The agential perspective: a hard-line reply to the four-case manipulation argument

Sofia Jeppsson

doi:10.1007/s11098-019-01292-2

Abstract

One of the most influential arguments against compatibilism is Derk Pereboom’s four-case manipulation argument. Professor Plum, the main character of the thought experiment, is manipulated into doing what he does; he therefore supposedly lacks moral responsibility for his action. Since he is arguably analogous to an ordinary agent under determinism, Pereboom concludes that ordinary determined agents lack moral responsibility as well. I offer a hard-line reply to this argument, that is, a reply which denies that this kind of manipulation is responsibility undermining. I point out that fully fleshed-out manipulated characters in fiction can seem morally responsible for what they do. This is plausibly because we identify with such characters, and therefore focus on their options and the reasons for which they act rather than the manipulation. I further argue that we ought to focus this way when interacting with other agents. We have no reason to trust the incompatibilist intuitions that arise when we regard manipulated agents from a much more detached perspective.

Highlights

One of the most influential arguments against compatibilism is Derk Pereboom’s four-case manipulation argument
Plum is stipulated to fulfil every popular compatibilist moral responsibility condition; he is reasons-responsive (Fischer and Ravizza 1998), his first-order will conforms to his second-order volitions (Frankfurt 1971), he is capable of taking moral as well as prudential reasons into account (Wallace 1994), he acts in character (Hume 1739/1978) and so on
In case 1, a team of neuroscientists manipulate him from moment to moment in order to cause him to murder White. This is supposed to elicit a strong non-responsibility intuition in us readers, and prompt us to judge that Plum lacks moral responsibility in this situation

Summary

The four-case manipulation argument

Derk Pereboom’s four-case manipulation argument is one of the most influential arguments for incompatibilism in the moral responsibility debate. In case 2, Plum was programmed at birth by a team of neuro-scientists to become a fairly egoistic person, determined, when finding himself in circumstances where he stands to gain a lot from doing so, to kill White Pereboom writes that it can hardly be morally relevant whether the scientists manipulate Plum from a temporal distance or not, so if he lacks moral responsibility in the first case, he does so in the second one as well. McKenna suggests that we challenge our non-responsibility intuitions about the early cases by beginning with case 4, ordinary determinism, and focus hard on Plum’s agential qualities This will elicit compatibilist intuitions and prompt us to judge him morally responsible for the murder, or at least to remain agnostic about the matter. This is not always the case when I partake of stories featuring characters who have been programmed to do what they do—and I strongly suspect that in all this, I am not alone

Shifting intuitions

Plum 2’s decision

Plum 1’s decision

How ought we to focus?

Diminished responsibility and tracing

Conclusion