An Analysis of Fischer and Ravizza’s View of Moderate Reasons-Responsiveness

Abstract

Control is what grounds moral responsibility, often understood as being the ability to do otherwise. However, this view of control fails within a deterministic world wherein agents do not have the ability to choose their actions—they are unable to do otherwise. In Fischer and Ravizza’s book, Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility, Fischer and Ravizza argue against this traditional view of control, in favor of one that is compatible with determinism. This compatibilist form of control, called guidance control, is dependent on two factors which work in conjunction: ownership of the mechanism which issues the action, and the reasons-responsiveness of said mechanism. While both aspects are conjunctively needed to ground moral responsibility, I would argue that reasons-responsiveness should not be considered as one of the sufficient conditions. To demonstrate my point, I will begin by providing a thorough explanation of guidance control and its parts. Next, I will outline my objection using a counterexample, wherein an agent meets the criteria for guidance control and yet intuitively does not appear to be morally responsible. Afterwards, I will provide an objection to my proposed view with the aid of Coates and Swenson’s framework, in which they introduce a gradable aspect to Fischer and Ravizza’s original view of reasons-responsiveness. Lastly, I will conclude by providing a potential response to the objection, hopefully having shown that