RELIGION AND MORALITY 325Case 3: Mary sits reflecting as to whether to send a bitter letter to
her aunt, who has angered her greatly. But she also
knows her aunt meant well and that it would be wrong
to send the letter. Unknown to Mary, her sister Ann, a
doctor, inserted a microchip into Mary’s brain that allows
Ann to monitor Mary’s thoughts and control them if she
wishes. Ann loves her aunt deeply and is monitoring
Mary’s thoughts; she is able to anticipate what Mary’s
decisions will be before Mary makes them. If Mary,
uninterfered with, will decide not to send the letter Ann
will do nothing, but if Mary, uninterfered with, will
decide to send the letter, then Ann will prevent her from
making that decision and cause her to decide not to send
the letter. Mary, uninterfered with, decides not to mail
the letter, so Ann does nothing.
Here, Mary cannot decide to send the letter. The only alternatives are these:
(1) Mary, uninterfered with, decides not to send the letter, and (2) Mary,
interfered with, decides not to send the letter. Mary’s choice is not “up to
her.” (One could, of course, tinker with Case 1 in analogous ways.)
Nonetheless, the compatibilist argues, if (1) holds, then Mary is morally
responsible for her decision even though both (PA) and (PA*) are false of
that decision.
Cases 2 and 3 smack of science fiction. Whether their science fiction will
become science or not does not matter to the argument. For one thing, if
one can describe logically possible cases in which moral responsibility is
present and categorical freedom is absent, then possessing categorical
freedom is not a logically necessary condition of being morally responsible,
and hence incompatibilism is false. For another, if determinism is true,
there is something or other (we may have no idea what) that plays the
causal role that Ann’s interference would play in Case 3 were Ann to have
interfered; there is some state of affairs that does obtain and renders the
actual occurrence in fact inevitable. The determinist is likely to suppose
that talk about microchips and thought monitoring of Mary’s decision
simply does duty for the properly scientific account of whatever those
states of affairs are until we discover how to describe them, if we ever do,
though of course that is no argument for anything.
An incompatibilist response
Again, the incompatibilist is not without resources for a reply. How that
reply should be cast is a matter of dispute among incompatibilists. Suppose