Talk:Moral responsibility/Archive 3

The definition of moral responsibility
It would be helpful in focusing this article if a definition of the topic were used to begin it. The present lede follows a published definition:


 * "The term ‘moral responsibility’ covers (i) the having of a moral obligation and (ii) the fulfillment of the criteria for deserving blame or praise (punishment or reward) for a morally significant act or omission."1

The use of 'moral' and 'morally' in defining 'moral' responsibility is defended on the grounds that a definition avoiding this repetition of 'moral' would be so lengthy and nuanced as to require a summary of the entire article.2 It has been said that it is not circular to use 'moral' in defining 'moral responsibility',3 it is a customary practice of "nominalization": the conversion of one part of speech to another (the noun 'morality' to an adjective 'moral' in this case)4, although it isn't clear that this conversion makes the topic clear unless one expects the reader to understand what 'morality' means.

So the goal remains to find a non-circular definition. Oddly, although there are many, many articles and books about 'moral responsibility', definitions of this term are scarce. Many authors presume the term is self-evident, although it isn't clear that they all use it the same way. In fact, Richard Double argues that the idea of "moral responsibility" is a chimera. Somewhat in the manner of Ludwig Wittgenstein's emphasis on ordinary language philosophy, Double suggests that this term is so multifaceted that no one definition can encompass it, and concludes that it is not 'real': "There can be nothing that answers to the deep senses of free will and moral responsibility." "These terms are merely honorific and subjective; they cannot be legitimized by appeal to the nature of extralinguistic reality."5

According to Bruce Waller: "As I use the phrase..."moral responsibility" is the essential (necessary, if not sufficient) condition for justified blame and punishment."6 He quotes Michael McKenna as stating "what most everyone is hunting for ... is the sort of moral responsibility that is desert entailing, the kind the makes blaming and punishing as well as praising and rewarding justified."7 and he also quotes Randolph Clarke as saying: "If any agent is truly responsible...that fact provides us with a specific type of justification for ...praise or blame, with finite rewards or punishments. To be a morally responsible human agent is to be truly deserving of these sorts of responses, and deserving in a way that no agent is that is not morally responsible."8 This last statement is quoted by K.E. Boxer as well.9 The problem with this approach is that of defining an itch as something provoking a scratch. It addresses the issue only indirectly, and leaves us wondering how to deal with matters that move some to such a reaction why others are not.

Perhaps a subsection discussing these difficulties would be appropriate? It might open up more general discussion for the rest of the article based upon the various possible definitions of the topic. Brews ohare (talk) 18:40, 5 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I think all of those quotes in your second to last paragraph are great, paradigmatic examples of good definitions of "moral responsibility".
 * I still don't see the circularity you are complaining about here, but I think part of the confusion might be that you're misreading my earlier explanation as saying that the lede would have to rehash this entire article to flesh out the meaning of "moral", when what I intended was that it would have to rehash many other articles about that subject in general.
 * Here is an attempt, for your edification only (not a suggestion for the lede), to spell out more simply what the question about moral responsibility is, using your preferred language employing the word "ought", with unnecessary parentheses to group the structure of this long sentence more clearly:
 * "When is someone morally responsible?" = "When ought someone be (((blamed or punished) for (doing as they ought not do)) or ((praised or rewarded) for (doing as they ought to do)))?"
 * Note that the answer to this question does not have to depend on having a complete list of (or system for determining) what someone ought or ought not do, or even necessarily a complete analysis of what "ought" means -- that is the material that is more thoroughly covered in other articles already and not appropriate here. We're just asking one specific "ought" question: given that someone has done something they ought not do, under what circumstances ought they be punished or blamed, or conversely given that they have done something that they ought to do, under what circumstances ought they be rewarded or praised?
 * That's why the free will question is so thoroughly connected to this topic, and the anthropological stuff you want to bring in is so distantly related. We're not questioning what people ought or ought not do in general or the grounds for making such claims; we're just asking one specific question about when ought specific kinds of acts (praising, blaming, rewarding, and punishing) be carried out. And a whole lot of people say that if you "freely chose" (whatever that means) to do something, you ought to be blamed/praised/punished/rewarded according to whether the thing you chose to do was right or wrong, but if you didn't "freely choose", then you ought not be blamed/praised/punished/rewarded, regardless of whether your actions were right or wrong.
 * Like the tree-falling-on-a-house example earlier. Given that that's a bad thing to happen (by whatever standards we assess that badness), when ought the responsible party be blamed or punished for it? People generally want to say that if the wind did that, we ought not blame or punish it (how would we even do that?), because the wind is an impersonal force that didn't make any choices in the matter; but if a negligent arborist did that, we ought to blame or punish him, because he (presumably) freely made some wrong choices that lead to that bad thing happening; but again if the arborist was not negligent, but still the cause of the bad thing (say he suffered a stroke mid-cut and incorrectly felled the tree), then he doesn't deserve blame or punishment, because he didn't make any kind of choices in the matter, his body just failed him unexpectedly. Of course all of the details of this example could be argued in principle (is a tree falling on a house really bad? why? says who? why can't we blame the wind? who's to say it's incapable of choice? or that the arborist is capable of choice? or that being unable to choose should get him off the hook?), but this is just supposed to be a common-sense uncontroversial paradigmatic example of the kind of question at issue when we talk about "moral responsibility".
 * --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:24, 6 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Apparently you find the Intro OK as is. You might agree though that there is a lot of literature discussing what 'moral resposibility' is, so perhaps that work should be presented in a subsection? For example, Waller is opposed to the idea that reward or punishment should attach. Double argues it is a mish-mash of disparate ideas. And, what it is isn't the same issue as whether it can be. Brews ohare (talk) 14:36, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

The role of free will and moral relativism
The subject of free will plays a prominent role in this WP article on moral responsibility. Pfhorrest has argued above that this emphasis is to be expected:
 * "That's why the free will question is so thoroughly connected to this topic, and the anthropological stuff you want to bring in is so distantly related. We're not questioning what people ought or ought not do in general or the grounds for making such claims; we're just asking one specific question about when ought specific kinds of acts (praising, blaming, rewarding, and punishing) be carried out. And a whole lot of people say that if you "freely chose" (whatever that means) to do something, you ought to be blamed/praised/punished/rewarded according to whether the thing you chose to do was right or wrong, but if you didn't "freely choose", then you ought not be blamed/praised/punished/rewarded, regardless of whether your actions were right or wrong."

