A Discussion on Free Will and Moral Responsibility: Where are the Prospects?

The article discusses some stages in the study of the topic of moral responsibility. The cases of Frankfurt and Fischer on the status of moral responsibility in the absence of alternative possibilities are considered. A version of the interpretation of the Frankfurt case based on the constructivist methodology is proposed. This version is built on two positions: (a) we can deal only with forms of knowledge, and not with access to reality itself; (b) the criterion of the reliability of knowledge is associated with its applicability, and not with the correspondence to reality. A solution to the Frankfurt case is proposed. If no one knows that someone controls Jones's activities, then we can hold Jones responsible for his actions. If we know that Black controls Jones's actions, then we believe that Jones is not responsible for his actions. We believe that responsibility matters when there are real alternatives. Such alternatives involve responsibilities, obligations and risks, but, in this example, there are no such risks. It is argued that the Fischer and Frankfurt cases show the dependence of responsibility attribution on our beliefs of who is considered morally responsible and why. These cases discuss the situation in which moral responsibility does not require the sort of control which involves the existence of alternative possibilities. A change in the study of the problem of responsibility, made in Peter Strawson's discussion of reactive and objective attitudes, is shown. Strawson's commentators noted that his strategy in "Freedom and Resentment" involves turning away from the conceptual issues of the analysis of "freedom" and "responsibility" and taking a closer look at what actually goes on when we hold a person responsible. By reactive attitudes Strawson means certain emotional reactions individuals to other individuals' actions in relation to them. Among them, he emphasizes gratitude and resentment. Reactive attitudes are natural forms of the emotional interaction of "adults". Attitudes towards actions due to causes external for individuals are called objective. Strawson believed that moral attitudes can be considered as generalized or vicarious analogues of personal reactive attitudes. It is noted that Straw-son's paper marked a turn in the debate on responsibility from analyzing the relationship of free will and determinism to the phenomenology of interpersonal relationships constituting responsibility. Marion Smiley's ideas about the nature of responsibility were also examined. Smiley claims responsibility is attributed. This procedure depends on our sociopolitical interests. Smiley insists on the dependence of such interests on both our configuration of the individual's social role and our own sense of whether or not those being harmed are part of the individual's community. As a result, a shift is shown in the discussion of responsibility status, which links it not only with the action agent as the cause of harm, but also with those action agents who can participate in limiting or preventing harm.

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