Reasons-Responsiveness, Agents, and Mechanisms1

Bibliographic Data

ID23174397
AuthorsMichael Mckenna (0000-0001-7859-3633, corresponding author)
Year2013
Pages151-183
Publication date2013-08-15
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueOxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199694853.003.0007
OpenAlexW2476373095
ISBN9780199694853
LanguageEN
Citations received30

Some compatibilists are attracted to a theory which accounts for freedom in terms of sensitivity to reasons. But reasons-responsiveness appears to conflict with another common compatibilist thesis: that the freedom pertinent to moral responsibility can be found in a Frankfurt example. The problem seems to be that in a Frankfurt example, an agent is not reasons-responsive insofar as, if she had reason to do otherwise, she would not do otherwise. John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, have attempted to overcome this problem by focusing upon an agent’s “mechanism” of action operative in a Frankfurt example. Unfortunately, theorizing about freedom in terms of mechanisms of action leads to several difficulties. This chapter examines the compatibilists’ prospects for salvaging a mechanism-based account of reasons-responsiveness in light of these difficulties, and it is considered whether theorists committed to a reasons-responsive view should return to an agent-based rather than a mechanism-based view.

Action (physics) · Compatibilism · Epistemology · Law and economics · Mechanism (biology) · Moral responsibility · Physics · Sociology · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Philosophy

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