There is no doubt that a resolution of the issue "Do we have some control over our actions, and if so what does it consist in?" has important implications for moral responsibility. But is this debate (that has been raging over all millennia of recorded history, and seems likely to never end) all there is to say about 'moral responsibility'? Following generations will struggle for a nuanced answer.

If we adopt the view that there is a question as to what 'moral responsibility' is, actually, and not only the question of whether 'moral responsibility' is even possible, more can be said while awaiting an outcome of the free-will debate. Is it the case, in particular, that 'anthropological stuff ' is 'distantly related'?

Pfhorrest's characterization of the anthropological implications as concerning "questioning what people ought or ought not do in general or the grounds for making such claims" goes beyond the minutiae of documenting each particular group's concept of 'moral responsibility'. The more abstract point to take away from anthropology is that different groups do invoke 'moral responsibility', although the particularities differ from group to group in documentable ways. The overarching abstraction is that 'moral responsibility' in any group always is based upon which acts a group considers 'good' and which are considered 'bad'. Which precepts fall into the 'good-bad' category varies widely from group to group. Regardless of the group, however, whatever action one proposes to take is classified as falling outside or within the 'good-or-bad' classification, and if it does fit within, one is held 'morally responsible' for doing the 'good' thing, and not doing the 'bad' thing. Questions about how 'moral responsibility' varies, how it arose and how it evolves, how it is or should be enforced, its function within a group, whether there is commonality among the various versions (the golden rule?), how it is justified by insiders and by us, whether or how conflicting forms of moral responsibility can be reconciled, what the implications are for the West, and so on, are topics in philosophical meta-ethics, as described by Sayre-McCord, a subtopic being moral relativism, described by Gowans, for example. These topics should be introduced and summarized in WP's moral responsibility with links to more extensive discussions in other articles. Brews ohare (talk) 16:03, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Preamble to free will discussion
As the present article is almost all about free will, I've introduced a paragraph before this yatter providing some reason for its domination of the article. That discussion could be more specifically directed at the topic of moral responsibility. Brews ohare (talk) 16:33, 7 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Per discussions on multiple other articles.  You can't make every article which has any relationship to free will and vehicle for your extended essays on the subject.   Also you do not have any agreement to change the lede, the opposite in fact.  I've lost patience with this together with the will to go through mass edits of this type to see if there is anything of value in them.  Other editors might have the patience, but pending that make specific proposals here.    In addition the talk page is not the place for extended discussions on the subject, go and study philosophy if you want those.  The talk page is for discussing specific amendments to the article.   That means you propose them and see if other editors agree.  If they don't you move on. Snowded  TALK 22:29, 7 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The preamble I added as a paragraph under the header "Philosophical stance" which now lacks adequate motivation:
 * "The variety of views about what is subject to moral responsibility, the desirability and nature of its enforcement, and its role in communities, are among the aspects of moral responsibility discussed in other articles, such as meta-ethics1 and moral relativism.2 Depending on how a philosopher conceives of free will, they will have different views on moral responsibility, and it is a preoccupation of much of the philosophical discussion of moral responsibility.3 Because of that focus, various positions on free will are outlined below."
 * 1.
 * 2.
 * 3


 * Snowded: This preamble is not "my extended essay" on free will - it's just a segue to introduce the subsequent long, many headered free-will exposition already there and provided by other editors. The huge digression on free will now has no introduction at all and is just sitting there like road kill. The preamble also excuses this preoccupation of the WP article with free will to the neglect of many other aspects that are now at least linked for the reader to find them. Brews ohare (talk) 00:52, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Kant
At present, the article doesn't mention Kant. Snowded removed the following short, sourced introduction:

---
 * "Immanuel Kant took the view in his Critique of Pure Reason and Religion within the limits of reason alone that humankind had a 'will' that itself was exempt from the 'laws of nature'. He divided reality into two realms, the noumenal realm where humans could themselves cause things, and the phenomenal realm where the laws of nature applied, which in his day were thought to be entirely deterministic. Kant introduced two kinds of will, the Wille capable of moral reasoning, and a second, the Willkür, that takes the deliberations of the Wille into account, but makes the final choice between an individual's impulses, which choice might follow the dictates of moral responsibility, or not.1


 * According to Velasquez:2


 * "Many writers today agree with Kant. The philosopher/psychologist Steven Pinker, for example writes the following:
 * 'Science and morality are separate spheres of reasoning...[more of this quote is provided]'3
 * Here Pinker is agreeing with Kant. ... So are we free or determined? Are we responsible agents or passive victims? Was Darrow right? Or was Sartre right? Or were both right as Kant and Pinker suggest?"
 * 1
 * 2
 * 3

---

It is quite possible that a different summary of Kant in the context of moral responsibility would be an improvement. However, omission of Kant entirely in the subsection discussing other philosophers is absurd. Brews ohare (talk) 01:04, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

Lead sentence
Snowded: I agree that every article should not become one of 'my extended essays' on the subject of free will. Perhaps you can explain how the following fits into that classification?
 * "Moral responsibility is a duty to do the 'right' thing and refrain from doing the 'wrong' thing,1 and ..."
 * 1

