do better. As weexplain in the text, we believe that a solution depends on getting clearer about how merelybeing exposed to information, and forming beliefs in response to it, differs from fullyappreciating the significance of that information. See R.B. Brandt, A Theory of the Good


something more is needed than vague formula specifying that a responsiblesubject’s “reasons mechanism” is “evidence-sensitive.”

Second, whether this explanation ultimately proves correct, it is justas important that this is what is widely believed to happen in cases of thiskind. Inductees are absolved from responsibility because the belief is wide-spread that they are cognitively incapacitated – and not because they arepresumed to lack alternate possibilities. This common belief about brain-washing may be vindicated by psychological science. Or it may not. Butshould it turn out that the victims of induction are no different from indi-viduals with more ordinary intellectual shortcomings, then this surprisinginformation would probably induce us to conclude that inductees areaccountable for their actions (and deprive the incompatibilist of one ofher favorite examples).

In sum, brainwashing examples have nothing to teach us about theethical consequences of determinism because there is an obvious groundfor distinguishing between the victims of induction and ordinary people.Our suggestion is that inductees are absolved from moral responsibilitybecause the belief is widespread that they are unable to deliberate in acompetent manner. However, if our best effort, informed by natural andpsychological science, failed to turn up a significant cognitive differencebetween inductees and ordinary people, then popular attitudes about theaccountability of the brainwashed would surely change. We would be moreinclined to treat them as being no less accountable than the legions ofordinary people whose self-conception is either ungrounded in fact or atvariance with the facts.

3. IMAGINING AN IDENTICAL TWIN

Let us consolidate the ground we have traversed. Before incompatibilismcan be given a fair hearing we must first overcome our natural tendencyto commit the projective error. Examples of brainwashing initially seempromising because the causal forces acting on agents are relatively trans-

and the Right (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), p. 120; Peter Railton, “Facts and Values,”Philosophical Topics XIV (1986), pp. 5–31. It is logically possible that an objective theoryof intrinsic value – a view that does not identify values with the satisfaction of desires –can be incorporated in the conditions for responsibility attribution. On this view, an agentwould only be a suitable candidate for responsibility if he embraces the good, regardlessof how well his cognitive faculties are working. We think the suggestion, that a craftilysophisticated malefactor – who is perfectly well-informed about the suffering of his victims– should be absolved from responsibility simply because he does not aim for the good life,is a nonstarter. But we recognize that this claim needs an argument.


parent. We can appreciate how the victims of brainwashing lack alternatepossibilities – despite the fact that they have ample opportunities to delib-erate. We arguably do not hold these persons accountable for their actions.Our reactions to examples of this kind do not support incompatibilism,however, because it is doubtful that the transparent lack of alternate possi-bilities genuinely explains why inductees are not accountable for theiractions. There are better examples to support incompatibilism.

Psychologists have gathered fairly extensive information about iden-tical twins separated at birth. In the most interesting cases the twins havebeen reared in separate families that do not include their natural parents.Moreover, the siblings have matured without even suspecting that theyhave an identical twin. In some instances, the degree of convergence inthe twins’ behaviors is striking. As one might expect, there is considerableoverlap in their physical appearance and gestures. But this convergencefrequently extends to intimate personal habits. For one set of twins rearedin separate countries it included quirks, “such as storing rubber bandson their wrists, reading magazines from back to front, flushing the toiletbefore using it, and dipping buttered toast in their coffee,” along withfeigning loud sneezes as a practical joke. More intriguing for questionsabout moral responsibility is the pair of normally chatty sisters, who eachbecame clerks. The sisters both grow silent on controversial matters, suchas politics, and neither of them has ever voted.10

The interest of these studies for our current purposes stems from theirusefulness for holding in check our natural propensity to commit theprojective error and equate opportunities for deliberation with alternatepossibilities. The siblings freely deliberate and have ample opportunity tochoose their lifestyles. Yet some of the results suggest that the outcome oftheir deliberations was genetically determined. Although they engage inpractical deliberation they appear to have lacked alternate possibilities. Wewant to emphasize that we are not claiming that these studies corroboratethe notion that personality is determined or that causal determinism is true.We are setting those issues aside. The interest of these studies for ourcurrent purposes lies solely in their ability to make palpable how someonecould possess opportunities for deliberation and yet still lack alternatepossibilities. We need to cultivate our imagination in order to come to grips

