Externalism about Moral Responsibility: Modification of A. Mele’s Thought Experiment

Abstract

The author modifies A. Mele’s thought experiment for externalism about moral res­ponsibility, which suggests that the agent’s history partially determines whether the agent is morally responsible for particular actions, or the consequences of actions. The original thought experiment constructs a situation in which the individual is not morally responsible for the killing because of manipulation, that is, for a reason external to the agent. A. Mele’s theory was criticized by A.V. Mertsalov, D.B. Volkov, and V.V. Vasiliev at the seminar orga­nized by the Moscow Center for Consciousness. The arguments against A. Mele's theory had the following structure: A.A. Mele does not show that the historical explanation is the best explanation, because there are competing explanations, no less convincing, which are in­compatible with A. Mele’s externalism. The author explicates and analyzes the expla­nations offered by philosophers from the Moscow Center for Consciousness: the explanation from identity, the explanation from self-identification, the explanation from the condition of knowledge, the explanation from future states. Although these explanations apply to Mele’s original thought experiment, they cannot explain the absence of moral responsibility in the modified thought experiment proposed by the author: the explanations from identity and self-identification are excluded by the gradual change in the agent structure of personality; the explanation of knowledge conditions is refuted by including knowledge of manipulation in the conditions of the thought experiment; the explanation of future states is excluded by removing relevant future states from the thought experiment.