Conversation and Responsibility

Michael McKenna's Conversation and Responsibility is an ambitious and impressive statement of a new theory of moral responsibility. McKenna's approach builds upon the strategy advanced in P. F. Strawson's (2013 [1962]) enormously influential “Freedom and Resentment.” The account advanced aims to provide Strawson's theory with the sort of detail that is required to fill significant gaps and respond to a wide range of criticisms and objections that have been directed against it. McKenna identifies three key elements in Strawson's account of moral responsibility, two of which he endorses and one of which he rejects (56, compare 2–3, 45–46). The first is the claim “that moral responsibility must be understood by reference to the nature of holding responsible” (30). The second is the claim that holding responsible ought to be explained in terms of our moral reactive attitudes and practices. Taken together these two claims, McKenna notes, involve a commitment to both an interpersonal and a conative-affective theory (46). The third claim, which McKenna rejects, is that “holding morally responsible is metaphysically more basic than being morally responsible” (47, compare 3). In other words, McKenna rejects the suggestion that holding responsible is in some way prior to being responsible, contrary to the views of Strawson and some of his most prominent followers (3, 39–41).It is McKenna's aim to strike a balance between the view that holding responsible is in some way more basic or fundamental to being responsible and, at the other end of this spectrum, “the extreme metaphysical view” (41). The extreme metaphysical view maintains, contrary to the Strawsonian approach, that the question of an agent being responsible can be settled without any reference to the stance of holding responsible or our reactive attitudes. What we should be concerned with, extreme metaphysical views suggest, are relevant facts about the agent's moral values as revealed in their conduct, about which our judgments may be true or false. On this view, the fairness or propriety of blaming and holding responsible depends on facts about the agent being responsible, not the other way round. To put this point more sharply, we may say that blameworthiness is prior to blaming. Against these metaphysical accounts, the Strawsonian view claims that any such facts about responsibility depend on our practices and are not prior to, or independent of, them. In order to understand responsible agency, we must first have in place a set of norms that structure our moral emotions. It is in this sense that priority rests with holding over being responsible. McKenna's theory aims to find a middle position or “third option” between these two poles, one that holds that neither is more basic than the other (53). For this reason, McKenna describes his own brand of Strawsonian responsibility as a “modest metaphysical interpretation” (54).McKenna's sympathy with the suggestion that being morally responsible is in some way metaphysically more basic than holding responsible is rooted in the fact that holding responsible is meant to be a response to an agent who is responsible (51). For this reason his “modest metaphysical” account aims to place greater weight on the relevant features of the responsible agent. The crucial element that McKenna wants to give more prominence to is “quality of will,” which can itself be understood and explained with reference to Strawson's original statement. Strawson began his own investigations with the observation that we care a great deal about the extent to which we show regard or concern for others, as manifest in our conduct (that is, through our choices, decisions, intentions, reasons, and motives). The quality of an agent's will is a function of their good, indifferent, or ill will as it concerns others. It follows that the quality of an agent's will reflects the value and worth of that will (58–59, 94, 103, 209).Reactive attitudes are, McKenna continues, responses to the qualities of will found in others. Although they have a cognitive component, involving beliefs about the agent's conduct in relation to our normative standards and expectations, reactive attitudes also have both an affective and a conative dimension—which gives them practical force and significance (2, 22, 64). It is our moral reactive attitudes, understood in these terms, that “help to constitute the standpoint of holding responsible” (64). Much of McKenna's analysis assumes a “narrow” construal of our moral reactive attitudes, understood primarily in terms of our negative responses to cases where an agent “knowingly and freely performs a morally wrong act from a morally objectionable quality of will” (64–65, 181). While this account does make reference to the need for a responsible agent to have free will in the broad sense of a control condition, McKenna aims to stay “neutral” between compatibilist and incompatibilist interpretations of that condition (2, 13, 58; but compare 74, where McKenna notes the compatibilist orientation of Strawsonian theories). Although McKenna's narrow focus is on actions that trigger negative responses that “rise to the level of overt blame,” he makes clear that he intends his own account to be “more inclusive” or “more liberal” than this, covering judgments of virtue and vice as well as right and wrong action (3, 200f.). Nevertheless, the paradigmatic and primary cases McKenna concerns himself with throughout much of his discussion are ones involving moral reactive attitudes