moral responsibility and omissions

Scots Philosophical AssociationUniversity of St. Andrews

Moral Responsibility and OmissionsAuthor(s): Jeremy ByrdSource: The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 57, No. 226 (Jan., 2007), pp. 56-67Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the Scots Philosophical Association and theUniversity of St. AndrewsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4543202 .

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The Philosophical Quarter~y, Vol. 57, No. 226 ISSN oo3-8o94

January 2007

MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND OMISSIONS

BYJEREMY BYRD

Frankfurt-type examples seem to show that agents can be morally responsible for their actions and omissions even if they could not have done othenwise. Fischer and Ravizza's influential account of moral responsibility is largely based on such examples. I examine a problem with their account of responsibility in cases where we fail to act. The solution to this problem has a surprising and far reaching implication concerning the construction of successful Frankfurt-type examples. I argue that the role of the counterfactual intervener in such examples can only befilled by a rational agent.

Agents can be morally responsible for their failures to act and for the con-

sequences of their omissions, even if there is no relevant sense in which they could have prevented these. This is one of the conclusions reached by John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza in their illuminating and much discussed work Responsibility and Control. It is part of their overall defence of semi-

compatibilism, according to which one can be morally responsible for one's actions and omissions and their consequences, even if there is no relevant sense in which one can do otherwise. I believe that this conclusion is right, but there is a fundamental problem with their account. The solution to this

problem, however, has important implications for their defence of semi-

compatibilism, as well as for the general discussion of the relationship between free will and moral responsibility. In particular, it requires one to

reject an apparently innocuous and long-held assumption about Frankfurt- type examples, viz the assumption that the role of the counterfactual intervener in such examples can be played equally well by any object. I argue that on the contrary, such examples only work when the counterfactual intervention is brought about by a rational agent.

I. A PUZZLE ABOUT OMISSIONS

I begin with the puzzle which generates much of Fischer and Ravizza's account. John is walking down the beach, and he sees a child drowning in the water nearby. Despite the fact thatJohn believes he could easily save the

© 2007 The Author Journal compilation C 2007 The Editors of The Philosophical Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford ox4 2DQ, UK, and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA



MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND OMISSIONS 57

child, he decides to keep walking, and leaves the child's life in the hands of fate. The child drowns. From what we know so far, it seems that John is

morally responsible for his decision to keep walking, for walking away, and for the consequences of his failure to act. But now we learn that although John does not know this, there are a large number of sharks near the shore that would have eaten him if he had decided to dive into the water to save the child. And so he could not have saved the child even if he had tried, and it seems that he is not responsible for the child's death precisely because he could not have prevented it.1 Fischer and Ravizza have dubbed this

example Sharks. They regard the child's drowning as a 'consequence- universal', since there are many different ways in which the child might have drowned. (Use in this context of the term 'consequence-universal' does not imply that the child's drowning is a consequence of John's actions in

particular, as opposed to other possible sequences of events.) Whatever his other faults, it seems that John is not responsible for this consequence- universal, just because he could not have prevented it from obtaining. We

may hold him responsible for not trying, but we surely cannot hold him

responsible for not succeeding in saving the child. Considered by itself, there does not appear to be anything particularly

puzzling aboutJohn's responsibility in Sharks. It may be compared, however, with the Frankfurt-type example Baby-sitter, originally developed by Ran-

dolph Clarke.2 Sam makes a promise to baby-sit, but he forgets about this

promise and so forgets to baby-sit. Nobody made Sam forget. He just forgot in the ordinary way. What Sam does not know is that there is a local busybody watching him, and if Sam had remembered his promise, the busybody would have stopped Sam for his own nefarious reasons. Thus Sam could not have showed up to baby-sit even if he had tried. Since the busybody is

merely a counterfactual intervener who does not actually affect Sam in any way, it seems reasonable to conclude that Sam is responsible for his failure to keep his promise, even though he could not have done so. Sam's not

showing up is again a consequence-universal, since there are many different

ways in which he could have failed to baby-sit. This time, however, Sam is

responsible for this consequence-universal, despite the fact that he could not have prevented it from obtaining.

