INTER-RELATION BETWEEN FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY By R.C. Sinha Former Professor & Head Department of Philosophy,
This paper entitled "Inter-Relation Between Freemom and Responsibility", attempts to analyse two inter-related concepts of freedom and responsibility. My views have been largely shaped by studying "Ehics" by J.L. Mackie and "Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays" by P.F. Strawson. I am fully aware that it will be difficult to tackle both Strawson and Mackie in such a small paper. I have focussed my attention on Mackie's views on freedom and responsibility. I have proposed simple rule of responsibility. A man is responsible for his intentional action. Freedom of will is the essential postulate of morality. I contend that man's responsible for willed action.. I have attempted to distinguish three sorts of questions which are inter-related. First I draw a distinction between intended and unintended actions. The second question is as to how we are to assign moral responsibility. Thirdly, under what circumstances reward and punishment are appropriate. I have tried to tackle these problems on two levels. First, I have tried to clarify distinctions drawn in everyday and legal thought, and only later going to the deeper level of logical issues between freedom and responsibility. My contention is that if the agent of moral action is free then the question of responsibility arises. If actions are non-voluntary or done under compulsion or ignorance, the question of responsibility does not arise. However, these problems are related to intentionality of actions. I think that intentional action is the result of freedom of will. But in day-do-day life, one can do some action under ignorance. The key to the understanding of the role of ignorance is that an action may be intended under one description but not under another. Suppose, Mrs. Catherine whose husband Mr. Jones has gone to catch a flight to This account has appropriate moral and legal corollaries. Even if P is in itself wrong or bad or illegal or dishonourable, it does not follow that P-rather- than-Q is also wrong. It may be a breach of contract or professional misconduct for a captain to throw cargo overboard in ordinary circumstances. But it may be a wise, justifiable and commendable action when the ship would otherwise sink. To have chosen P- rather-than -Q may be something for which the agent has no need to escape responsibility. It is something of which the captain should be proud rather than ashamed. Even if we think that he made the wrong choice of evils, we could regard his doing P- rather-than-Q, as less wrong or less bad than doing P in general is. A plea of duress or necessity, therefore, should not be seen as cancelling an agent's responsibility, but only as modifying the description of the action for which he is responsible, and so claiming either justification or mitigation. In evaluating any such plea, we must take account of the relative badness of the alternative P and P-rather-than-Q. It may be objected that if we are required to complicate the descriptions under which we call actions intentional that result from compulsion or necessity, we should do likewise in all cases. Every deliberate action is a choice between alternatives. The freedom lies in choosing between two alternatives. I call intentional action as free action. The agent is responsible if he does something intentionally. It is also true that there will always be complicating conditions. The agent may not have done just P, but P -rather- than-Q. P for the sake of this bribe, P in response to that provocations. P in self-defence or in defence of others. But these complications may or may not be relevant. My contention is that the only kind of compulsion that makes an act unintentional is simple physical compulsion which really makes it not an act of this agent at all. Everything else, in the way of duress, dangers, temptations will complicate the description under which it will be most relevant and least misleading to say that it was intentional. Another factor which can affect the intentionality of action is lack of skill or defective control. When I first tried to drive a car, I zigzaged along the road, I am driving intentionally, but not zig-zagging intentionally. On the other hand, if I know that I am zig-zagging and accept this as unavoidable in the first stage of learning to drive. My zigzagging is not directly intended. But when I have learnt driving and zig-zagging it is intentional. It is a psychological question whether an action is intentional or not. But it is a moral or legal question : whether or under what circumstances an agent is to be held responsible. I think an agent is responsible for his intentional actions. Intentional action involves freedom of choice. This proposal agrees with the legal tradition which accounts guilty mind as the essential condition for criminal responsibility. But both law and moral judgements diverge somewhat in both directions from the straight rule. We hold people responsible for some unintended actions. We tend to excuse certain classes of people from responsibility even for their intentional actions. It would be unjust to hold someone responsible for unintended results of his actions. What is unintended because it is brought about by physical compulsion is not really anything that the agent does. It is done by some outside force which acts, perhaps, through his body. Similarly features of my action which result from my lack of skill or defective control, though they are actions of my body, are not actions