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Determinism and Moral Responsibility
Maurice Mandelbaum
Ethics, Vol
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3
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, 1960), pp
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A PRELIMINARY DISTINCTION

with a problem that would
seem to have been exhausted by the
number of recent articles which have
been concerned with it, I shall begin by
utilizing a distinction which was clearly
drawn by McTaggart
...

perhaps this is because it is not reflected
in our ordinary use of language; if it
were, discussions involving the concept
of freedom would be less confused than
they are
...
irectionn and
freedom of indetermination
...

Like McTaggart7 I wish to direct
discussion primarily to the question of
freedom in choice
...
First, I believe that the question of
whether or not we have freedom in action has a perfectly obvious general answer when one misunderstanding has
been cleared away
...

Whether we can
what we
to
do depends upon what it is that we
-choose, the nature of the situation which
we confront, and what capacities we possess
...
If, on
the other hand, the question is intended
as genera1 question, concerning whether we, as human beings, have the power
to do what we choose to do, then the answer is the general one which I have suggested: we have the capacities to do some
of the things that we set ourselves to do;
but these capacities are limited, and we
cannot do whatever we may choose
...
~h~ answer
I have proposed concerning it seelns to me to be
the only empirical answer which is
sible
...
This is a different question,
which assuredly raises the problem of
whether we have freedom in choice, and
which perhaps also raises the problem
of whether all features of the world form
one single determined system
...
'
With respect to the second reason for
confining my attention to the problem of
freedom in choice, it is to be noted that
our notion of moral responsibility applies only to human beings and applies
to them only with respect to what we
take to be voluntary actions, i
...
, actions
which they have the power to initiate or
to prevent
...

Under these circumstances we do not
hold him morally responsible for his action, except indirectly; if we hold that
he might have chosen differently, and also that he ought to have chosen differently, then the fact that he did not have
freedom in action does not exonerate
him from responsibility
...
Their disagreements have usually been debated in
terms of the question of whether the human will is free or determined, but this

mode of phrasing the question has given
rise to further questions as to what are
to be meant by "the will7' and by "freedom," and these further questions have
not in my opinion helped to solve the
original problem which they were intended to solve
...

11
...
In short, the notion of choice involves the notion of "this-rather-thanthat
...
I
f
such an answer is to be couched in terms
of
i
...
, conscious motives, it
will be answered in terms of, say, the
fact that he preferred X to Y , and not
merely in terms of his liking X or of his
disliking Y
...
In other
words, the question of "freedom" or
"determinism" in the problem of choice
hinges upon the explanation which is
given for doing one thing rather than

'HICS

another, and this explanation will in all the person making the choice would not
cases be a causal explanation, regardless really be responsible for that choice
...

This argument assumes that the liberI share the view of most analysts of tarian must equate freedom in choice
the problem of choice that the libertar- with complete lack of determination in
ian usually holds (and I believe that he choice, rather than with determination
is in fact necessarily committed to hold- by a unique factor which is not operaing) that the determining causal factor tive in other cases and which controls
in a choice situation is the self, taking the effects of other determinants, rather
"the self" to mean an entity whose caus- than being merely one further determial operations are not subject to descrip- nant of the same order as are they
...
CHOICE AND RESPONSIBILITY
found exhibited among entities of any
I n the preceding paragraph I have reother kind
...
e
...
Similarly, liberposes a mind-body dualism
...
I t is with the
which was held by William James when problem of the "compatibility7' between
he claimed that through the control of freedom, or determinism, on the one
hand and moral responsibility on the
attention we can gain freedom in ~ h o i c e
...

held
...

a ) In ordinary usage "responsible for"
other is (in some cases at least) a function of our apprehension of values, may sometimes merely mean "the cause
ideals, or ends, and that the manner in of," but this is not the way in which the
which these determinants operate lies term is generally used in moral discusnot in any form of "mechanistic" causa- sions
...
I mention these alternatives not of its original etymological significance
because I wish to defend any one of of "being answerable for
...
This argument states that it is to a person with the fact that it
libertarianism, not determinism, that is is justifiable to praise or blame, or
incompatible with our idea of moral re- to reward or punish, that person for a
sponsibility, since, if choice were free, specific action which he performed, or