It is worth noting that Clarke disagrees with this conclusion. He argues instead (pp. 203-4) that agents are morally responsible for their omissions

1 J.M. Fischer and M. Ravizza, 'Responsibility and Inevitability', Ethics, 101 (I991), pp. 258- 78, at p. 261; Responsibility and Control: a Theory of Moral Responsibility, hereafter RC (Cambridge UP, 2000), p. 125.

2 R. Clarke, 'Ability and Responsibility for Omissions', Philosophical Studies, 73 (i994), pp. 195-208, at p. 203.

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58 JEREMY BYRD

and the consequences only if they would have performed the actions if they had intended and tried to do so. This means that while Sam in Baby-sitter is not responsible for his failure to show up, he would have been responsible if the counterfactual intervention had occurred before he formed the intention to baby-sit.3

Pace Clarke, I cannot see why it matters where we place the counterfactual intervention, since the counterfactual intervener does not do anything in the actual sequence. Sam is just as responsible for his failure to act

regardless of whether there is a mad scientist monitoring his thoughts who would not have let him remember his promise, or a busybody who would not have let him carry out his intention to baby-sit. Since neither actually does anything, their presence does not affect Sam's responsibility.4

It is important to observe in addition that Baby-sitter is a fairly typical Frankfurt-type example. In such examples, agents deliberate and make choices in the usual way, and no one and nothing interferes. What the relevant agents do not know, however, is that if they had begun to make a different decision or to perform some different action, someone or some-

thing would have prevented them. These counterfactual interventions make it true that the agents could not have done otherwise. But since the interventions are merely counterfactual, they seem irrelevant to the agents' re-

sponsibility in the actual sequence of events. Thus the fact that agents could not have done otherwise does not seem to imply, by itself, that they were not

responsible for what they did or failed to do. Of course, there is considerable controversy on this point, and there are

two main lines of response to such examples. According to one, we need to

distinguish between the particular token events, such as Sam's not showing up to baby-sit because he forgot, and the universal which they exemplify. Once we do this, it is supposedly apparent that Sam could have brought about some other token event, such as his not showing up to baby-sit because he was thwarted by the local busybody. Thus, it is argued, such

examples do not undermine the claim that only an agent who could have done otherwise can be responsible for the token events. To complete the re-

sponse, it must be shown that there is no reason to think that Sam is

responsible for the consequence-universal.5 The second type of response attempts to show that on closer examination such examples either beg the

question by assuming compatibilism, or else must allow for some degree of

3 A similar view is defended by Alison McIntyre in 'Compatibilists Could Have Done Otherwise: Responsibility and Negative Agency', Philosophical Review, 103 (I994), PP. 453-88.

4 The same criticism of Clarke's and McIntyre's accounts is advanced by Fischer and Ravizza, RC, pp. 141-3.

5 For this type of response, see, e.g., P. van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will (Oxford: Claren- don Press, 1983), pp. I66-8o.

© 2007 The Author Journal compilation © 2007 The Editors of The Philosophical




indeterminism. It is then argued that the latter leaves room for alternative possibilities which are sufficiently robust to allow for libertarian free will.6 Here, however, I shall assume, along with Fischer and Ravizza, that Frankfurt-type examples are successful.

With this assumption in place, though, a puzzle remains. In Sharks, John is not responsible for the consequence-universal that the child drowns, and it seems that he is not responsible because he could not have saved the child. In Baby-sitter, however, it seems that Sam is responsible for the consequence- universal that he did not show up to baby-sit, despite the fact that he could not have kept his promise. I suggest, though, that there is an important difference between the two cases. In Sharks, it seems that ifJohn had decided to save the child, the world would have been unresponsive to his efforts. There is simply no causal sequence he could have started which would have saved the child. Of course, the same is true about Sam's failure to baby-sit: there is no causal sequence Sam could have started which would have resulted in his keeping his promise. Yet there might still be a relevant sense in which the world is responsive to Sam's efforts, in a way in which it is not to John's. In Baby-sitter, Sam's efforts to keep his promises would not have been thwarted by the natural circumstances of the world. Rather, he would have been stopped by the choices of another rational agent. It seems then that, discounting the actions of other rational agents, the world is appropriately sensitive to Sam's actions in a way in which it is not in John's case. At this point, this is merely a suggestion. Before examining it any further, I turn to Fischer and Ravizza's solution.

