moral responsibility

• there are two different approaches to...?

  the treatment of crime, and these correspond to the different approaches of free will
• one...?

  crime is a mental condition: an illness that can be treated
• what does viewpoint one accept?

  that there are determining factors in an individuals life for which they either cannot be blamed, or their blame is limited
• what should treatment therefore be?

  therapeutic, rather than retributive
• what is viewpoint two?

  that crime is a deliberately anti-social behaviour that should be punished
• what does retribution do?

  allows for justice, signifies society's disapproval of the act, acts as a deterrent and enforces the idea of moral responsibility
• if determinism is true...?

  then there can be no freedom of the kind required for moral responsibility
• all such events are...?

  determined and unavoidable
• if our human behaviour is determined then...?

  so is our system of rewards/ punishment
• they are simply...?

  consequences that we have built into the system
• if determinism is true, then in the religious sense...?

  any idea of sin against God becomes totally redundant
• how?

  nobody can be blamed by God for doing what their created/ determined nature makes them do
• Christianity is then...?

  incoherent
• how is Christianity then incoherent?

  Jesus' atonement is pointless, as is the doctrine of reward for morally good behaviour (heaven)
• what did Skinner believe that his work would lead to?

  a reform of all the practices of praise and blame, reward and punishment
• what can direct what people desire/ want?

  psychological conditioning
• what does punishment do?

  makes people worse, a thief will always go back to being a thief
• (critiques) to the libertarian, this is incoherent, how?

  since for the determinist, any attempt to apply conditioning must itself be determinined by pre-existing conditions
• the libertarian must...?

  hold people responsible for their actions
• what are praise and blame and reward and punishment?

  part of the libertarian strategy for leading people to be morally responsible
• to see people as the product of social, environmental and genetic forces (as determinists inevitably do) is to...?

  treat people as objects without dignity
• what does the law in the UK acknowledge?

  diminished responsibility for a number of different types of people
• a criminals behaviour was...?

  free, and not wholly determined by mental, social or environmental circumstances (they could have done otherwise)
• what did Kant insist?

  that "ought implies can"
• we feel the moral compulsion concerning what we "ought" to do...?

  this strongly suggests that we are free to do it
• moreover, our freedom is clear from what?

  the fact that we are able to override that compulsion and do otherwise
• at the same time...?

  we can feel guilt and remorse when we fail to do something we ought
• such feelings are strongly indicative of...?

  moral freedom
• what does Kant offer a libertarian account of?

  punishment as retribution
• we can be free internally (in our minds) to follow the moral law and externally (politically) by being able to pursue our own ends
• to have external freedom, what do we have to do?

  live under the rule of law
• only retribution...?

  allows for the criminal to become a rational person who is responsible for their actions
• what is the weakness of the libertarian approach to reward/ punishment?

  if determinism is true, then libertarianism is merely another kind of determined response to moral issues
• what do compatiblists see themselves as?

  morally responsible/ accountable
• to the question "could I have done otherwise?" what would the compatibilist respond with?

  yes, if I had desired to do otherwise
• a compatiblists moral choices aren't...?

  the results of physical restraints or coercive threats
• they wanted/ desired to...?

  act as they did, despite being aware of alternative actions
• Hume argues that people are blameworthy only where...?

  our choices come from our character
• what is Hume's approach to punishment taken to be?

  utilitarian in character
• therefore, punishment should be...?

  a part of social engineering through which fear of punishment helps to repress anti-social behaviour