that have blameworthy actions as their objects of evaluation (as suggested by most of McKenna's specific examples offered throughout the book).With these basic features of quality of will and reactive attitudes in place, McKenna turns to what he suggests is an “extremely important point, one that cannot be overstated,” which is that regarding another person as a morally responsible agent means something in practice (67). McKenna describes this as his “practice-oriented treatment of reactive attitudes” because it emphasizes the public and overt nature of our reactive attitudes and the practices associated and intertwined with them (67–72). According to McKenna's account, reactive attitudes typically involve some relevant form of practical follow-through. Private episodes that lack any public expression or overt behavior are, he argues, “parasitic” on an understanding of the public cases (69). We identify the reactive attitudes in terms of the relevant behavior and expression they give rise to. Moral emotions of these kinds are not, however, mere “ejaculations” or “eruptions” (68, 71). Although they are not typically subject to voluntary control, they are subject to rational control, insofar as the evaluative judgments involved give scope to discarding or modifying our emotions in light of relevant considerations (71, 194–95). The important issue that arises out of all this concerns what modes of expression or kinds of response in these circumstances we can deem appropriate or “fitting” to their object. McKenna's “conversational model” (88) provides a general answer to this important question. The model is further developed and refined in the second half of the book, much of which is devoted to an extended discussion and analysis of blame.Given that our reactive attitudes are (rationally) grounded in beliefs about an agent's quality of will, we need a theory of excuses and exemptions, which will cover cases where we are provided with either reinterpretations of the agent's conduct (for example, accidents, ignorance, and so on) or presented with considerations that suggest the agent is sufficiently incapacitated as to show that he or she is not a responsible agent or an appropriate target of reactive attitudes (for example, a young child, insane person, and so on). As McKenna notes, it is a significant gap in Strawson's original statement of his own theory that he has so little to say about exemptions and the issue of incapacity (see Watson 2013 [1987], Russell 1992). It is at this juncture that McKenna introduces the core apparatus of his conversational model. The key elements are drawn from Gary Watson's (2013 [1987]) “expressive theory of moral responsibility” (76–78).Expressing reactive attitudes, Watson has argued, has a point only if the agent can understand them or has “a capacity to be addressed.” In this sense, we should view reactive attitudes as “incipient forms of communication,” and as such, they presuppose that agents targeted by reactive attitudes can make sense of them. According to McKenna, what is correct about this claim of Watson's is that if an agent is impaired in this way, then he or she is incapable of participating in our complex social practices of holding morally responsible. This is not just an inability to appreciate the “challenges put to her by those who hold morally responsible” but also in the ability to be morally responsible (78). It is the principal aim of McKenna's conversational model to explain and elucidate this intimate and inextricable link between being capable of “moral address” and being a responsible agent.McKenna's account of this connection begins with “the condition of moral sense,” which requires that responsible agents must be able to hold responsible, where holding responsible involves a moral sense or susceptibility to reactive attitudes (drawing on Russell 2004). McKenna elaborates on and extends this approach by arguing that any agent who is so incapacitated (that is, in relation to moral sense) would lose access to a range of moral reasons of an especially significant kind—“second-personal reasons” (83; drawing on Darwall 2006). Second-personal reasons, as McKenna summarizes it, involve the demand by someone with authority and standing to make such demands that you not harm them or cause them to suffer. The validity of reasons of this kind presuppose the authority of the person making the demand and the agent's accountability to them (83).If Darwall is correct about the very existence, nature and persuasiveness of these reasons, and to my mind he is, we have a straightforward source of support for my claim about moral responsibility's dependence on the nature of holding responsible. The practices by which others hold one morally responsible are themselves expressions of demands that as a competent agent one must be able to grasp and treat as reasons that apply to one. In the absence of this ability, a person would be unable to recognize and respond to a vast array of reasons presented to morally responsible agents. (84)Clearly, then, as McKenna sees it, an ability to grasp second-personal reasons is essential to being a (fully) responsible agent, and an ability to grasp reasons of this kind requires being able to hold oneself responsible, where this involves reactive attitudes understood as modes of moral address (as directed at the agent).This brings us to the analogy between responsibility and conversation. In the case of conversation, a competent speaker must possess both skills of expressing herself, so she can contribute