10 For a helpful summary, see Lawrence Wright, Twins: And What They Tell Us aboutWho We Are (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1997), pp. 51 and 54. See further, T. J.Bouchard, Jr. and M. McGue, “Genetic and Rearing Environmental Influences on AdultPersonality: An Analysis of Adopted Twins Reared Apart,” Journal of Personality 58(1990), pp. 263–292.


with the consequences of determinism. The identical twin studies providea good point of departure.

But to make the consequences of determinism more vivid still, performthe following thought experiment:

Start by identifying a decision from your past of which you areespecially proud or alternatively, especially ashamed. For purposes ofillustration, suppose you are an alcoholic and have been a pretty toughnut in all of your fractured personal relationships. Next imagine thatyou receive a letter informing you that an identical twin separated fromyou at birth is on their way over to make your acquaintance. As theevening’s conversation turns intimate you can’t resist asking your twinwhether he too has succumbed to those vices for which you are mostashamed (it does not matter whether we focus on your accomplish-ments instead). You discover that your identical sibling has indeedsurrendered to identical vices.

Does this information have any impact on your self-directed attitudes?The situation can be viewed in different ways. On the one hand, althoughyou continue to be horrified by your monstrous vices you come to regardthem as being no different from warts or boils – although infinitely moreshameful. You cannot be blamed for this bad luck. On the other hand, youmay conclude that the mere discovery of an identically dysfunctional twinin no way absolves you from responsibility for your past. You possessedample opportunity to deliberate over the direction of your life, and nothingwas physically preventing you from choosing to straighten up and fly right.Both you and your twin are properly held accountable for your respectivevices.

The second reaction to the example depends for its survival, we suspect,on the tacit assumption that although you and your sibling possess identicalvices, your conditions are not causally determined. Your genetic materialhas merely furnished you with the raw materials that make some behaviorsmore likely, but that ultimately fall under your control. But this furtiveinstance of the projective error has no place in a proper reaction to thoughtexperiments that aim to test the ethical consequences of determinism. Oneway to extinguish it may then be to add the following:

As your conversation progresses into the night even more idiosyn-cratic shared vices come to light. (These we leave to the reader’simagination.) Once these have been catalogued there comes an insistentknocking, and two (the number is not important) additional identicalsiblings – reared in similarly independent circumstances – appear atthe door. Picking up on the conversation’s theme, they too confess


to having identical vices. There are now four of you who have madeidentical messes of your lives – with the possibility of more on theway.

The faithful carrying out of this thought experiment makes self-directedattitudes of praise and blame difficult to sustain. With the appearance ofeach successive sibling we are increasingly hard-pressed to regard our lifeas the outcome of choices made from genuine alternatives. The activityof choosing was genuine, but the alternatives were not. Anyone equippedwith your genetic materials would have converged on identical outcomes.The self-directed attitudes of praise and blame soon whither under thisscrutiny. For when the peculiarities of our personality are viewed in thislight they seem no different from the oddities of our physical appearance,such as our height, hair or eye color: that is to say, as natural facts about usfor which we take neither credit nor blame. Or so we believe.

If these reflections are on the right track they support incompati-bilism. For the incompatibilist claims that discovering the existence of anidentical twin is like discovering the causal determinants of our behavior.The appearances of successive siblings simply render the causal deter-minants of our behavior increasingly transparent. But in principle weshould reach the same conclusion about moral responsibility any time wefully appreciate how the course of someone’s deliberations is uniquelydetermined.

Examples featuring identical twins have something important incommon with cases of induction that frequently crop up in the literatureon freedom and determinism. The incompatibilist maintains that thoughtexperiments of this kind are useful because they stun our natural tendencyto equate opportunities for deliberation with alternate possibilities. Whenthis projective tendency has been stunned it becomes clear that personalaccountability cannot be reconciled with the truth of determinism. Butexamples using identical twins make a more persuasive case for incom-patibilism because the issue of moral responsibility is not clouded by thesubject’s mental shortcomings. Identical twins are like ordinary people inall morally relevant respects. The principle drawback of this argument forincompatibilism is that while examples of brainwashing are reasonablywell documented, there are no identical twin studies that reveal a perfectconvergence among siblings. That is why we relied on fictional elements.