II. A PUZZLE ABOUT TRIGGERING EVENTS

In Sharks and in Baby-sitter, neither John nor Sam can do otherwise than they do. Yet Sam is responsible for the consequences of his omission while John is not. The only plausible explanation for this discrepancy is that despite appearances, Sam somehow had greater control over his failure to baby-sit thanJohn had over his failure to save the child. If this is true, then the world must have been sensitive to Sam's decision in some way in which it was not to John's. To explicate this sensitivity, Fisher and Ravizza have proposed the following criteria to account for moral responsibility for the consequences of omissions:

6 For this second type of response, see, e.g., R. Kane, The Significance of Free Will (Oxford UP, 1996), pp. 142-5; D. Widerker, 'Libertarianism and Frankfurt's Attack on the Principle of Alternative Possibilities', Philosophical Review, 1o4 (1995), pp. 227-46; D. Speak, 'Fanning the Flickers of Freedom', American Philosophical Quarterly, 39 (2002), pp. 91-105.




60 JEREMY BYRD

Suppose that in the actual world an agent S moves his body in a way b at time t via a type of mechanism m, and S's moving his body in a way b at t causes some consequence-universal c to obtain at t+i via a type of process p. Then the sequence leading to the consequence-universal c is responsive if and only if there exists a range of possible scenarios r in which an m-type mechanism operates and a way of moving S's body b* (other than b), such that

(i) S recognizes what can be seen as an understandable pattern of reasons for action (in the scenarios that compose r), some of which are moral; and there is some possible scenario in r in which S has reason to move his body in way b* at t, and S does move his body in b* at t (for that reason)

(2) If S were to move his body in way b* at t, all other triggering events (apart from b*) that do not actually occur between t and t+i were not to occur, and a p-type process were to occur, then c would not occur.7

The first condition is intended to make sure that the agent is appropriately responsive to reason. The second condition, which is of concern here, is

designed to ensure that the world is appropriately sensitive to what the agent does. This condition brings Fischer and Ravizza's account of responsibility for the consequences of omissions into line with their general account of

responsibility for consequences: assuming that the agent's actions and omissions are appropriately responsive to reason, he is responsible for their

consequences only if the world is appropriately sensitive to his actions, where the appropriate sensitivity is spelt out as in (2). (To account for

responsibility for consequences which are overdetermined, Fischer and Ravizza make some minor revisions to (2) which are not important for the

argument here (RC, pp. 116-20). In addition to these necessary conditions, Fischer and Ravizza also require that the actions and omissions belong, in a relevant sense, to the agent, and that he is not inappropriately ignorant about what he is doing.)

The key to this account is Fischer and Ravizza's notion of a triggering event. Adopting the Stalnaker-Lewis approach to counterfactuals, (2) should be evaluated at relevantly similar possible worlds, holding fixed all of the details of the actual world except (i) those which must be changed to allow for S to move his body in way b*, and (ii) the triggering events which did not occur. Thus whether one holds fixed the sharks' presence in Sharks or the

busybody's presence in Baby-sitter depends on whether their respective counterfactual interventions count as triggering events.