The material after the (...) is exactly what was there before and is there now. I'd point out two things: (i) it is sourced to Stent and Hart, unlike the present leading sentence, which is merely WP editor opinion, and (ii) it replaces the dubious identification of 'moral responsibility' as a "status" that deserves certain responses as, instead, a "duty" or "obligation", that may provoke those responses, per two sources: Stent and Hart. It may be noted that some philosophers do not think that moral responsibility should be associated in any way with the cited responses (Waller, Dennett, Fischer, e.g.), either because they aren't libertarians or because they don't think such responses have any useful consequence. For such parties, the current lead sentence is biased, parochial, and incorrect. Brews ohare (talk) 00:31, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

I see Pfhorrest has refused this change as well, without further comment. I understand that this has been discussed before, and patience is thin, but I think the new source is a big improvement over the circular approach now in place, and I also think referring to 'moral responsibility' as a 'status' instead of a duty or obligation is confusing. Reversion is just impatience at this point. Brews ohare (talk) 04:33, 8 February 2014 (UTC)


 * You don't have agreement, you failed (yet again) to respect WP:BRD. Try and understand, people have had enough of your refusal to listen  Snowded  TALK 09:16, 8 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Snowded: You love to talk about WP:BRD. It takes precedence over discussion of content all the time, along with other non content-related clamor about 'not listening'. I've not heard anything from you yet beyond complaints about myself. Brews ohare (talk) 16:49, 8 February 2014 (UTC)


 * It takes precedence over edit warring Brews, and the problem is that discussion with you goes no where; so yes I (and many others) end up complaining about you and/or ultimately ignoring you.  Snowded  TALK 17:01, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Would that you were ignoring only myself, but what you are really ignoring is any engagement in improving content. Your entire activity is put-downs. Brews ohare (talk) 17:22, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * After long periods of trying to work with you Brews you leave other editors little alternative. The way you ignore the demonstrable fact that you have had little or no support over the last year just demonstrates the problem. You don't listen to what other editors say and you seem to lack the ability to reflect on your reception here in other than as self-justification.  I've been editing here for years over multiple articles including ones with high degrees of conflict.  In all that time I've never seen an editor as obdurate as you  Snowded  TALK 17:28, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm inclined to see the symptoms of obduracy, but I think it is a view taken from the context of most of your edits. These are predominantly short exchanges over a few words or phrases. Almost none of your interactions involve extensive additions of sourced material requiring engagement with sources and their interpretation. More extensive additions to text involving sources requires much more back-and-forth than is your customary approach. My view is that you fail to identify different activities require a different approach. Discussions with Pfhorrest for example, tend to become statements of his beliefs, and wander away from sourced opinion which is the proper subject. You on the other hand, have not even an interest in arguing for a viewpoint and instead focus upon making engagement as brief as possible by belligerence and misplaced assertions of policy violations. That way, you can refashion, you hope, an unfamiliar context of exchanges about sources into instead a brief hit-and-run. Brews ohare (talk) 19:00, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah so you are right while Pfhorrest on; expresses beliefs and I am an evil hit and run merchant. QED  Snowded  TALK 19:37, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Your characterization is a bit more extreme than mine, but at least where you are concerned, you may be better informed. Brews ohare (talk) 20:12, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Note to self: 7 years in IBM really should have taught me not to use irony with some Americans, they use it for self-validation.  Snowded  TALK 07:13, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Legal aspects
A well-sourced and significant topic describing legal aspects has been added. Given prior history of my attempts to improve this article on Moral responsibility, I anticipate rude rejection. May I gently propose that in the spirit of WP's goals of presenting significant reliably sourced views, that any criticism of this addition be based upon sources, instead of WP editors' personal views of the subject and of my personal qualities? Brews ohare (talk) 17:49, 22 February 2014 (UTC)


 * There is a case for a paragraph on this but not four quotes strung together with some text. This is not a rude rejection but simply repeating a point which has been made to you many times on many pages.  It is really tiresome to have to keep repeating the same points to you.  You were asked (not by me but by the other active editor here) to make proposals for small changes on the talk page.  Try and follow that advise  Snowded  TALK 18:27, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * What a surprise! Here we have Snowded's reversion, unsupported by any reference to anything but his own aesthetic as to the use of quotes to elucidate text. An approach much evidenced in his past actions, and one never followed up with anything beyond fatherly advice to do what Snowded advises. Brews ohare (talk) 18:32, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * What is a surprise is the way in which you refuse to listen to all the editors who have tried advised you. Just check how many actual edits you have made and check the percentage which have survived scrutiny.   Everyone who has tried to help you sooner or later gives up but you just don't listen and carry on as before. Your view is that strings of quotes are useful.  When you have tested this idea on other articles (in two RfCs) that view has been rejected.  Again, you don't listen, you don't adapt, you perversely try and make yourself out to be a victim.   Snowded  TALK 18:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * There is nothing in what you say Snowded. It all goes back to your fundamental insecurity that a WP editor can say anything at all using a format that connects quotations with text. Your uncertainty whether this particular contribution is somehow unrepresentative of established views is, of course, only your own unsupported and unargued uncertainty, and contradicts a huge mass of literature on 'moral responsibility' and the law. The way to assuage your suspicion that the material is somehow incomplete or slanted is to do a little work to survey sources on the subject, but that sensible and responsible activity isn't compatible with hit-and-run tactics. Snowded, if you want to avoid real discussion and development of material, you should confine your activities to combating vandalism, where little time or examination is necessary.  Brews ohare (talk) 19:26, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I understand that is how you see it Brews, and until you attempt to see things from the perspective of other editors I can't see anything changing. So, as before, no further comment unless you say something of substance relating to content.  Snowded  TALK 19:36, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowded: This talk page is full of sourced content proposals I've made. You've contributed - well ??? Brews ohare (talk) 06:28, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Sourcing does not mean it is relevant or representative Bews. Try and read up on the Four Pillars.   Also different editors take different roles on articles, Wikipedia is a complex ecology it needs variety in its contributors.  Every now and then an editor oversteps the mark and the community has to restrict their activity or ban them completely, but you know that having being blocked and banned more than most.  Snowded  TALK 06:40, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowded: Your letting yourself off the hook for irresponsible behavior on the basis not that my contributions are faulty, but that once upon a time I was banned. The way to assuage your suspicion that the material is somehow incomplete or slanted is to do a little work to survey sources on the subject, but that sensible and responsible activity isn't compatible with hit-and-run tactics. Snowded, you want to avoid real discussion and development of material, and your easy-outs don't excuse you. Brews ohare (talk) 16:48, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Brews, one of the reasons for your block history (which is not a once upon a time affair, but an extended one with recent examples) is that when you don't like the reason for one of your edits being reverted your resort to personal attacks on those evil and misguided individuals who have failed to recognise the brilliance of your edits. You have been given clear reasons why your edits on this article have been rejected by two other editors.  You don't like that; hard luck, but don't fall back misinterpretations of other people's motivations and petty minded insults.  Anyone with years of wikipedia editing experience is pretty much immune to such behaviour anyway  Snowded  TALK 16:55, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

