nelkin, d.k. - freedom, responsibility and the challenge of situationism1

7/27/2019 Nelkin, D.K. - Freedom, Responsibility and the Challenge of Situationism1

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Freedom, Responsibility and theChallenge of Situationism1

DANA K. NELKIN

Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XXIX (2005)

181

I. INTRODUCTION

. . . We must separate guilt from blame. Should these few Army reservists be

blamed as the bad apples in a good barrel of American soldiers, as our

leaders have characterized them? . . .

Philip Zimbardo, Boston Globe editorial, May 9, 2004

We have now learned that over the course of months in the Abu Ghraib prison in

Iraq during the fall and winter of 200304, United States soldiers serving as guards

inflicted severe physical and psychological pain on their Iraqi prisoners while

appearing to revel in the experience. The news prompted an outcryacross the

United States and across the worldand a demand to punish those responsible

for the atrocious acts. Interestingly, although courts-martial of the participating

soldiers are on-going, as are investigations into the higher ranks of the military, it

has not been treated by everyone as obvious that the prison guards themselves are

1. Earlier versions of this paper were given at the Experimental Philosophy Lab at UC San

Diego in April 2003, the Southern California Philosophy Conference at UC Riverside in October

2003, Occidental College in April 2004, and the Cognitive Psychology Brown Bag group at UC

San Diego in May 2004. I am grateful to the members of these audiences for stimulating discus-

sions. Matt Brown, Jonathan Cohen, John Doris, Michael Hardimon, Eddy Nahmias, KarenNelkin, Derk Pereboom, Sam Rickless, Jonathan Sutton, and Manuel Vargas all read previous

drafts of this paper and I am very grateful to each of them for providing me with detailed andinsightful comments. I also benefited greatly from discussion of the issues raised in the paper with

Richard Arneson, Chris Bignell, David Brink, Nina Davis, John Martin Fischer, Rick Grush, Paul

Hoffman,Wayne Martin, Craig McKenzie, Evan Moreno-Davis, Sharon Skare, Erik Schwitzgebel,

and Piotr Winkielman. Matt Brown and Nina Davis provided invaluable research assistance, as

well.


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182 Dana K. Nelkin

morally responsible. For at least some of the participants seem to be basically

decent people who were in some sense victims of the situation in which they found

themselves. A friend of perhaps the most well-known participant, Private Lynddie

England, put it this way: . . . Its so not her. Its not in her nature to do something

like that. Theres not a malicious bone in her body.2

As has been well-documented, the behavior of the U.S. soldiers is eerily rem-

iniscent of the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Zimbardo and col-

leagues in 1971, in which adult male undergraduates were asked to participate in

a simulation of a prison, with some being randomly assigned to be guards and

some prisoners.3 The results were both astounding and disturbing, revealing the

employment of humiliation and other psychological abuse on the part of some

prison guards, and an unwillingness to interfere on the part of all the others.

Although the experiment was planned to last two weeks, it was halted after just

six days in the face of escalating abuse on the part of the guards and despondency

and extreme anxiety on the part of prisoners.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is one part of a vast literature known as

situationist. Many of the experiments in this tradition lack the high stakes of the

Stanford Prison Experiment, showing simply that apparently unimportant situa-

tional factors such as finding a dime or the presence of a stranger can exert sur-

prising influence on whether we help someone, for example.4 But all have, at one

time or other, been associated under the common rubric of situationism. While

there is some controversy among psychologists as to how exactly to characterize

the situationist thesis, I will here understand situationism to be the thesis that

(S) traditional personality or character traits like honesty, kindness, or cow-

ardice play less of a role in predicting and explaining behavior than do par-

ticular situational factors.5

2. NY Times, May 7, 2004 From Picture of Pride to Symbol of Abuse by James Dao.

3. Haney, C., Bank, W. C., and Zimbardo, Philip (1973).

4. See Isen and Levin (1972) and Latan and Darley (1970) respectively.

5. Ross and Nisbett (1991, 23). See also Doris (2002, 2425). Situationism has been charac-terized in a number of ways, some of which have led to unnecessary confusion. For example, it is

sometimes characterized as a thesis about the relative importance ofdispositions on the one hand

and situations on the other. (See, for example, Sabini, Siepmann, and Stein (2001), which tries to

