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Notes
1. Some recent discussions include Zimmerman (Citation2002, Citation2003), Dennett (Citation2002), Haji (Citation1996, Citation1998, chaps 6 and 7) and McKenna (forthcoming).
2. Note that Fischer and Ravizza do not claim that being responsible for any given action requires taking responsibility for that action. The idea of taking responsibility for particular actions is not part of their account. Their claim is, rather, that we count as responsible for a particular action only if we have come to see ourselves as responsible for the type of mechanism from which that action results.
3. The writers consider one sort of case, not involving manipulation, that might be used to challenge the necessity of taking responsibility in their sense: philosophers who, after grappling with the question of free will, come to disavow their status as responsible agents, on the grounds that no one is a fair target for praise or blame under determinism (and/or indeterminism). Surprisingly, the writers allow that such agents really do avoid responsibility in this way (Fischer and Ravizza Citation1998, 226–29). Since this seems implausible, suspicion is cast on the necessity of taking responsibility. However, as Michael McKenna (Citation2000, 101–2) points out, it is open to Fischer and Ravizza to maintain that our behavior, rather than our theoretical convictions, is the best guide to whether or not we have this attitude to ourselves.
4. Fischer and Ravizza (Citation1998, 29–41) use ‘Frankfurt-style cases’ to support their claim that moral responsibility does not require the ability to do otherwise. In such cases, it seems, that agent performs a certain action of his own accord, when, unbeknownst to him, another agent was in a position to impel him to perform that action, had he been about to do something else. It is natural to conclude that the second agent's counterfactual intervention does not influence the actual course of events, and so leaves the first's responsibility intact. See Frankfurt (Citation1969).
5. More carefully, these ‘conditionalist’ views held that the ability to do otherwise is wholly essential to satisfying the ‘freedom-relevant’ condition for responsibility. For simplicity, I have left epistemic conditions to one side here.
6. See, for example, Lehrer (Citation1968).
7. Depending on the details of course, Judith might have a credible case for mitigating factors. But it is important to keep in mind that her desire to punch Jane is moderately reasons-responsive, and hence not irresistible.
8. More carefully, Frankfurt is concerned with a subset of second-order desires, which he calls ‘second-order volitions.’ Whereas a second-order desire is any desire concerning one's first-order desires, a second-order volition is a second-order desire that some first-order desire be the one that leads to action on the occasion in question. See Frankfurt (Citation1971).
9. This would make it conceptually impossible, as it is not on Frankfurt's view, for an agent to be miraculously created in a state of taking responsibility for something.
10. In one respect, Stump is clearly right: Fischer and Ravizza do not make room for the possibility that a manipulator might simply direct an agent's attention towards an evidentially relevant feature of her situation, and thereby play a causal role in the formation of the requisite view of herself. However, Stump has not supported the claim that a belief could be more directly induced while leaving the ‘basing relation’ inviolate. This is presumably the real point at issue.
11. Notice that this worry would persist even if Fischer and Ravizza were to adopt an externalist approach to the epistemology of (c). Fischer and Ravizza briefly entertain such an externalist development of their position in Responsibility and Control (1998, 236–37, n. 31). For an assessment of its prospects, see McKenna (Citation2000, 101–2).
12. Indeed, this is just the point they press elsewhere against Frankfurt—arguing that ‘continuous manipulation is compatible with continuity and intelligibility’ (Fischer and Ravizza Citation1998, 198)—in response to Frankfurt's contention that such a history would be ‘utterly episodic and without inherent connectedness’ (Frankfurt Citation1988).
13. The writers consider one sort of case, not involving manipulation, that might be used to challenge the necessity of taking responsibility in their sense: philosophers who, after grappling with the question of free will, come to disavow their status as responsible agents, on the grounds that no one is a fair target for praise or blame under determinism (and/or indeterminism). Surprisingly, the writers allow that such agents really do avoid responsibility in this way (Fischer and Ravizza Citation1998, 226–29). Since this seems implausible, suspicion is cast on the necessity of taking responsibility. However, as Michael McKenna (Citation2000, 101–2) points out, it is open to Fischer and Ravizza to maintain that our behavior, rather than our theoretical convictions, is the best guide to whether or not we have this attitude to ourselves.
14. Fischer and Ravizza anticipate an objection in the spirit of the present one. In their version, the neuroscientist ‘just alters a few neurotransmitters that are irrelevant to the agent's deliberations and behavior’ (1998, 234, n. 26). They may well be right that such inefficacious manipulation can safely be ignored. However, they should have gone on to consider a case in which the manipulation does affect the agent's deliberations without ultimately affecting the outcome.
15. I owe this suggestion to Michael McKenna.