Fischer and Ravizza (RC, pp. IO--II) define a triggering event (relative to some consequence-universal c) as any event, whether the behaviour of

7 RC, pp. 134-5. For criticism of this formulation, see A.R. Mele, 'Reactive Attitudes, Reactivity, and Omissions', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 61 (2000), pp. 447-52. Fischer and Ravizza's reply can be found in the same volume at p. 472.





rational agents or some natural event, 'which is such that, if it were to occur, it would initiate a causal sequence leading to c'. It is supposedly clear that in

Baby-sitter the busybody's intervention would count as such a triggering event. Thus if one wants to see whether Sam is responsible for not showing up to baby-sit, one must look to see what Sam can do in relevantly similar

possible worlds in which the busybody does not get in his way. Since it seems plausible to assume that Sam might remember his promise in such worlds and keep it, he is responsible for his failure to do so.

It is not so obvious, however, whether one should count the sharks' counterfactual detections ofJohn in Sharks as triggering events. Clearly, they would lead to John's being eaten and hence to his failing to rescue the child. So the issue is whether detection would initiate the causal sequence leading to the consequence-universal of the child drowning.

In an important note to their discussion (RC, p. 136, n. 19), Fischer and Ravizza claim it would not. This is because the sharks' counterfactual detections of John would themselves be caused by John's decision to dive into the water to save the child. Since this event antedates the sharks' detection of John, it is the decision and not the detection that initiates the causal sequence leading to the consequence-universal. Thus one must hold fixed the presence of the sharks when one evaluatesJohn's responsibility.

Unfortunately, this account will not do. The mere fact that the sharks

only detect John after he has dived into the water does not mean that the detection cannot count as a triggering event. After all, in most Frankfurt- type examples, including Baby-sitter, the counterfactual intervener only intervenes in other possible worlds as a causal consequence of some previous event. For example, the busybody in Baby-sitter only intervenes if he detects that Sam starts to act on an intention to keep his promise. If one follows this account of initiation, then the events that tip off the busybody in the counterfactual scenarios initiate the causal sequence involving his intervention in the same way as John's diving into the water initiates the sharks' detections of John. If so, then the counterfactual intervention of the busybody should be held fixed, and Sam turns out not to be responsible for the

consequences of his omission. I can make this point clearer with the following example, Flat Tyre I,

adapted from Fischer and Ravizza (RC, p. 126). Randy is a small time crook walking along a deserted street late one night. He sees a Mercedes with a flat, and an old man with a bulging wallet trying to change the tyre. Though Randy thinks he could easily assault the old man and take the money and the car, he decides not to, because he has already had a long day of thieving and just wants to get home to his wife and child. What Randy does not know is that this car is being watched by a group of Mafiosi who are out to

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62 JEREMY BYRD

protect the car and its contents, a large supply of illegal drugs and dirty money. If Randy had approached the old man, the Mafiosi would have shot him dead. He did not, and they let him be.

According to Fischer and Ravizza (RC, p. 136, n. 19), the counterfactual intervention of the Mafiosi does not count as a triggering event, and so

Randy is not responsible for the consequence-universal that the old man is not robbed. This is because, as in Sharks, the Mafiosi would only be respond- ing to Randy's decision to rob the old man. Since this decision would antedate the actions of the Mafiosi, these actions do not count as triggering events. The Mafiosi in Flat Tyre I, though, are operating just like the typical counterfactual interveners in Frankfurt-type examples. Their presence ensures that Randy is not able to rob the old man, but they would only act if he were to give them some indication that he intends to rob the old man. If the details of the story are slightly altered, it is clear that Fischer and Ravizza should accept this point as well. So, for example (Flat Tyre 2), imagine that the Mafiosi are waiting in the back of a van and that there is a counterfactual intervener who will release them if he sees Randy approach the old man. As a consequence, there is no way in which Randy can rob the old man.