The use of fictional examples in philosophy has acquired a bad reputa-tion in some quarters. There is arguably some point to this methodologicalstance. Examples should bring our existing convictions into sharper focus.If the examples are too farfetched, they risk deceiving us into thinkingwe hold firm views on topics when, in fact, we have no idea what we


believe. But this methodological point can also be overstated. Exactlywhich fictional elements are to be ruled out? The majority of us willnever have the peculiar shock of encountering a long lost identical twin.Yet this is something that could happen to any one of us. So examplesof this kind have a lot in common with the garden-variety hypotheticals– such as what would you do if you discovered your husband cheating– that form the stock in trade of ordinary deliberation. It is even lesslikely that should you discover a long lost twin there will be a perfectconvergence between you and your newly discovered sibling. We incor-porated this science fiction element in our thought experiment to makethe virtually unfathomable implications of determinism clear. Do thesefictional elements create a problem? Given the primitive condition of thehuman sciences, we seem centuries away from having examples untaintedby fiction that fully communicate the consequences of determinism (ifdeterminism is true). Thus, if philosophical inquiry must be purified fromall fictions then we ought to fold up the tent on questions pertaining todeterminism and responsibility (of course, in philosophy as elsewhere,Puritanism compels curiosity to seek refuge in freer parts).

4. FRANKFURT-STYLE EXAMPLES

Our main contention is that using examples that make the absence ofalternate possibilities transparent supports incompatibilism. This assertionis, however, on a direct collision course with claims often made about“Frankfurt-style examples.” As we shall use this term of art (borrowedfrom Fischer), an example is “Frankfurt-style” if it relies on a counterfac-tual intervener to show that alternate possibilities are not needed for moralresponsibility.11 Strictly speaking, an intervener is not indispensable forexamples of this kind. Any device that can eliminate all practical possibil-ities but one will do. For the basic idea is that we can test the propositionthat alternate possibilities are required for responsibility without havingto consider what human decision making is like if determinism is true.We maintain that Harry Frankfurt’s original example lends no support tocompatibilism, while sophisticated revisions to his example reinforce ourbasic thesis that illustrations featuring transparent causal chains are neededfor making headway on this philosophical problem.

11 See John Martin Fischer, “Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism,” Manuscript, University ofCalifornia, Riverside, pp. 1–31.


Frankfurt invites us to imagine an agent who lacks alternate possibilitiesfor action.12 Here is Fischer’s variation on examples of that kind.13 Theagent enters a voting booth and forms the intention to vote Democrat (itdoes not matter when she forms that intention). In the actual sequence ofevents, she marks her ballot accordingly. In the contrary to fact sequencein which she attempts to vote Republican she would be compelled to voteDemocrat by an agent that materializes for that purpose. Frankfurt claimsthat we hold her accountable for her actual behavior – voting Democrat –despite the fact that alternate courses of action are closed to her. He main-tains further that this undermines the thesis that determinism and moralresponsibility are incompatible: at least when that conclusion relies on theassumption that responsibility requires alternate possibilities for action.

But many incompatibilists will be happy to agree with Frankfurt thatalternate possibilities for action are not needed for moral responsibility.For they contend rather that these alternatives must exist further up thecausal chain. To illustrate, it is consistent with the information contained inthe example described above, that the agent has the opportunity to appraisethe merits of rival candidates. She could have judged that the Republicanwas the more attractive candidate. But the platform of the Democratappealed to her. These deliberations then cause her to act. The incom-patibilist can maintain that the correct explanation for why she is heldaccountable is that she is responsible for her deliberations. She chooses,or makes up her mind, from among alternate possibilities: although therewas in fact only one decision that she could implement. If this explanationis right then the example simply fails to test the proposition that alternatepossibilities are needed for moral responsibility.

