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Subject Area: Political Theory

Freedom, Determinism, Praise & Blame - Leonard P. Liggio, Literature of Liberty, Autumn 1980, vol. 3, No. 3 [1980]

Edition used:

Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought was published first by the Cato Institute (1978-1979) and later by the Institute for Humane Studies (1980-1982) under the editorial direction of Leonard P. Liggio.

Part of: Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought, 20 vols. 19781-982

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Freedom, Determinism, Praise & Blame

Susan Wolf

  • Harvard University

“Asymmetrical Freedom.” Journal of Philosophy 77(March 1980):151–166.

How are freedom and value related? What is the connection between a person who freely controls his own actions and a person who merits moral claims of praise or blame? Many have claimed that being a free agent is necessary if one is to be a moral agent. This view gains its plausibility from the intuition that if a person's interests, values, and desires are psychologically determined by his or her heredity and environment, then a person cannot help doing what he does and thus can do nothing that is praiseworthy or blameworthy. The problem with this view is that a “free” person, one who is not determined to act as he does, does not seem to be a moral agent. For if I can act against my deepest interests, values, desires, it seems that, more likely, I'd be considered psychotic rather than a moral agent.

The problem is that our intuitions go both ways. When talking about freedom the “incompatibilists” seem right—an act is free only if it is psychologically not determined. When thinking about value, the “compatibilists” seem right: no moral agency is possible (no praise or blame) unless I am psychologically determined. How can we have both freedom and morality?

Wolf suggests that the philosophers have not gotten a firm grasp on our intuitions. It is with regard to blame (i.e., a person doing bad actions) that lack of determination is necessary for moral agency. In such cases where an act was not free (because, for example, the actor's childhood caused him not to try to stop compulsively stealing) the incompatibilists seem right. With regard to praise, however, the situation is revered. It is precisely because a person is psychologically determined (e.g., “I couldn't help but aid my friend”) that moves us to praise. If a person is generous only out of childhood habit, his actions may not be praiseworthy; whereas if he was taught to be generous as a child and as an adult freely decided it was a virtue to be generous, then his actions are probably praiseworthy. Thus, with regard to praise, the compatibilists are right. A person is free only if he is determined: a good act is one in which an agent could have done otherwise had there been good and sufficient reasons, but the person was in a situation where there were no other good and sufficient reasons. With regard to blame, the incompatibilists are right. A person can only be blamed for a bad action if he acts in the face of good and sufficient reasons to act otherwise in that situation.

This means that the freedom we want is the freedom to find the “True” and the “Good” so as to be determined by them. The problem of free will cannot, therefore, be understood in value-free terms. It is easy to see why many philosophers have supposed that being determined by the Good is not really being determined.

Finally, Wolf points out that on her view psychological determinism is false, since for a person to perform a blameworthy action he must not have been determined to do so.