to the dialogue, and the interpretative skills required for understanding those who may reply to her. These skills are enmeshed with each other, insofar as a proper appreciation of the significance of what one is saying presupposes an appreciation of the way in which it is received and interpreted by others. For a linguistic community to function properly and for effective communication to occur, both speakers and audience must share these abilities and skills (49, 85, 219). In the case of responsibility, an agent's “acting skills and her holding responsible skills are similarly enmeshed” (86). A responsible agent must, like a competent speaker, be able to appreciate the significance of her act and the quality of will with which she acts. For this to be possible, she must also be able to understand and interpret the way her acts are received and will be taken and responded to by others. Failing this, she will have no proper or adequate appreciation of the significance of what she is doing. Competence as a moral agent requires abilities on both sides of this coin, and these skills cannot be pried apart—just as the analogy with conversation and the relevant modes of speaker competence suggests (86, 97, 99–100, 196, 213).This analysis of the conversational analogy generates a “three-stage” structure to the model that McKenna proposes. The first stage is “moral contribution,” which occurs when an action or omission by an agent initiates or “opens up the possibility of a conversation about the moral value of her action” (88). This is followed by the second stage of “moral address,” which involves members of the moral community directing reactive attitudes back to the agent—an analogue of conversational reply addressed back to the speaker. Finally, the third stage is “moral account,” when the agent replies by offering some account of her conduct, appealing to excuses, justifications, and so on, as they may be relevant. Viewed in these terms, responsibility is a form of “dialogue,” requiring competence by all parties involved at all three levels or stages. Incompetence or inability at any one of these stages makes “dialogue” and “communication” impossible. When we understand moral responsibility in these terms, then the basic issue that concerns McKenna about the relationship between being and holding responsible is explained and accounted for. Neither one has “priority” over the other.What, then, is the significance of the conversational theory for our understanding of blame? One potential objection to this theory, McKenna points out, is that it is “inadequate to provide the justification for the harm in blame” (105). In dealing with this criticism, McKenna provides an extended and subtle response, carefully developed in the second half of the book. “Desert,” he notes, “is perhaps the most contentious dimension to an adequate theory of moral responsibility” (114). The background concern here is that full-fledged responsibility (that is, in the “accountability” sense, 7–8) commits us to the view that the blameworthy agent deserves blame and that this involves some harm or suffering to wrongdoers. It is McKenna's aim to show that the conversational theory suggests that some forms of response to the wrongdoer are “fitting,” while others are not (118). A fitting response is one that is “an intelligible, meaningful, or suitable expression of one's moral disapproval within the context of a conversation” (120). McKenna believes that the conversational theory can accommodate a credible, weak role for desert and explain what this involves (127–28, 133).According to the conversational theory, the basic point of blame is to communicate with the wrongdoer (as per the “moral address” stage of responsibility). Given this core function or “point” of blame, it must be both public and directed at the wrongdoer. As blaming involves these modes of expression, suitably constrained by the requirements of “moving the dialogue further along” (142), it inevitably involves some form of significant harm to the wrongdoer (135, 143, 152). These harms, as associated with properly functioning blame, are accounted for primarily in terms of a certain range of “welfare interests,” such as being able to enjoy and maintain friendships, emotional stability, and so on (135, 153). It is McKenna, that these practices of so not be with In the case of blame, the to harm is not harm may it is not what is at or this the question of blame at all if it harm and does value The answer to this, McKenna maintains, is that involved in blaming three the form of the that “is in the blameworthy agent's commitment to within the moral and the fact that she about the that is manifest in the role of the a commitment to and, the in the of the blaming insofar as it dialogue at and In the conversational theory can account for a weak role for desert in our practices of blame, which the of while at the the value in these practices they cause harm to conversational theory is explained and with care and It is also presented in a and both and McKenna is, a and and of other and he is in his of the that he The theory advanced is not only it is also The normative of the conversational theory are as as the metaphysical demands it rests on are The is one that has the of a sense on the subject of moral responsibility. This is not to suggest, however, that the position taken is either or without features and On the McKenna's conversational theory is as as it is and as such, it will discussion and this to a general points of criticism, of which can adequate