Is John in front of the burning orphanage responsible for his moral choices? Also yes.
But can I be angry at John-1 if he runs away? I find that I can’t. Not when my anti-Correspondence bias-heuristics kick in, when I envision his situation, when I realize he is the product of a specific set of understandable environmental factors and psychological factors, which are the product of a specific combination of nature and nurture. Yes, some babies dying is John-1′s fault. But John-1 is the “fault” of his upbringing.
I find I can’t be honestly be angry, and I can’t honestly blame, when I have considered this reasoning. I can be sad, sure, but that’s different.
For myself, it doesn’t give me a catch-all excuse. I have a choice, I make it, and I am responsible for making it, even if I am a product of nature and nurture. This agrees with the viewpoint expressed in the article, as far as I understand it.
As for law, these views unfold like this: Most people still need to be punished for transgressions, in order to conserve the law’s pre-commitment that produces the negative expected utility upon transgressions. For some people, there’s also a sense of “justice” involved with it, but that doesn’t come into play for my rational reasoning. As it turns out, these views are also predicted and recommended as the future of law in the paper that TGGP2 linked. I’ve only read the abstract so far though.
Am I responsible for my moral choices?
Yes.
Is John in front of the burning orphanage responsible for his moral choices?
Also yes.
But can I be angry at John-1 if he runs away?
I find that I can’t. Not when my anti-Correspondence bias-heuristics kick in, when I envision his situation, when I realize he is the product of a specific set of understandable environmental factors and psychological factors, which are the product of a specific combination of nature and nurture. Yes, some babies dying is John-1′s fault. But John-1 is the “fault” of his upbringing.
I find I can’t be honestly be angry, and I can’t honestly blame, when I have considered this reasoning. I can be sad, sure, but that’s different.
For myself, it doesn’t give me a catch-all excuse. I have a choice, I make it, and I am responsible for making it, even if I am a product of nature and nurture. This agrees with the viewpoint expressed in the article, as far as I understand it.
As for law, these views unfold like this: Most people still need to be punished for transgressions, in order to conserve the law’s pre-commitment that produces the negative expected utility upon transgressions. For some people, there’s also a sense of “justice” involved with it, but that doesn’t come into play for my rational reasoning.
As it turns out, these views are also predicted and recommended as the future of law in the paper that TGGP2 linked. I’ve only read the abstract so far though.