Are agents normally held accountable for their intentions? Surely theyare. This is perhaps clearest in the North American legal contexts. Whatdistinguishes murder from manslaughter is that to murder someone anagent must not simply perpetrate the killing, but must also have done sowith the aim of killing (there are some special exceptions to this generalrule). Here the law reflects our ordinary preoccupation with the inner statesof agents in assigning degrees of moral culpability.

To avoid misunderstanding, we are not suggesting that persons are heldaccountable solely on the basis of their inner states. Rightly or wrongly,commonsense differentiates between the agent who resolves to commitsome terrible evil and succeeds, and the more hapless malefactor whogets laid up with the gout. We generally attach extra praise or blame to

12 Harry Frankfurt, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility,” The Journal ofPhilosophy 66 (1969), pp. 829–839.

13 Fischer, “Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism,” p. 3.


agents who successfully consummate their intentions, and subtract it fromagents who fail – even as we recognize that these successes and failurescan be a matter of luck (or attributable to factors beyond an ordinaryperson’s control). Physical actions are normally thought to make a differ-ence to an agent’s accountability. This is not something we wish to deny.Our suggestion is merely that alternate possibilities at some stage in thechain leading from agents to behavior are needed for accountability. Inthe context of Frankfurt’s example, the agent can deliberate or choosefrom among alternatives. If she did not possess these alternatives whiledeliberating, then we would not hold her accountable. Or so the incompati-bilist will contend. Frankfurt’s example cannot be used to show that thiscontention is mistaken because the subject of the example chooses fromamong alternatives.

Efforts to salvage Frankfurt-style examples must therefore go furtherback along the causal chain. But that only postpones the day of reckoning.One example of this kind transforms the counterfactual intervener into asurgical intervener. In this version of the example, if the subject were toform the intention to vote Republican then the surgical intervener wouldmaterialize and substitute an intention to vote Democrat. In the actualsequence of events, the agent forms the intention to vote Democrat, andthe surgical intervener never materializes. So the modification is that thesubject now lacks alternate possibilities with respect to her voting inten-tions. If the subject is still held accountable for her behavior then thisallegedly shows that alternate possibilities for deliberation are not neededfor moral responsibility.

Examples of this kind naturally elicit the objection that the subject isbeing praised or blamed for the psychological event – the “flicker” ofmental activity – that precedes her full-blown intention. For the counter-factual intervener must rely on some signal in order to decide whetherto materialize. And it is consistent with the information provided in theexample that these “proto-intentions,” as we shall call them, are selectedfrom among a set of alternatives. Fisher’s ingenious reply to this objec-tion is that “proto-intentions” are too thin a reed on which to ground thejudgment that the agent should be praised or blamed for her actions in theactual sequence. The alternative explanation – the one that he favors – isthat we are responding to the agent’s intentions and actions, even as webelieve the agent could neither act, nor intend otherwise. He supports thisinterpretation by emphasizing that commonsense morality does not assignmuch significance to proto-intentions.14

14 Fischer writes, “that is not enough for the critic of the Frankfurt-type case to argue thatthere exist some alternative possibilities in the cases, no matter how flimsy or exiguous; if


It is tough to evaluate whether we ordinarily hold people accountablefor “flickers of freedom.” This is for the simple reason that we have little,if any, experience in dealing with mental happenings of that kind. We arewell equipped to appraise behaviors, as well as the beliefs and desires thatcause them. But the kind of mental events under scrutiny here seem tolie beyond the ken of ordinary experience. It may be that if we had lots ofexposure to these kinds of mental events, then they could anchor judgmentsof moral accountability. For example, if we lived in an environment wheresome peoples’ nervous systems were connected to explosive devices, andhaving a proto-intention of a certain kind regularly triggered those devicesresulting in the death of innocent victims, then arguably we might holdpeople accountable for their proto-intentions. But we do not currently livein an environment of that kind. Fischer may be right that the explanationfor why we hold persons accountable in the kind of case described abovedoes not relate to their possessing flickers of freedom. But in principlewe could hold people accountable for these flickers. It is simply diffi-cult to assess the commonsense view on matters that are so exoticallyunfamiliar.