DETERMINISM AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

for a trait of character which he possesses
...
As Sharp put the same point,
a man is held to be morally responsible
for a particular action "when, because
of it, he is a proper object of moral approbation or disapprobation
...
However, in
the field of moral theory it is of some
importance to know whether this ascription of responsibility to a person with
respect to a particular action is based
on any descriptive characteristics possessed by that action
...
L
...
Hart's denial that the notions of
"foresight" and "voluntariness" provide
such descriptive characteristics, I am inclined to believe that they are important
elements in ascribing moral responsibilit^
...
Whatever
may be the ways in which judicial decisions are reached or justified, I do not
know of any moralist who does not in
fact believe that voluntariness and foresight are relevant to moral responsibili ty
...
I n order to
examine whether or not this is so, it is
necessary to examine the second problem of this section, i
...
, what is meant
by the "compatibility" or "incompatibility" between moral responsibility and
freedom, or determinism, with respect to
the question of ~ h o i c e
...
~
people do in fact praise and blame, and
they do in fact reward and punish; and
they do both of these things whether
they in fact believe that our choices are
determined or that they are free
...
This is a problem of ethical
theory, not a problem of moral practice;
it is a question of justifying judgments
which are made, not of making these
judgments, nor of acting upon them
...

Whatever moral theory we may hold,
a justification of praise or blame, or reward or punishment, must, I submit,
consist in showing that the act of praising or blaming, rewarding or punishing,
is itself morally acceptable when inter-

2 08

ETHICS

preted in the light of the fact that determinism is true (or, conversely, that libertarianism is true)
...
And this, of course,
both libertarians and determinists attempt to demonstrate
...
In order to show this I shall first
deal with the question of punishment
since it is with respect to this question
that determinists have usually attempted
to prove that the implications of their
position are morally acceptable
...


THE PROBLEM O F JUSTIFYING PUN-

ISHMENT ON A DETERMINIST THEORY

The characteristic theory of determinists with respect to the problem of
punishment is that punishment is justified because of the consequences which
it promotes
...
e
...
I n any of these theories of punishment, or in any combination of them,
punishment in general is justified in
terms of its consequences, and any specific instance of punishment is justified
either in terms of its own direct consequences or in terms of the general justification which has been given
...
"
Up to this point the compatibility between determinism and punishment is
obvious
...
And the fact that the person who
is being punished was determined to
choose as he did does not materially affect the goodness or badness of these
consequences
...
Thus, if a teleological theory of ethics is correct, the
justification of punishment is, up to this
point, wholly compatible with determinism
...
However,
since it is not my purpose in this paper
to discuss the teleological-deontological
controversy, nor to put forward a positive theory of the justification of punishment, I shall not press this criticism
...

Let us recall that whatever specific
form of the various classic theories of
punishment they hold, determinists justify punishment in terms of the consequences which the meting out of the
punishment will achieve
...
Now, so long as they confine their attention to one side of the act
of punishing-namely the consequences
which this act will have-there is, as we
have seen, no reason why they should
not hold that their justification of punishment is compatible with determinism
...
And this includes the
action of the judge in punishing the offender
...
The fact that a particular judge
sentences a particular man to the workhouse for thirty days, rather than giving
him a suspended sentence, is as much
determined as is any other human action
...
Whatever one may say about the
irrelevance of determinism to the justifiability of punishing a person, the acceptance of the fact that he who punishes is himself determined to punish or
not to punish (and to punish in just this
way and to just this degree) involves a
radical reinterpretation of our ordinary
views of punishment
...
Even on a teleological
theory we wish to say that it was inflicted for a good reason, that is, that it
was inflicted because it would have these
good effects
...
e
...

V
...
I t might be said that whatever the causes which led the judge to
punish as he did, these causes are irrelevant to the justification of the act of
punishing
...
Whatever may
be the case with respect to other fields
in which we seek to justify specific judgments, in moral matters we cannot at all
points draw a sharp line between explanation and justification
...
However,
this is merely to repeat what I have already said; the point may be made
clearer by turning our attention from
punishment to praise and blame
...
Now, it is true that saying kind
words, or saying harsh words, can function as rewards and punishments
...
I n such cases we are
praising an act because it appears to us
as a right act, or blaming it because it
appears wrong
...
QAnd if such praise or blame has
side-effects on the future conduct of
those whom we praise or blame (as it
often does) this is purely coincidental
...
" (We cannot stop causal determination whenever it suits us to do so
...


The seriousness of this objection is
easily overlooked because we fall into
the habit of assuming that the standard by means of which we justify
specific moral judgments is an obviously
correct standard
...
However, I submit that
the acceptance of a moral standard itself
involves a moral judgment, or must be
educed from the moral judgments which
we accept
...
I it is the case that every
f
specific moral judgment is causally explicable in the way that determinists
usually say that it is, then our acceptance
or rejection of a particular moral standard is explicable in precisely the same
way
...