I am impressed with your separation from reality and your enjoyment of vituperation. My recollection is that you introduced the 'evil hit-and-run merchant' idea, and I merely accepted your own assessment as authoritative, being a self-characterization. But to get back to work, take a look at for a review of the literature on law and 'moral responsibility', including Hart's work, particularly Section 2: Moral Responsibility. On p. 556: "The claim that responses are warranted by governing social norms necessarily implies some social relativism....social norms define the nature of the act in question and they regulate the appropriate response". This viewpoint is totally absent from the present WP article, and has relevance far beyond the legal aspects. Kutz (p. 557) objects to focus upon "facts about the agent, rather than the agent's relations to others". Brews ohare (talk) 17:41, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Then I await (i) a draft paragraph with proposed placement from you here, on the talk page which reflects that and (ii) some attempt by you to understand irony. The fact that you can find something based on a key word search does not of necessity make it relevant or appropriate.  Your last attempts were on the issue of ethics and law which while related is not the same thing  Snowded  TALK 19:24, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Your assessment of these quotes from Kutz, and the earlier ones from Hart and Cane, as "something from a key word search", and apparently unworthy of consideration of the points made, indicates how you will respond to any subsequent "draft paragraph". Too bad for WP; improvement is beyond reach. Brews ohare (talk) 19:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Brews ohare, please stop editing your posts without indicating the changes
You have been routinely editing your posts after comments have been made about them by other editors without leaving clear indications of the changes. Please see WP:REDACT for recommended best practices when you want to change comments you have already posted to a talk page. Recommended practices include using  and  tags to indicate inserts and deletions. In addition, it is appropriate to add additional signature lines dating the changes. In many cases your comments should have multiple signatures indicating that you have edited them multiple times. Given that there are multiple days when you have made 20, or so, edits to this page, most of which are changes to your postings, this is especially important.

I bring this up here instead of your talk page because editors coming to this page should have some indication that a large quantity of edits have been made by you to your comments after people have made replies to those comments. Even with such notification, the discussions can become difficult to follow.

In addition, I would like to draw your attention to the WP:Show preview button. You routinely compose your posts, save them and then immediately make changes. The use of the Show preview button allows you to view your additions prior to saving them. This allows you to read what you have written and edit your comments prior to posting them for everyone to read.

Thank you, &mdash; Makyen (talk) 22:31, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * He does it all the time on multiple articles, its why those of us with experience of him give him little time or attention Snowded  TALK 23:45, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Sure. Brews ohare (talk) 07:35, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Snowded reverts, again!
In this revert Snowded removed a link supporting the following statement in Moral responsibility.
 * "Depending on how a philosopher conceives of free will, they will have different views on moral responsibility."

Snowded originally reverted the supporting citation with the comment Citation is not relevant to an introductory sentence to a list of different approaches. Upon undoing this reversion and suggesting it was a source that backs up exactly the statement it is attached to, Snowded again reverted with the in-line justification is ''No it doesn't Brews, it is tangential at best. You have been reverted, if you disagree then raise it on the talk page''

Snowded suggests that I need to mount this Talk page defense against his silliness, but his removal of material needs no such attention. And he need supply no reasoning.

What the source says is:
 * "A common argument in the philosophical literature is that the essence of responsibility is to be found in what it means to be a human agent and to have free will...There is disagreement amongst philosophers about what freedom means, about whether human beings are free in the relevant sense, and about the relevance of freedom to responsibility." (p. 4)

Now Snowded believes that the following subsections of the WP article constitute "a list of different approaches", but that is an elliptic description, as the following subsections actually engage in an outline of various positions on free will, and not just a list. The above quotation from Cane provides a very natural explanation for the subsequent variety of views on free will, and why they bear upon moral responsibility, namely, the explanation that different philosophers have differing views on the question of "what it means to be a human agent", and so forth.

Apart from supporting the lead sentence, the source provides a reader with a very cogent discussion of the entire subject.

Of course, there is no doubt about the pertinence of the source to the lead of the subsection Moral responsibility. Snowded's reversions are just part of his very long history of reversions based upon his personal aesthetics without Talk page engagement. Just what is behind his habitual activity is hard to say, but it has nothing to do with protecting WP from bad sourcing. Brews ohare (talk) 16:35, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The sentence introduces a series of headings Brews. It doesn't need a reference and if it does then it needs to be one that justifies the subsequent selection.  You are simply introducing material almost at random because it uses similar words.  Your inability to interact with insult and your edit warring and becoming very tedious.  To repeat here (as elsewhere) if you want to write essays with interesting references in them then find a publisher, its not what wikipedia is about.  Snowded  TALK 18:06, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The section Moral responsibility contains most of the article and introduces its numerous subsections on free will with the content-free single sentence:
 * "Depending on how a philosopher conceives of free will, they will have different views on moral responsibility."