But that issue can be set aside. There is another way to explainwhy we hold these subjects accountable. This explanation competeswith the suggestion that attributions of responsibility either track flickersof freedom, or alternatively, are insensitive to whether agents possessalternate possibilities. What seems reasonably clear is that we do normallyhold agents accountable for their character. By “character” we have inmind, roughly, an agent’s practical values and priorities, or the kinds ofthings they reckon to be important. Typically, these priorities evolve overtime, and reflect decisions taken in the past. The notion of a character canbe illustrated by returning to the example described above. Let us supposethat the agent’s plan to vote Democrat is the result of many years spentvolunteering with the poor, her experience on the local school-board, herinvestigation of the philosophical arguments purporting to justify largedifferentials of wealth, and so forth. These past decisions all help to formher character. They also contribute to her present intention to vote Demo-crat. (Of course, it is possible given the details of the example, that herdecision to vote Democrat originated in a very different way: as a lark, or toplease her husband, or what have you. But that is not the usual assumptionwe make about voters.)

one grounds moral responsibility in alternative possibilities, I believe they must be of acertain sort . . . The mere possibility of unintentional or involuntary behavior – behaviorfor which the agent is not morally responsible – does not seem to me to offer suffi-cient substance on which to base one’s attribution of moral responsibility” (see Fischer,“Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism,” p. 7).


The steps in the argument go basically as follows. First, it is a staplefeature of commonsense morality to hold people accountable for theircharacters. Second, the example’s details encourage us to make certainassumptions about the subject’s character. Third, we assume that the pastdecisions that shaped her character were made from among alternatives.This latter assumption is natural to make since people normally possessample opportunities to deliberate about the kind of person they wish tobecome. It is consequently very difficult to see how even this extensivelyrevised Frankfurt-type example tests the proposition that alternate possi-bilities are needed for accountability. Indeed, on the interpretation we areoffering, the example actually supports the conclusion that these alter-natives explain our moral reaction to the agent’s decision. We judge heraccountable for her character even as we recognize that she lacked alternatepossibilities for intending and acting in the voting booth.

An adequate response to this argument must take issue with the claimthat the subject of this example is being praised or blamed for her character.One possibility is to insist that she is accountable for her actions and nother character – the proof being that it matters to us that she actually markedher ballot. We will repeat the point we made above. A sophisticated incom-patibilist will not deny that actions contribute to praise and blame. Rightlyor wrongly it seems to matter to us that some agents are lucky enough tosucceed in realizing their intentions, while others fail for reasons that aretotally beyond their control. The critical issue is not whether actions count– or contribute to the moral assessment of agents – but whether they wouldcount in the absence of alternate possibilities at any step of the way. Theincompatibilist maintains that alternate possibilities are needed at somestage in the choice process if agents are to be held accountable for theiractions. Nothing in this example engages with that claim.

Another possibility involves challenging outright the notion that wenormally praise or blame people for their character. In reply, there is argu-ably a tendency among moral philosophers to focus exclusively on whetheractions are right or wrong. But it is doubtful that ordinary people share thispreoccupation with actions to the exclusion of all other targets of appraisal.There is little doubt that most people employ “thick” moral concepts. Wereact to individuals who are “creepy” or “callous” or “sweet tempered” and“compassionate.” In so doing, we praise or blame them for their characters,in addition to any discrete action they perform. It is difficult to see how thisexplanation for our reactions can be excluded in the kind of case Fischerdescribes.

If these remarks are on the right track, they suggest that in order to testthe proposition that alternate possibilities are needed for moral respon-


