Haoyu Tian
Affiliation: Peking University
Reason-Responsiveness Theories Cannot Survive the Attack of Situationism
Abstract Reason-Responsiveness Theories of Moral Responsibility (RRT) posits that the control necessary for moral responsibility depends on an agent's sensitivity to reasons. However, Situationist experiments present evidence that situational factors, rather than reasons, predominantly shape behavior. This empirical discovery leads to the skeptical challenges of moral responsibility. This paper contends that RRT cannot adequately address these challenges. After critiquing two existing yet failed defenses—namely, the rarity of situational influences and the view that situational factors qualify as reasons—I discuss about RRT's usage of the Aristotelian Ethical Method (AEM), which suffers from selective application and epistemic overconfidence in attributing reason-responsiveness. Moreover, even when reason-responsiveness is capable to be captured by non-ideal cognizer, it remains irrelevant to the causal explanation of actions in situationist scenarios as a modal property. Finally, RRT falls short of meeting the Authority Demand, as it provides no authoritatively normative reason by its failure to justify a moral fact of the grounding relation between reason-responsiveness and moral responsibility.
Reason-Responsiveness Theories (RRT), broadly speaking, explain the control condition (“freedom”, “free will”) of moral responsibility in terms of an agent's sensitivity to reasons. RRT asserts that an agent A is morally responsible for action φ only if φ arises from A's recognition and acceptance of relevant reasons. RRT holds a dominant position in the current moral responsibility debate (e.g. Fischer & Ravizza 1998; Scanlon 1998; McKenna 2005; Smith 2008; Nelkin 2011; Vargas 2022; Pereboom 2022). Most proponents of RRT are not skeptics in the sense that, they believe that ordinary human agents satisfy the conditions that RRT posits as necessary for moral responsibility. However, recently, a series of social psychology experiments categorized under the label of "Situationism" have been considered to pose a threat to this conjunction of Non-skepticism and RRT. Call it "the Situationist Threat"(ST) (Nelkin 2005; Vargas 2013a; Schlosser 2013; Levy 2015; Stammers 2016; Herdova & Kearns 2017; McKenna & Warmke 2017; Sartorio 2018a; Waggoner et al. 2022; Piovarchy 2022). In the next two sections (Section II & III), I sequentially depict a minimalist yet essential picture of Situationism and John Fischer's version of RRT, which is regarded as one of the most sophisticated versions even today. After a diagnose of his methodology and two potential problems: Selective Usage and Non-Authoritativeness (Section IV), I will examine two quick responses offered by proponents of non-skeptical RRT: the Rarity Defense and the Broad View of Practical Reason Defense (Section V). In Section VI, I argue that Fischer’s application of AEM suffers from selective reliance on certain type of intuitions and epistemic overreach, undermining its ability to provide a practical criterion for determining Reason-Responsiveness in real cases. In Section VII, I contend that even if we accept an optimistic assessment of our cognitive abilities, RRT still faces an Irrelevance Challenge. In Section VIII, I introduce the neglected Authority Demand as a standard for any plausible theory of responsibility. Non-skeptical RRT fails to meet the Authority Demand because it does not explain why recognizing Reason-Responsiveness obligates participation in the Responsibility System. I conclude by advocating for a forward-looking account as a more plausible alternative.