 * as laden with meaning as:
 * "Depending upon one's concepts of x, one will have different views of y."


 * Fill in anything you like for x and y: x=cats & y=dogs, say. The reference to Cane supplies some substance, and rather than removal of this citation, a better course would be to amplify what Cane (or some other source) has to say to connect x with y. Brews ohare (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Lets sett if anyone else agrees with you, your comments indicate you are not attempting to understand the argument, as ever Snowded  TALK 20:57, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowded: Not responsive. The lead sentence of a protracted series of subsections on free will should explain its relevance to 'moral responsibility', that being the topic at hand. Cane does that. Stick to the point, eh?? Brews ohare (talk) 21:45, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * No one is expected to be responsive to an editor who is the exemplar of intransigence over multiple articles.  Sorry Brews but you have used up all and any good will  Snowded  TALK 22:11, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowded: Responsiveness to an editor (me) is unimportant, although it draws your ire. What matters is responsiveness to a valid concern, a matter you give no attention to. Brews ohare (talk) 07:34, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * revert of the addition of that reference was appropriate. The reference should not have been added at this time because:
 * The reference misrepresented the author in both the author parameter and the field as "Peter Cave", not "Peter Cane". Yes, this could have been fixed by editing, but reverting was more appropriate because:
 * The relevance of that work of the author's, and the author's level of notability in this field is currently being questioned in an RfC which you started on this talk page.
 * It is inappropriate to add references into the article from this work while its relevance and the author's notability in this field are under discussion here. In particular, it is inappropriate that the work be misrepresented as the work of a different author while it is under discussion here. Assuming good faith means that we assume that the misrepresentation was not intentional. However in this situation, it was an unfortunate mistake to occur at this time, particularly that it was an error in two locations.  &mdash; Makyen (talk) 21:10, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Makyen: The author's name was mistyped, as you note, as Cave instead of Cane. The elevation of a typo to a realm requiring an WP:AGF excuse is silly.
 * The rest of your argument is incorrect. The RfC concerns the role of a subsection on 'Legal aspects' and has nothing whatsoever to do with provision of an adequate introduction to the protracted series of subsections on free will. Brews ohare (talk) 21:38, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Dismissing the rest of the argument implies that you have not read and understood the statements in, and implications of, the comments that have been made to your RfC.


 * Given that
 * the typo was in two locations with different capitalization (i.e. could not be just a typo and then a completely unthought copy & paste of the typo)
 * the work and author are actively being discussed in your own RfC
 * the comments to that RfC question the relative weight given to the work and author
 * the high level of assertiveness with which you push your own point of view
 * you demonstrate an apparent lack of reflection on the feedback provided to you by other editors.
 * you tend to be dismissive of the points of view expressed by other editors, even when expressed by multiple other editors
 * you routinely edit your posts after they have been replied to without providing indication of having done so (contrary to normal Wikipedia talk page edict)
 * a cursory inspection of your history indicated you have persistently participated here at Wikipedia in a manner which has resulted in multiple long bans and included willful, repeated violations of said bans, without bothering to participate in the discussion of those violations, which resulted in a one year complete ban from Wikipedia.
 * I have not, and do not plan to, take the time to determine why you were topic banned from physics. That leaves open a variety of possible behaviors outside those desirable on Wikipedia.
 * the error made it such that I did not immediately recognize the reference was to the same person and work as is being discussed in the RfC.
 * So, yes, with all of those informing my initial impression, it was necessary for me to step back and assume good faith regarding that edit.


 * Giving other editors the same level of respect and consideration which you appear to want from them will go a long way towards making your participation here at Wikipedia almost anywhere significantly less contentious. &mdash; Makyen (talk) 01:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * So glad you found it within you to forgive this typo. Evidently getting all this about the typo straight is worth a few pages of comment, while the content issue behind introduction of this citation is worth no attention at all. Brews ohare (talk) 07:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Snowded reverts, again!
In this revert Snowded removed a link supporting the following statement in Moral responsibility.
 * "Depending on how a philosopher conceives of free will, they will have different views on moral responsibility."

Snowded originally reverted the supporting citation with the comment Citation is not relevant to an introductory sentence to a list of different approaches. Upon undoing this reversion and suggesting it was a source that backs up exactly the statement it is attached to, Snowded again reverted with the in-line justification is ''No it doesn't Brews, it is tangential at best. You have been reverted, if you disagree then raise it on the talk page''

Snowded suggests that I need to mount this Talk page defense against his silliness, but his removal of material needs no such attention. And he need supply no reasoning.

What the source says is:
 * "A common argument in the philosophical literature is that the essence of responsibility is to be found in what it means to be a human agent and to have free will...There is disagreement amongst philosophers about what freedom means, about whether human beings are free in the relevant sense, and about the relevance of freedom to responsibility." (p. 4)

Now Snowded believes that the following subsections of the WP article constitute "a list of different approaches", but that is an elliptic description, as the following subsections actually engage in an outline of various positions on free will, and not just a list. The above quotation from Cane provides a very natural explanation for the subsequent variety of views on free will, and why they bear upon moral responsibility, namely, the explanation that different philosophers have differing views on the question of "what it means to be a human agent", and so forth.

Apart from supporting the lead sentence, the source provides a reader with a very cogent discussion of the entire subject.

