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A critique of Pereboom's ‘four-case argument’ for incompatibilism

A critique of Pereboom's ‘four-case argument’ for incompatibilism Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UK and Malden, USAANALAnalysis0003-26382005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.January 20056517580ArticlesAlfred R. Mele Pereboom’s ‘four-case argument’ for incompatibilism A critique of Pereboom’s ‘four-case argument’ for incompatibilism Alfred R. Mele One popular style of argument for the thesis that determinism is incom- patible with moral responsibility features manipulation. Its thrust is that regarding moral responsibility, there is no important difference between various cases of manipulation in which agents who A are not morally responsible for A-ing and ordinary cases of A-ing in deterministic worlds. There is a detailed argument of this kind in Derk Pereboom’s recent book (2001: 112–26). His strategy in what he calls his ‘four-case argument’ (117) is to describe three cases of progressively weaker manipulation in which, he contends, the agent, Plum, is not morally responsible for killing his victim and to compare them to a related deterministic case that involves no manipulation. Pereboom argues that what blocks Plum’s moral responsibility for the killing in the first three cases is the fact that ‘his action results from a deterministic causal process that traces back to factors beyond his control’ and that, because this fact also obtains in the fourth case, Plum is not morally responsible for that http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Analysis Oxford University Press

A critique of Pereboom's ‘four-case argument’ for incompatibilism

Analysis , Volume 65 (1) – Jan 1, 2005

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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
© Published by Oxford University Press.
ISSN
0003-2638
eISSN
1467-8284
DOI
10.1093/analys/65.1.75
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Blackwell Publishing Ltd.Oxford, UK and Malden, USAANALAnalysis0003-26382005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.January 20056517580ArticlesAlfred R. Mele Pereboom’s ‘four-case argument’ for incompatibilism A critique of Pereboom’s ‘four-case argument’ for incompatibilism Alfred R. Mele One popular style of argument for the thesis that determinism is incom- patible with moral responsibility features manipulation. Its thrust is that regarding moral responsibility, there is no important difference between various cases of manipulation in which agents who A are not morally responsible for A-ing and ordinary cases of A-ing in deterministic worlds. There is a detailed argument of this kind in Derk Pereboom’s recent book (2001: 112–26). His strategy in what he calls his ‘four-case argument’ (117) is to describe three cases of progressively weaker manipulation in which, he contends, the agent, Plum, is not morally responsible for killing his victim and to compare them to a related deterministic case that involves no manipulation. Pereboom argues that what blocks Plum’s moral responsibility for the killing in the first three cases is the fact that ‘his action results from a deterministic causal process that traces back to factors beyond his control’ and that, because this fact also obtains in the fourth case, Plum is not morally responsible for that

Journal

AnalysisOxford University Press

Published: Jan 1, 2005

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