sibility, we will need to close this loophole in Frankfurt-style examples.We will need to consider examples where it is relatively transparent thatagents lack alternate possibilities in choosing their characters. But if this iscorrect, then it calls into question the utility of Frankfurt-style examples.It will be recalled that the distinguishing mark of these examples is thatthey incorporate a counterfactual intervener whose job it is to eliminatealternate possibilities for action (Frankfurt’s version), or alternate possi-bilities for deliberation (Fischer’s version). With the intervener on hand,we need never directly consider what human deliberation would be like ifdeterminism were true; we can assess the assertion that alternate possibil-ities are needed for moral responsibility in the abstract. What now seemsclear is that Frankfurt-style examples are bound to yield inconclusiveresults. The examples can be modified. We can journey back throughthe agent’s history and have the counterfactual intervener materialize everearlier in the story. But no time will be early enough. For the incompati-bilist contends that agents are accountable for their actions only becauseit is presumed that at some point in time, they fashioned the character thatgave rise to their decisions. Since it seems clear that people are judgedfor their characters, the only satisfactory way to test this interpretation isto devise examples where the causal determinants of the agent’s characterare relatively transparent. Such transparency would guarantee that we donot project alternative possibilities for choice onto the agent’s past. But itis difficult to see how the requisite information could be conveyed usinga counterfactual intervener, or indeed any device other than by simplyfilling in details that would allow us to investigate the nature of choicein a deterministic world. A way to accomplish this in the kind of casewe have been considering would, for example, be to multiply the subjectsin the voting booth, specifying that they are identical siblings, separatedfrom birth, and so forth (we leave this exercise to the reader). These detailswould make clear the consequences of determinism in a way that existingFrankfurt-style examples do not. It is hard to see how the compatibilist canhope to rely on examples that do anything less.

Some compatibilists might concede that Frankfurt-type examples inthemselves do not decisively establish that moral responsibility is compat-ible with causal determinism.15 Rather, it can be alleged that the examplesare useful for shifting the burden of proof onto the incompatibilist toexplain why alternate possibilities are needed for accountability. But thisis mistaken on several counts. First, Frankfurt-style examples shift noburdens because they simply fail to test the proposition that alternatepossibilities are needed for moral responsibility. To repeat, few incompati-

15 Compare Fischer, “Frankfurt-Style Compatibilism,” p. 10.


bilists would claim that alternate possibilities for action are required foraccountability (specific incompatibilist targets are conspicuously missingfrom Frankfurt’s original essay). Variations of the example contain enoughresiduum of choice between alternatives to explain why we hold theirsubjects accountable. It is, moreover, difficult to see how this residuumcan be eliminated using the device of a counterfactual intervener –given our well-entrenched propensity to hold people accountable for theircharacters.

Second, incompatibilists are generally willing to assume this burden ofproof in the first place. They respond not by attempting to prove or demon-strate that alternate possibilities are needed for responsibility – since proofsplay no part in this area of philosophy. Instead, they advance examplesdesigned to persuade us that our reflectively held view is that responsibilitypresupposes choices among alternatives.

For this reason, we believe that counterfactual interveners should bescrapped. We should engage directly with examples designed to clarify thenature of choice in a deterministic world.

5. CONCLUSION

The consequences of determinism are not merely hard to imagine, theyborder on being unfathomable. We react to ourselves and others in waysthat presume that the shape our lives take hinges on the decisions we makeover time. We recognize that these decisions reflect our genes and environ-ment: they don’t come out of nowhere. But crucially we also assume thatour character is more than the sum of these impersonal causal factors.When imparting shape to our character we somehow stand above thoseinfluences, and select our destiny from among competing alternatives. Thispicture is badly out of focus if determinism is true. Yet it is very difficult toimagine the replacement that would be appropriate within a deterministicworld.

Some of the more popular thought experiments designed to help ussee the replacement more clearly only muddy the waters. Brainwashingexamples lay bare the causal chains that generate a unique set of atti-tudes and behaviors, but at the cost of describing agents whose diminishedresponsibility can best be attributed to their proprietary cognitive short-comings. Frankfurt-style examples may encourage us to sidestep havingto come to grips with the nature of human decision-making in a deter-ministic world. But this encouragement ultimately proves misguided.Our reactions to these examples are simply the result of a tacit rever-sion to the familiar picture of an agent who forges her character from


among multiple possibilities. We readily project alternate possibilitiesonto subjects who possess opportunities for deliberation. Thought exper-iments organized around identical twins are surely not the last word inthis debate. But they mark a modest start in placing it on the right kind offooting.

Department of PhilosophySimon Fraser UniversityBurnaby, BC V5A 1S6CanadaE-mail: [email protected]

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Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities: The Use and Abuse of Examples