clear up the confusion in an interesting way.) Problems arise for this characterization because one

can often describe the same thing in dispositional and situational terms, and because peoples

behavior seems to be a result of both personal and situational factors. Krueger and Funder (forth-

coming) go one step further, arguing that situationists offer an internally incoherent view because

situationists also tend to claim, as a kind of corollary to the situationist thesis, that people are dis-posed to overestimate the importance of dispositional factors. Yet, Krueger and Funder argue,this is itself a dispositional claim that, according to situationism, situationists are unwarranted in

making. Interestingly, Ross and Nisbett, to whom these sorts of criticisms are often directed,

acknowledge the attribution of dispositions. (E.g., By any sensible account, all behavior reflects

the joint operation of, or interaction between,whatever stimuli impinge on the organism and what-

ever innate characteristics of the organism . . . dispose that organism to respond to those partic-

ular stimuli in that particular fashion. Ross [2001, 38.]) However, this acknowledgment does not


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Freedom, Responsibility and the Challenge of Situationism 183

And a kind of corollary of this claim is that people make what is called the

Fundamental Attribution Error:

(FAE) Peoples inflated belief in the importance of personality traits and

dispositions, together with their failure to recognize the importance of situ-

ational factors in affecting behavior. (Ross and Nisbett, 1991)

In other words, we fail to recognize the truth of situationism.

Now the wide variety of situationist experiments is disturbing for a variety

of reasons. One very general reason is that they seem to call into question our

everyday assumption that weand our fellow human beingsare free and

responsible agents to be blamed and praised. For if they reveal that we are acting

the way we do primarily because of situational factors that we dont expect to exert

such influence, then how can our actions be up to us? (This is a question about

freedom.) And how can they accrue to our moral account? (This is a question

about responsibility.) Beginning to answer these questions is the task of this

paper.6

Now there are different ways to approach the question of whether the situ-

ationist experimentsand their real-life corollariesreally do undermine our

self-conception as free and responsible agents. One is to appeal to an analysis, or

theory, of what freedom and responsibility consist in, and then try to determine

whether the situationist literature precludes the satisfaction of the conditions pro-

vided by the analysis or theory. Another is to begin by asking why the situation-

undercut the substance of the situationist thesis; rather it suggests a formulation that avoids the

very general objections mentioned above. The formulation in the text, which takes situationismto be a comparison of the relative importance of situational factors and traditionally identified

character traits or dispositions, avoids the problems. The reason is that situational factors can

be replaced or supplemented by non-traditionaldispositions to respond to the odd situational

factor without a loss in significance.The basic contrast can be seen to be between the importance

of traditional personality or character traits and dispositions and the importance of other kinds

of dispositions. Once we accept this insight, situationism need not be seen as committed to the

admittedly absurd thesis that personal characteristics play a negligible role in behavior. Further,

given the availability of this alternative characterization, clearly in the spirit of situationist texts

like Ross and Nisbetts, Krueger and Funders attack of internal incoherence can be sidestepped.For situationists need not reject the idea that people have dispositions, only that dispositions of

a certain kind play less of an explanatory role than others. Sabini, Siepmann and Stein offer a dif-

ferent and interesting alternative, according to which situationism emphasizes the extent to which

peoples actions have ego-dystonic (rather than ego-syntonic) causes. In other words, on their

view, situationism should be understood as the thesis that peoples actions are caused less by our

values and correct beliefs than we think (Sabini, Siepmann and Stein 2001, 11). For some criti-cisms, see the commentaries to their article (Sabini, Siepmann and Stein 2001).

6. I will discuss freedom and responsibility together for much of this paper because ques-tions about both naturally arise in the context of situationism. Many have assumed that freedom

is a necessary condition for responsibility, and some have used the two terms almost inter-

changeably. But others deny these assumptions (e.g., Fischer and Ravizza 1998). While I assume

that freedom and moral responsibility are distinct and not interchangeable, I will remain neutral

on the question of whether freedom is required for responsibility.


