Automaticity, Consciousness and Moral Responsibility

Abstract

Cognitive scientists have long noted that automated behavior is the rule, while conscious acts of self-regulation are the exception to the rule. On the face of it, automated actions appear to be immune to moral appraisal because they are not subject to conscious control. Conventional wisdom suggests that sleepwalking exculpates, while the mere fact that a person is performing a well-versed task unthinkingly does not. However, our apparent lack of conscious control while we are undergoing automaticity challenges the idea that there is a relevant moral difference between these two forms of unconscious behavior. In both cases the agent lacks access to information that might help them guide their actions so as to avoid harms. In response, it is argued that the crucial distinction between the automatic agent and the agent undergoing an automatism, such as somnambulism or petit mal epilepsy, lies in the fact that the former can preprogram the activation and interruption of automatic behavior. Given that, it is argued that there is elbowroom for attributing responsibility to automated agents based on the quality of their will.

Keywords:

• Automaticity
• Automatism
• Consciousness
• Illusion of Free Will
• Responsibility

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Josh Cowley, Ilhan Inan, Neil Levy, Emre Ozgen, Stephen Voss and Bill Wringe, John Doris and one anonymous referee. An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Joint Session of the Aristotelian and Mind Association, Manchester (UK), July 7–9, 2005. I would also like to thank the audience on that occasion for their insights.

Notes

Notes

1.  A person undergoing this form of somnambulism enters into a fugue state whereby they are able to proficiently carry out complex tasks such as driving, mowing the lawn, etc. See Mahowald and Schenck (2000).

2.  During petit mal or minor epilepsy the person suffers a loss of consciousness and amnesia, but does not undergo convulsions. In spite of the seizure they are able to continue driving home, walking or playing the piano, albeit in a routinized way. See Penfield (1975, pp. 38–40) and Searle (1994, pp. 107–108).

3.  According to Dennett's (1991, pp. 141–142) “Multiple Drafts” account of consciousness, both explanations—not attending and forgetting—are equally viable.

4.  In addition, for example the physiological difference between these two forms of unconsciousness may not be as great as might be assumed. There is, for example, evidence that suggests that wakefulness, non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep and rapid eye movement (REM) sleep are not always mutually exclusive states. Neurophysiological features of one state may intrude into another state causing parasomias such as somnambulism (Mahowald & Schenck, 2000, pp. 322–323, 325–326). It may be the case, therefore, that automaticity occurs because neurological features that typically characterize NREM or REM sleep intrude into the state of wakefulness; i.e., it may turn out that automaticity can be characterized as a mildly sleeplike phenomenon. The crucial difference, as we shall see, lies in the fact that automatisms are typically impervious to interruption, while automaticity is typically susceptible to interruption.

5.  Note that this is not sufficient for the attribution of responsibility as there may be a lack of eligible alternatives (e.g., swerving on to the crowded footpath in order to avoid hitting the child on the pedestrian crossing is not an eligible alternative), or there may be insufficient time to react (i.e., due to time to impact and the comparative slowness of conscious control). On the need for eligible alternatives see T. M. Scanlon (1998, pp. 279–280, 291–292). In addition, I take it that when the agent is in a position to preset or revise her automatic behavior the attribution of responsibility requires that she is not subject to some form of cognitive impairment (e.g., immaturity may mean that the novice is insufficiently sensitive to reasons). That is to say, they must be sufficiently capable of understanding and assessing reasons when they are attending to the periphery. On the requirement that the agent be sufficiently responsive to reasons, see Fischer and Ravizza (1998, pp. 41–49).