I the determinist has any answer to
f
this type of argument, it certainly does
not appear in most statements which are
designed to show the compatibility between determinism and the justification
of punishment or the validation of praise
and blame
...
The judge-excepting fallacy is
but a special case of this; so too is the
fallacy that we can justify (i
...
, vali-

DETERMINISM AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

date) our moral praise and blame by
pointing to the consequences of praising and blaming, and we need not worry
about what caused us to praise or blame
as we did
...
To say that a
man is morally responsible for an action is to say that we are justified in
praising or blaming him for that action
...
Yet, if we are ourselves determined
to praise and blame, reward or punish,
our "justification" of these acts is reduced to the acknowledgment that we
could not help but praise or blame, reward or punish
...

In short, the libertarian is correct in
saying that the classic determinist view
would lead to a radical reinterpretation
of our moral concepts if it were consistently applied
...

The libertarian, however, is very apt to
go on to say that determinism is therefore untrue
...

However, it is one that can also be challenged; it might be the case that we
should give up our traditional interpretations of moral concepts, and our traditional means of attempting to justify
them, rather than giving up determinism
...


2 11

VI
...
As I have pointed
out, the libertarian position seems always to involve a belief in a mind-body
dualism, together with the belief that the
mind, in some cases at least, can act as
a causal determinant which is not itself
determined by non-mental factors; in
such cases choice is held by the libertarian to be free
...
This seems to
have been what James had in mind when
he claimed that "the question of freewill is insoluble on strictly psychologic
grounds
...
12 However, this does not mean that the question is undecidable on the basis of einpirical evidence; it simply is undecidable in terms of direct evidence in specific cases
...
There simply
would not be any entity which could influence choice in the manner in which
the libertarian claims that it is influ-

212

ETHICS

enced
...
Thus I am claiming
that whatever empirical evidence can be
marshalled for or against a mind-body
dualism will be evidence which is relevant to the controversy over freedom in
choice
...
I would
therefore wish it to be clearly understood that in what follows I am speaking as a determinist
...
" The distinction I
wish to draw is based on the fact that
the latter view places what I consider
to be a mistaken emphasis upon the past
as a determining factor in choice situations
...
I
shall state and criticize what I take to
be the traditional theory with reference
to each of these points
...
I t may be true that whenever we
raise the latter question, an answer is
to be given in terms of some antecedent
state or event
...

However, the question of what factors,
or types of factor, led me to choose as
I chose need not, in such a case, be found
in some preceding event
...
Now, it
may be the case that we could explain
this in terms of my past experiences with
X and with Y, taken separately
...
, and that finally some factor intervenes to break into this sequence of
alternating states
...

However, is there any contradiction in
saying that whatever factors are responsible for my deciding in one way
rather than another are not prior to my
decision, but that their conjoint effect
is my decision? Or, differently put, may
we not say that the cause of my choice
is to be found in the forces which act
on me when I choose? If this sounds
strange, it is, I suggest, only because we
too readily assume that whenever we
speak of the cause of an effect we must
be speaking of something which was
temporally prior to that effect
...
Far more important, however, is the fact that it has never been
shown to be an accurate description of
causal relationships in nature
...

In doing so I shall assume the position
of a determinist who rejects any form
of mind-body dualism (as most determinists do), and who also believes that
the determinants of our behavior are to
be found on the neuro-physiological
level
...
This, of
course, runs counter to the assumptions
which are often drawn from certain empirical theories in psychology
...

We must not stop there
...
Ultimately our desires and our
whole character are derived from our inherited
equipment and the environmental influences
to which we were subjected at the beginning of
our lives
...
For
example, W
...
Ross also emphasizes
the role of the past when he says:
I t is by the activity of thinking about the alternative courses of action that we come to desire
one action more than the other
...
But the I which thinks and
desires is the I which has been moulded by its
previous experiences and opinions and actions
...
Past experience can only affect
present behavior by virtue of the neurophysiological traces which it has left,
i
...
, by affecting the physiological makeup of the individual
...

Now, consider the situation of a person who confronts a particular visual
stimulus
...
Furtherkore,
we must assume that the nature of this
activity is in part a function of the nature of the pattern presented: what we
See does
extent at least,
upon the nature of the stimulus
...