Flat Tyre 2 is importantly analogous to an example raised by David Kap- lan, which Fischer and Ravizza have dubbed Penned-in Sharks.8 This is like Sharks except that the sharks are in a pen and there is a counterfactual intervener who will release them ifJohn dives into the water. Since Penned-in Sharks is a typical Frankfurt-type example, Fischer and Ravizza conclude that the counterfactual intervention should be treated as a triggering event, and that in this scenario, John is morally responsible for the consequence- universal that the child drowns. Clearly, though, if the counterfactual intervention in Penned-in Sharks counts as a triggering event, then so should the counterfactual intervention in Flat Tyre 2. And so in Flat Tyre 2 Randy is

responsible for the consequence-universal that the old man is not robbed. There is no relevant difference, however, between the counterfactual intervention in Flat Tyre 2 and the counterfactual intervention in Flat Tyre I. In one case, a counterfactual intervener would let a group of Mafiosi loose to stop Randy. In the other, the Mafiosi would decide to stop Randy on their own. If Randy is responsible in the former scenario, he is responsible in the latter as well.

This exposes another puzzle. As Harry Frankfurt observed when he first introduced such examples, it seems that the counterfactual interveners in

Frankfurt-type examples can be played just as well 'by natural forces

8 Fischer and Ravizza note that Kaplan raised this example in conversation with them: RC, p. 138, n. 22.





involving no will or design' as by busybodies, mad scientists and other rational agents.9 There is a great deal of plausibility about this claim. How could it make any difference whether Sam would have been thwarted by some agent or by some natural event, neither of which played any actual

role, but would have if he had decided to keep his promise? If, however, one should treat natural events as possible candidates for counterfactual interveners, then surely the sharks in Sharks should count as such, since they play the same role as the Mafiosi in Flat Tyre I. It seems likely, in fact, that it was this analogy between Sharks and Flat Tyre I which led Fischer and Ravizza to the wrong conclusion about Randy's responsibility in the first place. The

problem is that it also seems clear that Fischer and Ravizza are right about

John's responsibility in Sharks.10 I think the best solution is to bite the bullet and conclude that natural

events should not count as triggering events. Instead, triggering events are the choices of rational agents which initiate a causal process resulting in the

consequence-universal obtaining. This principle provides a systematic solution which matches one's judgements in the clear cases and gives proper guidance in the tougher ones. It is hard to claim thatJohn is responsible for the child's drowning in Sharks, though it seems plausible that he is responsible in Penned-in Sharks. Likewise, it seems plausible that Sam is responsible for not baby-sitting in Baby-sitter, and that Randy is similarly responsible in Flat Tyre I and Flat Tyre 2. And if triggering events are restricted to the choices of rational agents, the theory can systematically explain the agent's responsibility or lack of responsibility in each of these cases.

Beyond its ability to deal systematically and satisfactorily with such

examples, though, this solution makes good sense, given what condition (2) is intended to evaluate. Frankfurt-type examples give good reason to think that sometimes agents might be responsible for the consequences of their actions and of their omissions even though they could not have prevented these

consequences. Identifying what makes the agent responsible in such situations requires focusing on the control which the agent exercises in the actual

sequence. Examples like Sharks demonstrate that agents do not have the

right kind of control, and are not responsible for the consequences of their actions, when the world, as it is, is not sensitive to what they do. To see if the world is appropriately sensitive, one needs to hold the world as fixed as

possible and see what would happen if the agent performed some other action. Babysitter and other Frankfurt-type examples, however, show that the

9 H.G. Frankfurt, 'Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility', Journal of Philosophy, 66 (1969), pp. 829-39, at p. 836, note 4.

10 This is a conclusion which Frankfurt also concedes, in 'An Alleged Asymmetry between Actions and Omissions', Ethics, 1o4 (1994), pp. 620-3, at pp. 622-3.




