Talk:Semicompatibilism

"Prominent Semicompatibilists"

Are Sam Harris and Harry Frankfurt really prominent semicompatibilists? I thought John Martin Fischer came up with semicompatibilism to distinguish his views from previous compatibilists, like Frankfurt. Also, I think Sam Harris would probably consider himself a Hard Determinist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.2.181.235 (talk) 15:19, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

"Prominent Semicompatibilist" Sam Harris?

Promoting Sam Harris as a "prominent semicompatibilist" I think should be up for contention (too unclear). Sam seems to reject the 'just desert' moral responsibility that leads to retributivism (what most free will skeptics and moral responsibility skeptics reject), but at the same time he does use the term 'moral responsibility' in a qualified forward looking sense (but this is not the normal philosophical usage of the term so think this is a semantic mistake he makes). He muddies the water but is a bad example for wikipedia to use as "prominent".

It should be noted that most moral responsibility skeptics do not reject a forward looking consequentialism or pragmatism, and this is exactly what Harris refers to. Rather moral responsibility in the usage for this debate is always backward looking.

"Holding people responsible for their past actions makes no sense apart from the effects that doing so will have on them and the rest of society in the future (e.g. deterrence, rehabilitation, keeping dangerous people off our streets). The notion of moral responsibility, therefore, is forward-looking. But it is also paradoxical. People who have the most ability (self-control, opportunity, knowledge, etc.) would seem to be the most blameworthy when they fail or misbehave. For instance, when Tiger Woods misses a three-foot putt, there is a much greater temptation to say that he really should have made it than there is in the case of an average golfer. But Woods’s failure is actually more anomalous. Something must have gone wrong if a person of his ability missed so easy a putt. And he wouldn’t stand to benefit (much) from being admonished to try harder in the future. So in some ways, holding a person responsible for his failures seems to make even less sense the more worthy of responsibility he becomes in the conventional sense." - SAM HARRIS

"people be held responsible for their actions? In the deepest sense, it seems, they can’t be. But in a practical sense, they must be. I see no contradiction in this. In fact, I think that keeping the deep causes of human behavior in view would only improve our practical response to evil. The feeling that people are deeply responsible for who they are does nothing but produce moral illusions and psychological suffering." - SAM HARRIS

"If … I had found myself standing in the market naked, intent upon stealing as many tins of anchovies as I could carry, this behaviour would be totally out of character; I would feel that I was not in my right mind, or that I was otherwise not responsible for my actions. Judgments of responsibility, therefore, depend on upon the overall complexion of one’s mind, not on the metaphysics of mental cause and effect." - SAM HARRIS

"Hatred, however, is powerfully governed by the illusion that those we hate could (and should) behave differently. We don’t hate storms, avalanches, mosquitoes, or flu. We might use the term “hatred” to describe our aversion to the suffering these things cause us—but we are prone to hate other human beings in a very different sense. True hatred requires that we view our enemy as the ultimate author of his thoughts and actions. Love demands only that we care about our friends and find happiness in their company. It may be hard to see this truth at first, but I encourage everyone to keep looking. It is one of the more beautiful asymmetries to be found anywhere." - SAM HARRIS