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184 Dana K. Nelkin

ist literature appears to threaten freedom and responsibility. In other words, what

precisely are the salient features of the experiments that induce many to ask

whether we really are free and responsible? Beginning with this question has some

advantages. First, by not assuming a theory of freedom and responsibility at the

outset, we can use our responses to the experiments themselves to help expose the

contours of our concepts of freedom and responsibility. Thus, we can employ the

experiments in the service of helping us to construct and support a good theory

of these central notions. Second, we break down the task into answering two more

manageable ones; after figuring out why we are disturbed by the experiments in a

way that makes us question our freedom and responsibility for our actions, we can

then turn to the question of whether we are right to be so disturbed.This two-step

approach is the one I will take here.

Much of what I will be doing in this paper is ground-clearing; I aim to

show how some natural confusions can be avoided, draw some preliminary

conclusions and suggest what I hope are some useful ways of thinking

about freedom, responsibility, and the psychological literature. Other approaches

to the subject have themselves offered great insight while adopting a particular

kind of analysis of freedom or responsibility: namely, an identificationist account,

according to which one is free and/or responsible to the extent that one identi-

fies with ones actions.7 In contrast, I will not assume such an account, and will

argue that the situationist literature and our responses to it actually provide

support for other accounts of freedom and responsibility. However, I do not

rule out the view that the identificationist picture has a role to play, albeit not an

exclusive one.

In the next section, I briefly review some of the key situationist experiments,

and turn in section III to explore some possible reasons for thinking that they

threaten freedom and responsibility. While several of these capture important

insights, I argue that none tells the whole story. In section IV, I turn to a final can-

didate route from the situationist literature to the threat to freedom and respon-

sibility, and argue that it provides a satisfying explanation of our reactions to the

situationist experiments, while accommodating many, if not all, of the insights of

other suggestions. In the concluding section, I begin to answer the question of

whether the situationist experiments really do undermine our confidence in

freedom and responsibility.

II. SOME KEY EXPERIMENTS

a. Hartshorne and May

Hartshorne and May conducted a study of 8,000 schoolchildren in the late 1920s

that tested for honest behavior across a wide range of situations, such as willing-

ness to lie to avoid getting another student into trouble, to cheat on a test, or to

steal change left on a table. They found that almost none of the schoolchildren

7. See, in particular, Doris (2002) for a discussion of responsibility and Nahmias (2001) for

a discussion of freedom.


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behaved consistently honestly across the situations, and concluded that honesty

is not an internal trait.8

b. Isen and Levin

Isen and Levin (1972) performed an experiment whose subjects were adults who

made calls from public telephones in shopping malls.When some subjects entered

the phone booth, they found a dime secretly left in the change slot by the exper-

imenters; when others entered, the change slot was empty. The question posed by

Isen and Levin was whether having unexpectedly found a dime would have an

effect on the subjects willingness to help a stranger (who was, unbeknownst to the

subject, a confederate of the experimenters). Just as each subject left the phone

booth, the confederate appeared just to the side of the subjects path, dropping

(apparently inadvertently) a manila folder full of papers. It turns out that whether

the subject had found a dime or not made a difference to whether the subject helped

to pick up the papers. In fact, it seems to have made a rather large difference:9

8. Hartshorne and May (1928). It may be contended of course that as a matter of fact we

rarely reach a zero correlation [between trait-associated behavior in one situation and another],

no matter how different may be our techniques, and that this implies some such common factor

in the individual as may properly be called a trait. We would not wish to quarrel over the use of

a term and are quite ready to recognize the existence of some common factors which tend to

make individuals different from one another on any one test or on any group of tests. Our con-

tention, however, is that this common factor is not an inner entity operating independently of the

situations in which the individuals are placed but is a function of the situation in the sense that

the individual behaves similarly in different situations in proportion as these situations are alike,have been experienced as common occasions for honest or dishonest behavior, and are compre-

hended as opportunities for deception or honesty (Hartshorne and May 1928, Book 1, 381).

9. Experimenters have had mixed success in replicating this experiment. See Doris 2002, 180,

note 4 and Miller (2003) for nice summaries of the results. They point out that certain of the

attempts at replication actually alter particular features of the situation (e.g., substituting pack-

ages for papers), which, especially in light of the situationist thesis, is a questionable start to an

attempt at replication. For situationists argue that it is often the case that changing particular

aspects of the situation that appear to be irrelevant can often result in serious behavioral changes.

