11/9/2020 Freedom and Responsibility | A Guide to Ethics

A Guide to Ethics
A global resource for the study of ethics. Maintained by the St. Olaf College community and friends.

Freedom and Responsibility

The Value of Freedom

Some philosophers hold that freedom is intrinsically valuable; it is good for its own sake. The
plausibility of this position may be illustrated by the (likely) fact that if you are walking along and
someone shouts out in a commanding voice “STOP!” and you stop walking, you will rightly expect
there to be a good reason that justified this interference. This supports the idea that we value
liberty for its own sake and would limit it only if there is reason to do so (it would harm others or
harm yourself or…). On the other hand, some philosophers see freedom as only instrumentally
valuable, that is, only when it is used for good ends. According to them, if one freely steals from
an innocent child (merely for the sake of entertainment), your freedom only makes the act worse
than if you were compelled to do so.

Excuses
An excuse is based on a reason for an action or omission that reduces (vitiates) responsibility.
Excuses come in degrees; so, to claim that one was compelled to do Z means that you did not
have the power to do otherwise (if someone picked you up and threw you at my computer and you
were powerless to resist), freeing a person from blame entirely. You can reduce responsibility if
you are coerced to do an act; in this case, you could resist, but the threat of not acting was great
(someone kidnapped your friend and will release him only if you steal from a bank). Coercion may
reduce but not completely eliminate responsibility. In milder cases, the term ‘duress’ is used.
Example: you cheated on a test, but you did so partly because you were emotionally exhausted
due to just learning of the divorce of your parents as well as the death of a beloved dog, and you
think you might be responsible for your roommates’ coming down with the plague.

Harm and Voluntariness

It is sometimes held that if you voluntarily agree to a harmful activity (such as boxing), the harm
caused to you is not a violation or an injury that should be compensated for.

Forgiveness
The standard, most common understanding of forgiveness is as follows: Pat forgives Kris when
Pat believes that Kris has wronged Pat, or someone with whom Pat identifies or represents, and

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Pat foreswears or seeks to modify resentment toward Kris. The term “forgiveness” comes from the
term “release,” and so in forgiving Kris, Pat releases Kris from being the object of resentment.

There is some rea

son to think the traditional definition is flawed. First, forgiveness is not the same thing as forgetting,
and Pat may cease or moderate resentment toward Kris simply because Pat forgets the past harm
or Pat is too exhausted to continue feeling resentment. Second, the term “resentment” seems (at
least in English) to suggest a vice or a flawed sense of smouldering anger. Pat might be wronged
but not be the sort of person who resents Kris. Perhaps Pat simply feels great sorrow or
disappointment. In light of these difficulties, consider an alternative conception of forgiveness:

Pat forgives Kris when Pat believes that Kris has wronged Pat, or someone with whom Pat
identifies or represents, and Pat ceases to blame Kris for the wrong.

There might also need to be an additional condition such as:

Pat also resolves not to let the wrong stand in the way of some kind of reconciliation, albeit
this might not involve the resumption of the past relationship.

Interesting questions about forgiveness: Can it sometimes be an obligation to forgive another?

Or is forgiveness always or most often a gift? Is it possible to forgive someone who does not
repent and, instead, continues doing some harm? Can you forgive someone a harm they did but
they are now dead? Can you forgive not just individuals but institutions or countries?

CLICK HERE for a video from St. Olaf’s Anantanand Rambachan about forgiveness.

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— Image from “DeterminismXFreeWill,” license Cc-by-sa-3.0,

GFDL

Theories of Agency
Libertarianism: Libertarians hold that an agent does an act X freely if she did X and could have
refrained from doing so. This involves a principle of alternative possibility and holds that a free
person has more than one possible future, which is up to them.

Determinism: Some philosophers resist this position because of their commitment to determinism,
or they reject the intelligibility of libertarianism (Galen Strawson thinks libertarianism is based on
the conceptual absurdity of causes sui, the idea that a person can be self-created). Determinism is
the view that every event that occurs is necessary given every other antecedent, contemporary
events, and laws of nature. Because determinists do not believe that more than one future is
possible, they understand freedom without a principle of alternative possibilities.

Compatibilism: Compatibilism is the view that everything may be determined and yet persons are
free when (for example) they do what they want and are not being manipulated by some foreign
agent. Thos who are often called hard determinists claim that determinism is true and that there
are no free, morally responsible agents. These philosophers may still allow for praise and blame,
reward and punishment, but largely as a means of controlling behavior.

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