What I wish to point out is that in explaining perception in neuro-physiologi-

2 14

ETHICS

cal terms we cannot give a privileged
status to the past: the precise nature of
the activity incited by the stimulus,
which bears some relation to the specific
nature of the stimulus itself, must also
be taken into account
...
There are on
the one hand those who (in some cases
at least) stress the autochthonous (i
...
,
"unlearned") factors; on the other hand
there are those who stress the role of
past experience in all cases
...
e
...
What I wish to point out
is that the traditional form of psychological determinism presupposes what
must be the solution to this empirical
problem: that the determinants of behavior in choice-situations are always to
be found in the past
...
( I believe
that there is ample empirical evidence
in perception and learning to prove this
...
For if there were
such cases then our choice, though still
determined, would be determined by the
envisioned alternatives before us, The

specific natures of these alternatives, and
(especially) the contrast between them,
would be the determinants of our action; the answer to the question of why
we chose X rather than Y would be
found in the present contrast between
the X and the Y and not in past experiences with other X's and Y's in other
situations
...
In short, the alternatives themselves, though yet unrealized,
would have every bit as good a status
as present causal determinants as would
anything which had happened to us in
the past
...
I t is only if we assume, on
the basis of the empirical hypotheses assumed by traditional psychological determinists, that our ideas of the alternatives (and the contrast which exists between them) are necessarily what they
are because of our past experience, that
we will ascribe greater significance as a
determinant of behavior to what we have
already experienced than we ascribe to
the nature of the situation which we confront
...
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PROBLEM
OF RESPONSIBILITY

Let us suppose that the foregoing general statement is correct
...
What then would
be the implications of this form of determinism for the problem of moral responsibility?
First let us examine the case of punishment
...
I t was devoid of
this meaning since we were justifying
punishment in terms of an objective
standard of rightness to which moral
acts should conform; but such a standard cannot be said to obtain if every
moral judgment is to be interpreted as
due to whatever conditioning by past experience the person judging may have
happened to undergo
...
We can then hold that a judge
may be determined by the nature of the
alternatives before him, more specifically by the law, by the nature of the
offense, and by the probable consequences of meting out a heavy or a light
penalty
...
And no matter how rigorously a judge may be determined by whatever forces are operative
within him, if these forces are engen-

2 15


dered by the nature of the crime, the
prescripts of the law, and the consequences which are open to him within
the limjts set by the law, we would say
that, determined or not, the fact that he
punished the offender was morally acceptable
...
For
my part at least, I am free to confess
that very probably I would in either case
complain
...

In the one I would hold that I had been
unlucky and would attempt to give causal explanations of why this bad luck had
befallen me when someone else had gone
scot-free
...
This latter appeal, as is evident,
would be predicated upon the assumption that punishment, if it is just, should
be determined by the case at hand, and
this, of course, is precisely the point that
I wish to make
...
On
the traditional view of psychological determinism he who praises or blames
must have been determined to do so on
the basis of his own past experiences:
his standards themselves have been determined by all of those conditioning

factors which now determine him to
praise or to blame
...
Again we may complain that the
person who finds an act praiseworthy or
blameworthy has not truly understood
the nature of that act, the situation in
which it was done, and the alternatives
which were open
...
However, to argue that the judgment was erroneous is quite different
from arguing that the judgment was a
product of the conditioning processes
which made it inevitable that this judgment, rather than its opposite, would be
made
...
Yet it would not commit us to libertarianism, nor to the
mind-body dualism which is presupposed by libertarianism
...
On the contrary, I assume that more often than not (though
not always) our own past experience influences what we apprehend in the alternatives before us
...
I t may also do so
directly, when our own past experience
with actions of a certain type have so
habituated us to them that we no longer
attend to them, or when our past experiences with a given type of act have been
so unpleasant that we always form a
negative judgment concerning acts of
this type
...

However,wedopossess standards against
which we test the validity of those moral judgments which we and others make,
and we do seek to correct moral judgments on the grounds that they were
predicated upon a false view of the elements in the situation judged
...
''
Therefore, though any specific moral
judgment which is actually made may
be both directly and indirectly influenced by the personal history of the person who makes that judgment, we criticize moral judgments on precisely these
grounds
...
But if it were
necessary to accept the traditional version of psychological determinism we
could never criticize a moral judgment
on these grounds; every moral judgment (all of our own included) would
perforce be what it is because of the
character of the past experiences of the
person who made that judgment
...
All that
I am committed to holding is that we
aim to make such judgments, and that if
the form of determinism in which I believe is true, then sometimes we can in
fact make such judgments
...

I am willing to acknowledge that the
strength of our past experience is often
so great that we do not stop to attend to
that which we judge
...
By conditioning in the strict sense, e
...
, through
the pain which is inflicted upon us by
the natural consequences of our inattention, or is inflicted upon us by other
persons for such inattention, we may
learn to look before we leap
...
I this be
f
true, it has a direct and important bearing on the phenomenon of choice
...
And among such random factors would be our own past experiences in other vaguely similar cases,
the pleasantness or unpleasantness of
what we have just been doing, and the
like
...
In
short, our ability to respond to alternatives in terms of their own natures must
be instilled in us by our past
...
But when
we do make such a choice we are, I
should claim, morally responsible
...


