Seven Views of Contemporary Compatibilism 193Very briefly, Scanlon’s argumentative strategy unfolds as follows. First, he
distinguishes between attributability responsibility and substantive responsib-
ility. As for attributability responsibility, Scanlon writes:
To say that a person is responsible, in this sense, for a given action is only
to say that it is appropriate to take it as a basis for moral appraisal of that
person. (1998: 248)On Scanlon’s view, such responsibility only renders one eligible for positive and
negative appraisal, since one can be morally responsible for morally indifferent
actions (248). Nevertheless, moral praise and blame, when fitting, pertain to the
attributability sense of responsibility (1998: 250). Substantive responsibility
instead has to do with obligations or duties moral agents can come to bear.
About this kind of responsibility, Scanlon writes:
These judgments of responsibility express substantive judgments about what
people are required... to do for each other. (248)This sort of responsibility, as Scanlon puts it, is particularly sensitive to the
choices a person makes. Why? If the moral burdens she comes to bear are an
upshot of her own choices, this can diminish the force of objections she may
have against bearing these burdens (249).
With these two notions of responsibility in place, Scanlon proceeds to assess
the reasons supporting (and defeating) judgments of either sort of moral respons-
ibility. In neither case, he argues, would determinism give reason to reject these
judgments (nor would a more permissive thesis making room for probabilistic
causal laws, which he calls the Causal Thesis).
Let’s focus more carefully on Scanlon’s treatment of substantive responsib-
ility. The scope of what we are morally responsible for in the substantive sense,
according to Scanlon, is often dependent upon our choices. Why should this be?
To begin, choice has value, instrumental, representative, and symbolic (251–6).
Hence, we have reason to want outcomes “to depend on the way we respond
when presented with alternatives” (257). So we seek the justification of moral
principles that places a value on this. But now, with the introduction of the value
of choice in moral principles settling the scope of substantive responsibility, isn’t
there the threat that determinism (or the Causal Thesis) would be in conflict with
this value? Doesn’t choice require a genuine ability to do otherwise, and isn’t it
in conflict with determinism? Scanlon argues that the moral question of what
substantive burdens a person should take on is to be settled by whether a person
would have a legitimate complaint others could not reasonably reject were she to
object to being shouldered with these burdens. But then, so long as she is pro-
vided with reasonable options within the context of the expectations of the
moral community, however she chooses, poorly or well, there is no more or less
that is reasonable for her to demand of that moral community.
An example Scanlon uses to illustrate this is of a reckless woman who
is harmed by ignoring adequate warnings and thus being exposed to toxic