Fischer and Ravizza on Moral Sanity and Weakness of Will

Abstract

This essay evaluates John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza'smature semi-compatibilist account of moral responsibility, focusingon their new theory of moderate reasons-responsiveness as a model of``moral sanity.'' This theory, presented in Responsibility andControl, solves many of the problems with Fischer's earlier weakreasons-responsiveness model, such as its unwanted implication thatagents who are only erratically responsive to bizarre reasons can beresponsible for their acts. But I argue that the new model still facesseveral problems. It does not allow sufficiently for non-psychoticagents (who are largely reasons-responsive) with localized beliefsand desires incompatible with full responsibility. Nor does it take intoaccount that practical ``fragmentation of the self'' over time may alsoreduce competence, since moral sanity requires some minimum level ofnarrative unity in our plans and projects. Finally, I argue that actual-sequenceaccounts cannot adequately explain sane but weak-willed agency. This isbecause without libertarian freedom, such accounts have no way to modelthe perverse agent's determination to be irrational or weak.