NOTES
1
...
M
...
McTaggart, Some Dogmas of R e ligion (London, 1906), chap
...
" Those
familiar with McTaggart's essay will note that I
am here only concerned with two of the four
meanings of freedom which he distinguishes
...
C
...
245 f
...
D
...

223 f
...
Mortimer J
...

2
...
E
...

vi
...
I t tends to blur the
differences between questions concerning metaphysical determinism, questions concerning freedom in choice, and questions concerning freedom
in action
...
This is also C
...
Broad's view of what the
libertarian position presupposes; cf
...
214

ff
...

"Determinists and Libertarians" in Mind, LXIII
(1954), 318 et passim
...
William James, Principles of Psychology
(New York, 1890), 11, 561if
...
G
...
Stout,
iMa1cua
...

x ; also Analytic Psychology (London, 1896), Vol
...
ii and iii
...
Op
...
, p
...
Cf
...
B
...
Sidney Hook (New York, 1958), p
...
[This
volume will be referred to as "Determinism and
Freedom" in subsequent footnotes
...

6
...
H
...
A
...
XLIX (1948-49), and
"Legal Responsibility and Excuses" in Determinism
and Freedom
...
One could readily grant that
"responsibility" is an ascriptive and not a descriptive term without denying that its use was based
on assumptions concerning the descriptive characteristics of the actions to which i t is applied
...
Similarly, the criteria which a
judge could use to establish whether foresight had
been present would be far less clear-cut than
would be an appeal to legally recognized defenses
and excuses, so that in this case too a ''negative"
formula would be used
...
In fact, the table of defenses which are recognized in contract law (Proc
...
,
loc
...
, pp
...
) and the defenses and exceptions
which Hart lists in his consideration of criminal
law (ibid
...
179) seem to have some relations
with each other, as well as having some coherence
among their individual items
...

In fact, if we examine the list of defenses which

Hart points out as defenses which can reduce moral
responsibility (cf
...
190 f
...
" For example, he uses the terms "accidently" and "inadvertently" in his list of defenses
...
Were he, however, to characterize
their meanings in such a way as to show what "inadvertently" means in several cases, and not merely in the case a t hand, he could not, I submit, do
so without using a t least some of the words (such
as "intentions" or "voluntary" or "choice") which
he seems to wish to avoid (cf
...
188-91)
...
I n this limited respect I agree wholly with Hart
...

7
...

cit
...
150) in a way that I have found suggestive
...

8
...
" By that phrase I wish to
suggest that I am here speaking only of those cases
in which the notion of desert is involved
...
g
...

9
...
S
...

10
...
(Cf
...
)
11
...
cit
...

12
...
A
...
Danto and S
...

13
...
However, this is a mistake if it is true
that neither the libertarian position nor the determinist position admits of being directly established
in specific cases
...
Determinism and Freedom, p
...

15
...
, p
...
Cf
...

16
...
225
...
I t seems to me to be the case that ethical
hedonism is, in general, connected with a psychological theory which insists on the determinative
power of the contemplated alternatives (e
...
, Sharp,
op
...
241 ff
...
The Methods o f Ethics [fth
ed
...
v, sec
...
Similarly, J
...
Mill
defines the position of determinism without reference to the past, and yet immediately stresses the
"antecedents" of our volitions (cf
...
], Book VI, chap
...
2)
...
"
I t may be thought that philosophers need not
bother discussing the truth or falsity of empirical
theories in the field of psychology; however, it is
precisely the point of what follows that our interpretation of moral responsibility will be affected
by the fact that we accept one psychological theory
rather than another
...
Furthermore, it may be the case
that some of these problems are inescapable
...

my note, "Professor Ryle and Psychology," The
Philosophical Review, LXVII [1958], 522-30
...
Cf
...
vi
...
jstor
...
70, No
...
(Apr
...
204-219
...
jstor
...
0
...
If you are trying to access articles from an
off-campus location, you may be required to first logon via your library web site to access JSTOR
...


Notes
12

Character and Free Will
Arthur C
...
54, No
...
(Aug
...
493-505
...
jstor
...
0
...
10, No
...
(Mar
...
307-330
...
jstor
...
0
...
67, No
...
(Oct
...
522-530
...
jstor
...
0
...




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