the MarioKart argument.

Imagine (although this has actually happened to me once) that you’re playing Mariokart for Nintendo Gamecube with a few friends. The light turns green and you start racing, and the buggy you think you are controlling does all the things you have to do via your controller input; your character speeds up, rounds corners, shoots the occasional shell, as well as takes the secret short cut you intend on taking. Imagine further that the character you thought was yours (the buggy with the Princess and Mario) is actually someone else’s (Judah Dorn’s) (yours is actually the one with Wario and Boo) and it just so happened Judah Dorn did everything you thought you were doing, but of course it was Judah who did what you thought you were doing, and not you (your buggy with Wario and Boo are a few turns behind everyone else in the race slamming into a wall because, as we have already seen and established, your controller was controlling Wario and Boo’s buggy and not the Princess and Mario’s, and there was actually a few things that Judah did with his buggy that you didn’t do with yours (unbeknownst to yourself at the time), and so on. Now what can be said about such a scenario? The following facts are worthy of reflection:

(1) You didn’t do what you thought you were doing, which is to say you didn’t cause anything to happen in the way you thought you did.

(2) Despite the fact of (1), since it was the case you thought you were doing something, you were able to

(3) Identify with what you thought you were doing in such a way that you would have taken responsibility for what Judah’s buggy was doing even though you had nothing to do with it.

These are the facts of the story, and we need to take one more step to make it extremely pertinent to a certain discussion. Could you, if facts (1)-(3) obtain, take responsibility for the actions of Judah’s buggy even if you knew after the fact that it wasn’t you who did it? In the very least you would have to concede that you intended the events that actually took place, and so were responsible in at least that sense (is this enough for responsibility? Perhaps it is). But never mind what you would accept or not, I know that when this situation actually happened to me I asked myself if I were willing to take responsibility for my actions even thought I didn’t actually do anything I thought I did at the time, and I told myself I would be willing to take responsibility. But how could I take responsibility for something I didn’t actually do? Well, quite simply, I willingly intended everything I thought I was doing, and so am responsible in a significant sense; and this is true despite the facts of the matter!

So, let’s abstract these phenomenon a bit. Say the world and its causal order is such that the future is closed and nothing that is, was, or is going to happen could happen otherwise than how it is, was, and is going to happen (determinism is true!). Well, does this mitigate against responsibility, that is, could the possible truth of determinism remove the possibility of responsibility of agents? Given my video game experience and what I learned from it, it seems I must say that responsibility and determinism are compossible in so far as the agents identify with what they think they’re doing even if they aren’t doing what they think they are.

A slight caveat: I think this example is indifferent to whatever is the source any determinism in any possible world, which is to say it matters not which things are the source or cause of determinism whether it be the laws of the universe or God or mad scientists. The question of the compossibility of responsibility is narrow enough to ignore such a discussion. Nevertheless if we were to change topics and ask if other things besides humans are responsible in the worlds where both determinism and responsibility cohabitate, the following seems to be true.

In the worlds where there is just physical laws, matter, minds capable of deliberation, determinism and responsibility, then minds are the only things could be responsible (in the moral sense), for they are the things that have good and bad intentions, and so on.

In the worlds where everything is as just described with the addition of a (theistic) God, then it seems there are now two types of things which can be called responsible, man and God- for God is also such that he can deliberate and have good intentions (although he can’t have evil ones, according to Classical Theism). Notice that in the worlds where a deistic God exists he wouldn’t be morally responsible, but just causally responsible, since, in order for him to be morally responsible he would have to have intentions of sorts, and deistic Gods don’t have intentions, they would be more like physical laws (if the existed) since they do things unconsciously. But in the worlds where the theistic God exists, then it is the case that what he causes to exist in any possible world are not just things he thinks he’s causing, or else He wouldn’t be God, but something else would. So in the worlds where a theistic God exists he would be in fact causing everything you think you are doing but nevertheless identify with, and in such worlds where there is evil done through agents who think they do it, it would be God who is doing it, which means that in such worlds God would be responsible for evil, which is impossible. Therefore if theism is true and there is evil in the world then compatibilism is false.

But back to what we were saying. How might a libertarian (someone who thinks determinism and responsibility are not compossible) respond to all of this? Well, L S* has an argument, and I’d like to paraphrase him here: So what if I identified with something that something else caused; that’s not even the question, and so these sorts of Frankfurt-style counterexamples to alternate possibility requirements for responsibility simply beg questions. Even if it is the case that everything I intended to do took place in ways I identified with, I could have intended to do other than which I thought I did. Since it is me who has the power and control of intending to do otherwise, and not Judah Dorn, this is what grounds the possibility of me identifying with anything whatever. To have the power to intend otherwise is having the power to engage an alternate possibility other than that which has happened, and so alternate possibilities are still required for responsibility ascriptions. So much for poo-poo compatibilism!

The meta-compatibilist response: Look, imagine that Judah Dorn’s controller can not only be hooked up to a Gamecube but your mind as well. Assuming that is conceivable (if not, why not, and remember that all things are possible through Christ who…etc.), then Judah could cause you to intend whatever you intend when every you do, and so long you as you in fact identify with what you think you’re intending but are in fact not, you could just as easily and in the same way be responsible. So much for the poo-poo need for alternate possibilities!

So, any thoughts?





* Unpublished voice mail left on my phone, 02/24/07.