Of course, there is no doubt about the pertinence of the source to the lead of the subsection Moral responsibility. Snowded's reversions are just part of his very long history of reversions based upon his personal aesthetics without Talk page engagement. Just what is behind his habitual activity is hard to say, but it has nothing to do with protecting WP from bad sourcing. Brews ohare (talk) 16:35, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * The sentence introduces a series of headings Brews. It doesn't need a reference and if it does then it needs to be one that justifies the subsequent selection.  You are simply introducing material almost at random because it uses similar words.  Your inability to interact with insult and your edit warring and becoming very tedious.  To repeat here (as elsewhere) if you want to write essays with interesting references in them then find a publisher, its not what wikipedia is about.  Snowded  TALK 18:06, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * The section Moral responsibility contains most of the article and introduces its numerous subsections on free will with the content-free single sentence:
 * "Depending on how a philosopher conceives of free will, they will have different views on moral responsibility."


 * as laden with meaning as:
 * "Depending upon one's concepts of x, one will have different views of y."


 * Fill in anything you like for x and y: x=cats & y=dogs, say. The reference to Cane supplies some substance, and rather than removal of this citation, a better course would be to amplify what Cane (or some other source) has to say to connect x with y. Brews ohare (talk) 19:39, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Lets sett if anyone else agrees with you, your comments indicate you are not attempting to understand the argument, as ever Snowded  TALK 20:57, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowded: Not responsive. The lead sentence of a protracted series of subsections on free will should explain its relevance to 'moral responsibility', that being the topic at hand. Cane does that. Stick to the point, eh?? Brews ohare (talk) 21:45, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * No one is expected to be responsive to an editor who is the exemplar of intransigence over multiple articles.  Sorry Brews but you have used up all and any good will  Snowded  TALK 22:11, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Snowded: Responsiveness to an editor (me) is unimportant, although it draws your ire. What matters is responsiveness to a valid concern, a matter you give no attention to. Brews ohare (talk) 07:34, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * revert of the addition of that reference was appropriate. The reference should not have been added at this time because:
 * The reference misrepresented the author in both the author parameter and the field as "Peter Cave", not "Peter Cane". Yes, this could have been fixed by editing, but reverting was more appropriate because:
 * The relevance of that work of the author's, and the author's level of notability in this field is currently being questioned in an RfC which you started on this talk page.
 * It is inappropriate to add references into the article from this work while its relevance and the author's notability in this field are under discussion here. In particular, it is inappropriate that the work be misrepresented as the work of a different author while it is under discussion here. Assuming good faith means that we assume that the misrepresentation was not intentional. However in this situation, it was an unfortunate mistake to occur at this time, particularly that it was an error in two locations.  &mdash; Makyen (talk) 21:10, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Makyen: The author's name was mistyped, as you note, as Cave instead of Cane. The elevation of a typo to a realm requiring an WP:AGF excuse is silly.
 * The rest of your argument is incorrect. The RfC concerns the role of a subsection on 'Legal aspects' and has nothing whatsoever to do with provision of an adequate introduction to the protracted series of subsections on free will. Brews ohare (talk) 21:38, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Dismissing the rest of the argument implies that you have not read and understood the statements in, and implications of, the comments that have been made to your RfC.


 * Given that
 * the typo was in two locations with different capitalization (i.e. could not be just a typo and then a completely unthought copy & paste of the typo)
 * the work and author are actively being discussed in your own RfC
 * the comments to that RfC question the relative weight given to the work and author
 * the high level of assertiveness with which you push your own point of view
 * you demonstrate an apparent lack of reflection on the feedback provided to you by other editors.
 * you tend to be dismissive of the points of view expressed by other editors, even when expressed by multiple other editors
 * you routinely edit your posts after they have been replied to without providing indication of having done so (contrary to normal Wikipedia talk page edict)
 * a cursory inspection of your history indicated you have persistently participated here at Wikipedia in a manner which has resulted in multiple long bans and included willful, repeated violations of said bans, without bothering to participate in the discussion of those violations, which resulted in a one year complete ban from Wikipedia.
 * I have not, and do not plan to, take the time to determine why you were topic banned from physics. That leaves open a variety of possible behaviors outside those desirable on Wikipedia.
 * the error made it such that I did not immediately recognize the reference was to the same person and work as is being discussed in the RfC.
 * So, yes, with all of those informing my initial impression, it was necessary for me to step back and assume good faith regarding that edit.


 * Giving other editors the same level of respect and consideration which you appear to want from them will go a long way towards making your participation here at Wikipedia almost anywhere significantly less contentious. &mdash; Makyen (talk) 01:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * So glad you found it within you to forgive this typo. Evidently getting all this about the typo straight is worth a few pages of comment, while the content issue behind introduction of this citation is worth no attention at all. Brews ohare (talk) 07:42, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Subsection on legal aspects of 'moral responsibility'
Comments and suggestions for improvement of a subsection on legal aspects of 'moral responsibility' are requested.Brews ohare (talk) 21:43, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

The proposed subsection is below:

Legal aspects
How does the law interpret 'moral responsibility', and how does that view impact the philosophy of 'moral responsibility'? As stated by Cane, some discount any contribution of the law:1
 * "Law and legal concepts often seem artificial and contrived,...consisting of arbitrary rules...By contrast, ‘morality’ is seen as ‘natural’ and, at its best, the product of calm, rational and principled reflection on the nature of the world and the place of human beings in it. According to this account, morality is in some sense prior to and independent of social practices in general, and of legal practices in particular. Whereas law is necessarily a social phenomenon, a matter of convention and practice, morality is ultimately non-conventional and critical, providing ultimate standards for the ethical assessment of law and other social practices."