64 JEREMY BYRD

world might be appropriately sensitive and that agents might be responsible for the consequences of their actions and omissions, even if they cannot

prevent these consequences. This is true whenever the agent would have been able to bring about these consequences so long as other agents do not interfere. In such scenarios, the world itself is sensitive to the agents' actions and they are only counterfactually thwarted by the choices of other rational

agents. To test for this sort of sensitivity, then, one needs to discount such choices and only look at other possible worlds in which there is no intervention by other agents. I am not, of course, suggesting that the choices of rational agents are not natural events. I am merely suggesting that for the

purposes of evaluating an agent's moral responsibility, there is a relevant distinction to be made between the counterfactual choices of rational agents and other counterfactual events.11

III. AN OBJECTION

This revised account of triggering events, though, undermines Fischer and Ravizza's defence of semi-compatibilism against an objection raised by Peter van Inwagen.'2 His objection is based on the supposed validity of the

following inference rule:

(i) p and no one is at all morally responsible for p (ii) p - q, and no one is at all morally responsible for the fact that p --> q (iii) Therefore q and no one is at all morally responsible for q.

Following Fischer and Ravizza, I shall call this rule concerning the transfer of non-responsibility 'transferNR'. Van Inwagen argues that if determinism is true, then agents cannot be morally responsible for their actions, according to transferNR, since their actions are entailed by the distant past and the laws of nature, and no one is at all morally responsible for either.

To respond, Fischer and Ravizza (RC, pp. 157-8) construct a Frankfurt-

type example in which the counterfactual intervention is produced by certain natural events. No one is at all morally responsible for these natural events or for the fact that they will bring about a certain consequence, and

yet it seems that one can be responsible for this consequence. The problem is that, accepting the proposed revision to Fischer and Ravizza's notion of a

I I am not directly addressing responsibility for choices here. Should events such as

blushes, which serve as triggering events in many Frankfurt-type examples concerning choices, count as merely natural events, or not? Space does not allow me to pursue this problem.

12 See van Inwagen, An Essay on Free Will, pp. 182-3, and 'The Incompatibility of Respons- ibility and Determinism', in M. Bradie and M. Brand (eds), Bowling Green Studies in Applied Philosophy 2: Action and Responsibility (Bowling Green State UP, 1980), pp. 30-7.





triggering event, one would have to hold the natural events fixed when one evaluates (2). This will mean that in such circumstances, no agents could be

morally responsible for the consequences, because the world will not be

appropriately sensitive to their actions: in relevantly similar possible worlds in which one holds these natural events fixed, this consequence happens regardless of what anyone does.

This presents the defender of a semi-compatibilist approach with a signi- ficant problem. It seems that in order to challenge transferNR successfully, one needs to produce a plausible counter-example where there are ensuring conditions which make some consequence inevitable, and where no one is at all morally responsible for these ensuring conditions. The only obvious candidates to fill this role are natural events over which no one has any control. Given the account of triggering events that I am proposing, though, such natural events must be held fixed when one is evaluating the agent's responsibility for the consequence. It seems that this will make it impossible to construct a counter-example, since whenever the ensuring conditions are held fixed, the world will not be appropriately sensitive and the agent will not be responsible for the consequence. The only possible response, then, is concession: the semi-compatibilist must concede that one cannot directly refute transferNR by producing acceptable counter-examples; instead, an indirect approach is required.

This task is not easy. It must be admitted that transferNR has a good deal of initial plausibility. It seems, though, that anyone who accepts transferNR should also be willing to accept the following closely related inference rule:

(i) p and S is not at all morally responsible for p (ii) p -- q and S is not at all morally responsible for the fact that p

-- q

(iii) Therefore q and S is not at all morally responsible for q.

Following Fischer and Ravizza (RC, pp. 156-7), I shall call this 'transferNR*'. TransferNR does not entail transferNR*, but it is hard to imagine why anyone would accept the former but deny the latter. They seem to enjoy the same plausibility, and for the same reason, namely, the general conviction that

you cannot be responsible for those events which you cannot prevent because there are ensuring conditions for which you are not responsible.

This means that transferNR and transferNR* stand or fall together. It is not hard, however, to construct Frankfurt-type counter-examples which refute transferNR*. This rule allows that someone else may be responsible for p and for the fact that p

-- q. Thus one can employ another rational agent as the

counterfactual intervener. The fact that there is such an agent will stand in for the conjunction p and it is true that p - q, where q is the fact that a certain consequence obtained. The mere presence of such counterfactual




66 JEREMY BYRD

interveners, though, does not seem to undermine agents' responsibility for their actions and their consequences, and this is true even if the agents are not at all morally responsible for p or for the fact that p -> q.

