ȁȇȅ Partʺʺ: Politics and Philosophy
change Schlick’s theory, which links the whole meaning and importance
of moral responsibility “to our potential control of future conduct in the
interests of society” (CampbellȀȈȄȀ/ȀȈȅȅ, p.ȀȀȄ).
Schlick identifies “Who is morally blameworthy?” with “Who is to
be punished?”—paradoxically, given his view of punishment as a purely
educative measure, without retributive content. We often think it proper
to “punish” a person, in Schlick’s educative sense, even without hold-
ing him morally blameworthy (CampbellȀȈȄȀ/ȀȈȅȅ, p.ȀȀȅ). We punish
the dog. We punish demonstrators who may be obstructing traffic from
motives that even we, the judges, may think noble.
I’ll try to rephrase or interpret Campbell’s objection. Schlick sees in-
strumental, educative, value in applying rewards and punishments, which
he identifies with holding people morally responsible. We could hardly
do so unless we attributed some freedom to people. But is this a valid
linking of ideas? Perhaps rewards and punishments and their generally
good consequences are just particular events in the unbroken causal chain.
Metaphysical freedom cannot be established by pointing to the apparent
or genuine good consequences of reward and punishment.
Campbell suspects that Schlick and many other philosophers cannot
recognize contracausal freedom as prerequisite to moral responsibility be-
cause, while denying that freedom, they do accept the commonsense belief
in moral responsibility (CampbellȀȈȄȀ/ȀȈȅȅ, p.ȀȀȆ).
His own purpose, Campbell concludes (p.ȀȂȄ), has been not actually
to defend free will but rather to show “that the problem as traditionally
posed is a real, and not a pseudo, problem.”
ŔōŦŘ੩ ’ş ŞőŏśŚŏŕŘŕōŠŕśŚ
Henry Hazlitt (ȀȈȅȃ/ȀȈȆȁ, chap.ȁȆ) tries to reconcile free will and respon-
sibility with determinism, interpreted as omnipresent cause and effect. He
agrees “that everything that happens is a necessary outcome of a preced-
ing state of things” (p.ȁȅȈ). Like Schlick, however, he stresses that causa-
tion is not compulsion. Absence, not presence, of causation is what would
exempt people from moral responsibility. “It is precisely because we do not
decide or act without cause that ethical judgments serve a purpose.... Ļe
knowledge that we will be held ‘responsible’ for our acts by others, or even
that we will be responsible in our own eyes for the consequences of our
acts, must influence those acts, and must tend to influence them in the
direction of moral opinion” (p.ȁȆȄ).