Free Will A Contemporary Introduction

Three Source Incompatibilist Arguments 157

In English, TNR reads:

1. No one is even partly morally responsible for that fact that p.


2. No one is even partly morally responsible for the fact that p implies q.


3. Therefore, no one is even partly morally responsible for the fact that q.

With these resources in place, we turn to a treatment of several of the most
pressing objections to the Direct Argument.
The most familiar strategy for resisting the Direct Argument is by way of
showing that it is invalid because the inference rule TNR is invalid. To get this
result, what a critic needs is an example of this form:

NRp & NR(p → q) & ~NRq

That is, what is needed is a case in which a person is not even partly morally
responsible for p, is not even partly morally responsible for the fact that p
implies q, but is morally responsible for q.^14 Now consider the following
example developed by Mark Ravizza as applied to moral responsibility for the
consequences of one’s actions:

Imagine that Betty plants her explosives in the crevices of a glacier and det-

onates the charge at T1, causing an avalanche that crushes the enemy for-

tress at T3. Unbeknownst to Betty and her commanding officers, however,

the glacier is gradually melting, shifting, and eroding. Had Betty not placed

the dynamite in the crevices, some ice and rocks would have broken free

and crushed the enemy base camp at T3. (Ravizza, 1994: 72–3)

Call this example Avalanche. Avalanche is exactly a case that satisfies the
requirements specified for a direct counterexample to Transfer NR:

• Betty is not morally responsible for the condition of the glacier prior to T3.


• Betty is not morally responsible for the fact that, if the glacier is in that con-
  dition prior to T3, then the enemy base camp is destroyed at T3.


• Betty is morally responsible for the destruction of the enemy base camp.

Ravizza in coauthored work with Fischer (Fischer and Ravizza, 1998: chapter
6 ), made use of examples such as this one to mount a sustained assault on the
Direct Argument. How might the advocate of the Direct Argument respond?
Note two things about Avalanche. First, it is a case about moral responsibility
for the consequences of one’s actions and so not a case of moral responsibility
for the action itself, such as responsibility for the decision to destroy the enemy
camp. Second, it involves a “two path” case. There is one path leading to a
certain result and then a distinct path to that same result. The former path it can
be granted is one for which no one is morally responsible. But the other allows
for the possibility of a distinct “responsibility- conferring” path. Each of these