Compatibilists Could Have Done Otherwise: Responsibility and Negative Agency

Abstract

One is morally responsible for what one has done only if one could have done otherwise. Those who believe that moral responsibility is incompatible with causal determinism often invoke this principle, known as the Principle of Alternative Possibilities, to show that their position has a foothold in ordinary ways of thinking about the conditions of moral responsibility.' The incompatibilist assumes that whether an agent could have done otherwise in some situation depends on whether that agent could have acted differently in circumstances exactly the same as those that actually existed, and so infers that if determinism is true, this condition of moral responsibility is never satisfied. Interpreted in this way, the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (henceforth PAP) states a metaphysical rather than a psychological condition of responsibility; one cannot ascertain whether it is satisfied by examining the agent's views, attitudes, and assumptions. Nevertheless, incompatibilists often support this principle by arguing that it is presupposed in our ordinary conception of ourselves as deliberators and agents.2 If determinism is true, then an important element in our self-conception as agents is simply a delusion, according to the incompatibilist, and the practice of holding people responsible for their actions that rests upon it is ungrounded-or at least not as well grounded as we ordinarily suppose.