to where potential in the conversational theory may be The first two are criticisms that from within the of the Strawsonian approach and concern the two of the that McKenna to his own The first element concerned with is the that reactive attitudes are subject to the the or cases involve of these the cases can be explained by reference to these This is of a with McKenna's claim that holding responsible is a of practical concern and that blame, in means something in practice The concern that this claim, with the more general Strawsonian is that holding responsible and blaming are not a of “a cognitive here McKenna has views primarily in mind and compare While this may be it does not that we need to between a narrow view, on one and a more view that forms of conduct and other modes of behavior as in some way essential to these here is by reactive attitudes and blame to relevant modes of expression in overt conduct and behavior that is to conversation, we an important between our reactive attitudes and the way to and so on) we them. McKenna is to this but not that he is in dealing with it. notes, for example, that considerations blame On the other he also that when blame is so it must the relevant of conversational and contribute to the this is the then blame reactive attitudes more must involve a of and These are, however, and may sense of blame may be in that to the of dialogue (as required by the conversational In these blame and of expression may when it to the issue of the conversational model cannot properly account for and to blame may not issue in forms of expressing it. It follows that blame, as such, is not as and with expression as McKenna's conversational theory of this it may be argued, suggest that the account provided of reactive attitudes and blaming is in an to the conversational model and the analogy that it concerns the other key element of the approach, which is the conversational understanding of “moral As the conversational model and primary on “the of an interpersonal between and the and also It may be argued, however, that this view of the relevant audience of “moral address” is and as blame may be and is then addressed to an it is not that the primary audience need be the person or the In when the wrongdoer is and those who blame someone and have been or by them may not be at all in or “dialogue” with the regard any such to in such an as and as this does not that is no point in expressing their sense of blame to other may others to the norms and that they have been or and they may this with a view to their own moral with the norms and values at A case can be for this form of expression as the primary case of overt blame addressed to an in or While the point of blame may be to a with a view to or in some cases it may involve more than an to or up emotional that blame may The conversational model makes all those modes of the expression of blame, targeted on an audience other than the person as if not The general objection that the conversational model is narrow and and is unable to accommodate the and involved in moral explained concerns that may with the two core elements of the conversational to more to a more general concern about McKenna's to “neutral” on the free will (2, 13, may find this claim to Strawsonian and The concern however, is that any theory of moral responsibility the accountability sense) is with a of in the free will the most important of those are rooted in the set of and the source of an agent's and of which are relevant to the agent's quality of These are, of concerns that Watson (2013 [1987]) and addressed in his own discussion of the in have been a of prominent and influential of about moral responsibility on about which McKenna has little to say in Conversation and The here is that McKenna is well to address these as he is one of the most and influential to the relevant to these as well as those who are to the Strawsonian approach this will be that he not say more about these objections as they concern the of his conversational account of moral while McKenna to the significance of the analogy holding between responsibility and conversation, some may view the analogy as what is, especially important about communication and in this it may be that it is not so much between conversation and moral responsibility but the and of linguistic abilities by responsible agents that ability to and moral norms and reactive attitudes is to the attitudes and practices associated with moral responsibility. On this view of the of and communication is not so much one of analogy as of what is or essential to our making sense of the social practices in which we in this It is his concern with the of and that McKenna does not this of the responsibility points of criticism, which are presented in the terms, are in no way meant to suggest that McKenna has not through of these much that they constitute in the book. On the the of Conversation and as have is and The fundamental analogy is both and of further and Conversation and Responsibility on the of any set of devoted to the discussion of moral responsibility. their orientation may will find it both and in the end one endorses the conversational model or not, can be no that this is a that our understanding of these important and complex to for very and to this

Analytic philosophy · Contemporary philosophy · Conversation · Epistemology · General interest · Linguistics · Ethics in medical practice · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics

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