Fischer and Ravizza on Moral Sanity and Weakness of Will

• Published in: The journal of ethics 2002-01, Vol.6 (3), p.235-259
• Main Author: Davenport, John J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Free will; Freedom; Libertarianism; Metaphysics; Moral responsibility; Morality; Motivation; Philosophy; Philosophy of action; Pure reason; Reason; Sufficient reason; Theory of values and moral philosophy. Philosophy of action
• ISSN: 1382-4554; 1572-8609
• DOI: 10.1023/A:1019531928562

This essay evaluates John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza's mature semi-compatibilist account of moral responsibility, focusing on their new theory of moderate reasons-responsiveness as a model of "moral sanity." This theory, presented in Responsibility and Control, solves many of the problems with Fischer's earlier weak reasons-responsiveness model, such as its unwanted implication that agents who are only erratically responsive to bizarre reasons can be responsible for their acts. But I argue that the new model still faces several problems. It does not allow sufficiently for non-psychotic agents (who are largely reasons-responsive) with localized beliefs and desires incompatible with full responsibility. Nor does it take into account that practical "fragmentation of the self" over time may also reduce competence, since moral sanity requires some minimum level of narrative unity in our plans and projects. Finally, I argue that actual-sequence accounts cannot adequately explain sane but weak-willed agency. This is because without libertarian freedom, such accounts have no way to model the perverse agent's determination to be irrational or weak.