Cane does not subscribe to this view, but suggests that the view of the law upon moral responsibility has bearing outside the law as well:2
 * "It seems worthwhile...to allow of the possibility that legal concepts embody social practices and understandings that exist outside the law; and that by studying legal concepts that have counterparts outside the law, we might learn something about those extra-legal social practices... [There is] no reason to ignore the law in seeking to understand widely used normative concepts."

Cane suggests that a realistic formulation of responsibility has a social basis that cannot be ignored, and that is also the foundation of a legal system. This view also is supported by Kutz:3
 * "The claim that responses are warranted by governing social norms necessarily implies some social relativism....social norms define the nature of the act in question and they regulate the appropriate response".

Kutz (p. 557) says: "The retributivist's exclusive focus upon an agent's intentional state and actions dictates that...the response warranted by desert is thus univocal, dependent upon facts about the agent rather than the agent's relation to others." and "It should now be clear that the attitudes and expressions of agents warrant response only given a certain understanding of the nature of the relationship between agent and respondent."

Hart and Stent go beyond this observation to identify 'moral responsibility' as an ascriptive term, not a descriptive one. As Hart puts it:4
 * "[Responsibility] is a social concept and logically dependent upon accepted rules of conduct. It is fundamentally not descriptive, but ascriptive in character; and it is [not to be defined] by a set of necessary and sufficient conditions whether physical or psychological."

and Stent:5
 * "Moral responsibility denotes the relation that obtains between an action performed by a person and the duties and obligations of that person...moral responsibility is an ascriptive concept, which attributes duties and obligations to a person that devolve from moral, legal, or ritual imperatives"

This ascriptive legal approach to 'moral responsibility' does not directly address the fundamental issues of whether the social norms underlying the law are well founded either empirically or philosophically, but identifies that the law formalizes a society's conception of 'moral responsibility' and to what it attaches. As with moral relativism, the underlying connection is to the mores of a selected group, which may or may not have a universal basis outside the views of any particular group.6 Assessment of the legal machinery has, in return, implications for the societal beliefs underlying it.2, 3

References
 * 1


 * 2


 * 3 Accessible on line through Amazon's 'look inside' feature.