of me as a conscious agent. Though I go on doing what produces these features, knowing that they will be produced by my lack of skill. They are then actions of me as a conscious agent. They are then obliquely intended. In so far as Mr. X is ignorant of what he is doing or bringing about, the actions which are for this reason unintentional can be seen not as belonging to me as a conscious agent, but to have been thrust into my course of action by the facts or circumstances of which I am unaware. The purpose and justification of punishment is deterrence. It is only intentional actions that people can be deterred from performing. Hence that penalty is deterrently effective only in so far as a rational agent sees it as being attached to some possible intentional action. It is quite possible that potential intentional killers should be more effectively deterred by the punishing of all killers than by the punishing only the intentional killers and the excusing of the unintentional one. There is practical difficulty in implementing such a distinction. There are liable to be mistakes in the enforcement of the law. The potential intentional killers might well have more hope of avoiding the penalty if they knew that the law excused unintentional killers. If Mr. X causes death by dangerous driving is more serious offence than driving without due care and attention, and gross negligence that results in death may count as crime whereas similarly gross negligence that does not result in death is not even punished as a crime. But this is surely unfair. It means that mere chance may make a great difference in the treatment of two people who are equally negligent. Mr. X and Mr. Y drive equally recklessly. But it is just a chance that someone gets in the way of Mr. X but not of Mr. Y. Under the influence of liquor the agent is not acting intentionally because he does not know what he is doing. But one can object on the ground that drunker had in is his power not to get drunk. It would be more reasonable to follow the straight rule and say that since getting drunk or perhaps rather starting to get drunk, is something that one does intentionally. But he is absolved from responsibility for further things that one does non-intentionally after one is drunk. In everyday life, selling dirty or adulterated milk is an offecne. The purpose of punishment to seller of adulterated milk, is to encourage a high standard of care. The legislation is directed against what is this context amounts to negligence. Even if similar behaviour would not count as negligence in other spheres. If the seller has really not been negligent at all and has taken every precaution, he cannot morally be blamed if some dirt has got into his bottle in some way or the other over which he has no control. If he is held legally responsible, this is not just in the particular case. But it may be expedient to have such a law that the imposing of a penalty on all acts of a certain class, even the unintended one, may constitute a more effective deterrent. All these are cases where there is some tendency to hold people responsible for unintended acts. We also hold certain sorts of people non-responsible or less responsible for acts that are intentional. There is no general lack of intentionality in the actions of children, except very young ones, yet we see them as being both legally and morally less responsible for what they do. After thorough analysis of concepts of freedom and responsibility, we find conflicting situations and complicated instances. It becomes difficult to resolve the conflicting situation. The simple rule can be on the whole defended for the ascription of moral responsibility. A man is responsible for his intentional actions. A free man is responsible for what he does. J.L. Mackie observes, "... what we may call the straight rule of responsibility, an agent is responsible for all and only his intentional actions."1 After philosophical analysis of the concepts of freedom and responsibility, we find conflicting and quite complicated situation. It becomes difficult to resolve the conflicts under such situation. J.L. Mackie has suggested the straight rule that "...an agent is responsible for all and only his intentional actions".2 I think that this simple rule can be on the whole defended for the ascription of moral responsibility. I find it quite safe to say that a man is responsible for his intentional action. Intentional action involves freedom. A free man is responsible for what he does. J.L. Mackie observes, "... what we may call the straight rule of responsibility, an agent is responsible for all and only his intentional actions."3 Here I have tried to determine whether or not there is any logical relationship between the concepts of freedom and moral responsibility. It is generally accepted that one cannot be held responsible for having done an action in doing which the agent does not have the freedom to do or not to do. It is obvious truth that an action cannot be morally justified unless we assume that the agent can do it willingly. This boils to the point that an action can be judged to be right or wrong only if the doer is presumed to have done it freely. It is not the case that moral agent cannot as a matter of fact, do an action on which a moral judgement can be passed unless he is free to do it. I uphold say that the two concepts namely freedom and responsibility have some logical relationship between them. Referneces : 1. J.L. Mackie, Ethics, Penguine Books, 2. J.L. Mackie, Ethics, Penguine Books, 3. Loc. cit. p. 208.
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