The example Baby-sitter will serve to show this. Let p be the proposition that there is a local busybody who will prevent Sam from keeping his promise to baby-sit, and q the proposition that Sam does not keep his promise. Here p is true, though Sam is certainly not responsible for p. Likewise, p -> q is true, and Sam bears no responsibility for this fact. And yet it seems that Sam might very well be responsible for q. Thus transferNR* and along with it transferNR should be rejected.13

This line of defence, however, comes at a price. To refute transferNR, Fischer and Ravizza (RC, p. 157) appeal to a typical Frankfurt-type example, which they have called Erosion. A government agent named Betty is seeking to destroy an enemy base at the foot of a snow-capped mountain. To do so, she starts an avalanche at time tl which results in the base's being destroyed moments later, at time t3. What Betty does not know, however, is that if she had not brought about the avalanche at t1, natural forces would have brought about an avalanche soon after at time t2, resulting again in the enemy base's destruction at t3.

According to Fischer and Ravizza, the natural forces that would have

brought about the avalanche at t2 should be considered a triggering event. This allows them to conclude that Betty is responsible for the destruction of the base even though there is nothing she could have done to prevent it. If they are right about this, then they have a compelling counter-example which falsifies transferNR. There are natural forces for which, we can pre- sume, no one is morally responsible, and these forces ensure that the base will be crushed by an avalanche at t3. Nevertheless, Fischer and Ravizza contend, Betty is morally responsible for the destruction of the base, and so transferNR is false.

Clearly, however, this conclusion depends on Fischer and Ravizza's

analysis of a triggering event, and, as I have argued, this analysis cannot be correct. Revising their account as I have suggested, however, implies that

Betty is not responsible for the destruction of the base. On the face of it, this is likely to seem quite implausible. After all, Betty did cause the destruction of the base, and though it is true that she could not have prevented it, this is

only because of counterfactual events that had no influence on the actual causal sequence. Anyone likely to accept semi-compatibilism as a result of

Frankfurt-type examples would surely be likely to accept that Betty is

responsible for the consequences of her action here. 13 This indirect defence is similar to the response Fischer and Ravizza offer to another

objection raised by van Inwagen: see RC, pp. 95-101.





Perhaps denying this claim is just an inevitable pain, and requires biting the bullet. On closer examination, however, I think a reasonable case can be made for the conclusion that Betty is not responsible for the consequences of her action. The basic idea behind Fischer and Ravizza's approach, inspired by Frankfurt-type examples, is that responsibility must be understood in terms of the control an agent exercises in the actual sequence of events, and that this control must be understood in terms of the responsiveness of the world to the agent's choices. In Erosion, though, the world is simply not

responsive to what Betty does, at least not when it comes to the destruction of the base at t3. If we hold the natural circumstances of the world fixed, this base will be destroyed at t3 regardless of what Betty does. Thus though we

may hold Betty responsible for her decision to destroy the base and for

attempting to do so, it appears credible enough that she is not responsible for the destruction itself.

IV. CONCLUSION

Frankfurt-type examples give good reason to think that agents can be

morally responsible for events which they could not prevent. What it is that makes an agent responsible, then, depends on the actual control the agent has in such circumstances. Fischer and Ravizza are right to insist that for

you to be responsible for what you do, the world must be appropriately sensitive to your actions. To test for this sensitivity, one needs to examine counterfactual situations and see how the world would have responded had the agent done something else instead. It is a mistake, though, to include the counterfactual interference of other agents in such situations. To see how the world would have responded to some other action, one needs to know how sensitive the world would have been if no one else had interfered. Frankfurt-type examples are interesting precisely because they seem to show that the mere presence of counterfactual interveners does not undermine our moral responsibility given that the world is otherwise responsive to our actions.

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