 * 4 On line version found at


 * 5


 * 6

Comments

 * Comment: Snowded has already expressed his opinion that there are too many quotations in this text. Specific recommendations on these quotes are solicited. However, the substantive issue is not the number of quotations, but the content of the subsection, whether it is adequately sourced, whether it adds to the article, and above all, how can it be made clearer and more complete. Brews ohare (talk) 21:43, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Comment: As previously stated, aspects of the material might merit a sentence or two which could be added to the earlier mention of legal aspects. They do not warrant a separate section. A simple look at the history on this page of Brew's interactions with Pfhorrest as well as myself will illustrate the wider problem here.  He has been asked to make proposals for small specific changes on the talk page which he should do.  As on many other articles we have an editor who is seeking to expand specific articles into wider essays on related subjects often comprising strings of quotations he finds using google searches.  One change I reverted simply talked about the link between the law and ethics which is not relevant to this article but might be elsewhere.   I've also lost count of the number of RfCs Brews has raised on Philosophy articles since he moved to this area after a permanent topic ban from Physics articles.  The word tendentious comes to mind.  The RfC is premature if anything.   That said other editors getting involved would be a great help.   Snowded  TALK 22:12, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Where is this article's 'earlier mention' of legal aspects? All I can find is a line in the Intro that says moral and legal responsibility are not the same, which is hard to dispute, but not about this topic. There is also a mention of the insanity defense, and rehabilitation rather than retribution, all in the context of attitudes toward 'free will' and not pertinent to this proposal. The subject in this proposal is how the law looks upon moral responsibility, the connection to mores, and what the law's view has to add to the philosophy behind moral responsibility. You are confused on this point, so I have revised the lead sentence.
 * Attention here is not upon your views regarding 'essays', or upon some 'wider problem'. Attention is upon the fashioning right here in this RfC of a subsection on legal aspects. How about some substantive content proposals?. Brews ohare (talk) 15:59, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Comments
 * I agree with the stylistic critique that this proposal as written is too quote-heavy, and consequently probably too long; it would be better to say what has been said more concisely in paraphrases, than to introduce large quote blocks to say it themselves.
 * The first half of the proposed section (everything about Cane) does not on the surface seem to have anything to do with moral responsibility, but rather just the relation between law and ethics. Upon reading the cited passages, it looks like Cane's book in general is about responsibility in general, and specifically how the legal concept thereof may shed light on the moral concept thereof. That could be relevant, but needs to be made more apparent in the actual article text (which could be done in the process of the paraphrasing proposed in the previous point). We should also ask the question of due weight; sure Cane is writing on this topic, but how well known is he, or his book, and is anyone else discussing the same thing? (That thing being, to reiterate, whether legal concepts of responsibility have any light to shed on moral concepts thereof). Those all factor in to how much we should devote in this article to talking about him.
 * I can't seem to access the chapter of the Kutz source cited, so I can't really compare it, but the first quote given and the journal that it's in seem again to be saying nothing about moral responsibility per se, but just about the fact that law behaves in a socially relative way.
 * The second, shorter comment from Kutz, that responsibility is about facts about the agent's relations to others, not just facts about the agent, may be much more relevant than any of the above, assuming it can be established that he's actually talking about moral responsibility at all and not just legal responsibility. It could be a noteworthy view to include in the article, that moral responsibility does not depend on anything intrinsic to the person whose moral responsibility in question, but more on a society's view of that person; in a similar way to how some cultures' concept of personhood is not of a certain intrinsic quality of a being which makes them sufficiently human or whatever, but rather something more like 'citizenship' or 'kingship': it's more of just a title bestowed, than it is anything about the one it is bestowed upon. This of course also hinges on what weight is due to such a viewpoint; if we are to include it, we should probably include more than just one source talking about it, unless that source it very notable itself.
 * The comments from Hart and Stern might or might not qualify as further sources on that same matter; I'm not entirely clear from a brief read over the cited parts. It looks plausible that they might only be making the point that to say someone is responsible for something is not simply to describe a fact of their causal relationship to the thing (as in "X is responsible for Y" meaning "X caused Y"), but rather to say something normative about them, about how something ought or ought not be. If that's all they're saying then that's not very relevant to this article, as it merely belabors a point that should be clear from the lede about what the subject of the article is. However, it also looks plausible that they might be saying something like what Kutz seems to be saying above: that someone being morally responsible (in the normative sense that this article is about) does not hinge on anything about them, but rather it's just a social status bestowed upon people by other people, again like citizenship or kingship. There's nothing inherent to a person which makes them intrinsically a king or a citizen or not, they just get that title if society gives it to them, and perhaps some hold the view that moral responsibility is like that. It looks likely that Kutz at least holds that view; I'd like to hear others' opinions (besides Brews') on whether Hart and Stern hold that view as I'm ambivalent after a cursory read and don't really have time to study more in depth right now.
 * Closing comments: I think the latter half of this is more likely salvageable than the former half, but reframed in a different way. Something about the former half might also be salvageable but if so in a much more condensed form probably not warranting its own section and likely not belonging in the same section as the latter half as it's not really on the same subject. --Pfhorrest (talk) 06:36, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Pfhorrest: You can access Kutz via Amazon's 'look inside' feature. His Section 2 is entitled "Moral Responsibility", which should encourage the belief that he has something to say on this topic. His essay here is referred to by Garrath Williams as "the most intellectually penetrating treatment" of the relational aspects of moral responsibility, "arguing that the relational aspects of responsibility attribution are of critical importance". Brews ohare (talk) 15:52, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * None of those Amazon links seem to work the way I expect they're supposed to. They just take me to the main Amazon page where I can buy the book. I can click "Look Inside" from there, but that doesn't give access to the full text, and the search it offers doesn't seem to work very effectively: searching for "Moral Responsibility", for example, does not pull up a section by that title in the results, only a bunch of isolated instances of the words "moral" and "responsibility" (not necessarily together). --Pfhorrest (talk) 05:53, 26 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Pfhorrest: Your remark: " It could be a noteworthy view to include in the article, that moral responsibility does not depend on anything intrinsic to the person whose moral responsibility in question, but more on a society's view of that person; in a similar way to how some cultures' concept of personhood is not of a certain intrinsic quality of a being which makes them sufficiently human or whatever, but rather something more like 'citizenship' or 'kingship'" is at the heart of the matter, and is what all the cited sources are aiming at. Brews ohare (talk) 19:48, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * I would suggest rewriting the proposed section to make that more apparent then, as the proposal as written doesn't seem to be about that, merely to mention it as the last of many different things it discusses. The rest of the article is largely talking about different conceptions of what moral responsibility consists of, and whether or not anyone has moral responsibility by those standards. Refactoring this proposal into a section on the position that moral responsibility consists of nothing more than a kind of social 'title', or something along those lines, and discussing that explicitly without digression into broader topics of the relationship between the law and morality, relativism, etc, would be much more acceptable. --Pfhorrest (talk)
 * Along the lines of your remark: "moral responsibility does not depend on anything intrinsic to the person whose moral responsibility in question, but more on a society's view of that person" we have implications within the law, upon the law, and outside the law entirely. In this last category we have Eshleman's article, where he states one of several views: "the concept of moral responsibility as accountability is an inherently social notion, and to hold someone responsible is to address a fellow member of the moral community." We have Hart's view of the law as a social phenomenon that evolves through its practice over time to arrive at an improved concept of moral responsibility. And Kutz' remark (p. 557) "The retributivist's exclusive focus upon an agent's intentional state and actions dictates that...the response warranted by desert is thus univocal, dependent upon facts about the agent rather than the agent's relation to others."
 * The proposal here is only a tip of the iceberg, and is not a parenthetic addition to the article. Can you make some concrete suggestions? Brews ohare (talk) 20:44, 26 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose - The section starts with a question, is a quote farm, avoids summary style and creates undue weight.-- — Keithbob • Talk  • 19:46, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Keithbob: These issues all can be addressed, I suppose, if the proposal is shortened by paraphrasing the quotes in summary form? That would be less eloquent than using the source's wording, and perhaps lead the reader to question whether the sources are being accurately presented, but I guess your greatest priority is brevity? Brews ohare (talk) 04:08, 6 March 2014 (UTC)

Stub?
This can't be a stub anymore, can it? Me, Myself &#38; I (☮) (talk) 19:47, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Any editor can re-rate it. Why don't you assess it? Dimadick (talk) 16:07, 8 May 2016 (UTC)


 * I have never assessed an article before. There is a very distinct possibility that my rating would be even less accurate than the current one. I will scrutinize the criteria and attempt to come to a judgement on this. I suppose if the new assessment is way off the mark, someone could come along and correct it. Me, Myself &#38; I (☮) (talk) 04:14, 9 May 2016 (UTC)

bold Frédéric Mauro claim
Mauro suggests that a sense of personal responsibility does not operate or evolve universally among humankind. He argues that it was absent in the successful civilization of the Iroquois.

This strikes me as a dangerous excursion into undue influence (this appears to be the only mention of Mauro in the article (who should be named in full).

When I googled "Iroquois personal responsibility" I found some prominent articles (in English) about ethical conundrums existing between Iroquois and European culture, but this particular result was hardly prominent.

As the claim above verges on the controversy level of Daniel Everett's claim that the Pirahã language contains no grammatical recursion, if remotely true it deserves a far more substantial account than this short, drive-by statement. &mdash; MaxEnt 12:00, 4 March 2018 (UTC)