Condition Helped Did not help

Dime 16 2

No dime 1 24

c. Darley and Batson

Darley and Batson (1973) invited seminary students to prepare a short talk on

either the Good Samaritan parable or possible occupations for seminary students,

and then to walk to another building to give the talk. On the route, slumped

in a doorway, was a confederate of the experimenters, who appeared to be in

need of medical attention. How many seminary students stopped to help? As it


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186 Dana K. Nelkin

d. Latan and Rodin

In a study replicating the results of Latan and Darley (1968), the subjects were

120 male undergraduates who had agreed to participate in a study for a market

research organization.A representative met each at the door, and after asking each

subject to fill out a questionnaire in the waiting room, opened a curtained parti-

tion to an adjoining room, and closed the partition.While in the waiting room, the

subjects heard a loud crash from an adjoining room, a scream and Oh my God,

my foot . . . I . . . I . . . cant move it. Oh . . . my ankle . . . I . . . cant get this . . .

thing . . . off me. They hear crying and moaning for about a minute more. The

entire episode took about 130 seconds. The question was whether subjects would

intervene to help, and under what conditions. When a subject was alone in the

waiting room, 70% offered to help the victim. When a subject was in the room

with a confederate playing a fellow subject who simply shrugged off the victims

cries and did not offer to help, only 7% of subjects intervened. The response rate

rose to 40% when two subjects who were strangers to each other were in the

waiting room together, and again to 70% when the two subjects were friends.

Latan and Rodin conducted post-experimental interviews in which subjectsacknowledged very little influence on their behavior by their co-workers. For

example, in the passive confederate situation, subjects reported, on the average,

that they were very little influenced by the stooge (Latan and Rodin 1969, 197).

And yet, when considering the overall statistical results, the presence or absence

of others seems to have made an important contribution.

e. Asch

An earlier set of studies on group effects is also a classic in the situationist litera-ture. In one variation, Asch placed a subject in a group with seven other indi-

viduals whom the subject believed to be fellow subjects, but who in fact were

confederates of the experimenter. Each member of the group was asked to match

the length of a given line with one of three other lines. The confederates of the

subject each gave what would appear to be obviously incorrect answers. A third

of all the estimates by the subjects were errors either identical with or in the direc-

tion of the mistaken estimates of the other members of the group (Asch 1951, 181).

Degree of hurry

Low Medium High

Percentage helping 63 45 10

turns out, the subject of their talks made little difference to whether they helped.

Rather how many stopped to help appears to have depended greatly on whether

they had been told that they needed to hurry in order to get to their destination

in time:


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In contrast, there were virtually no errors in control groups in which subjects were

simply asked to write down their answers privately.

In these studies, there were serious individual differences. For example, some

individuals never conformed to the majority, while others conformed nearly each

time. But anywhere from 50% to 80% of the subjects, depending on the particu-

lar study, conformed to the incorrect majority view at least once.10 Interestingly,

the results were not substantially different in variations in which the majority con-

sisted of three, four, eight, or sixteen subjects. When the majority was two, there

was a conforming effect (errors being 12.8% of estimates), but significantly smaller

than the roughly 33% error rate when there were majorities of three or more.

When the subject was grouped with only one other person making errors the con-

forming effect all but disappeared.

The results were surprising in that subjects were willing to make statements

that appeared to be contradicted by the best evidence of their senses. And their

relation to then-current social and political movements that seemed to demand

conformity (e.g., McCarthyism) were immediately noticed.11

f. Milgram

Perhaps the most well known of all are the Milgram experiments.12 Male subjects

represented a variety of socio-economic backgrounds. Each had responded to an

advertisement seeking paid participation in a study of learning and memory at

Yale University. An accomplice played the experimenter and asked each subject

to join a partner whom the subject believed to be another subject, but who was in

fact another accomplice. The second accomplice, who was then selected as the

learner, was strapped into a chair and electrodes were placed on his wrist. The

experimenter asked the subject to push a button in an adjacent room which

the subject believed would issue a shock to the learner each time he made a

mistake on a word-learning task.After each mistake, the subject was asked to give

a shock of a higher voltage, some of the highest being represented as Danger:

Severe Shock. With each apparent increase in the intensity of the shock, the

learner responded with audibly increasing distress.

Although 14 Yale seniors provided with detailed descriptions of the exper-

iments predicted that a minority of 3% or fewer of subjects would go through to

the end of the shock series, their predictions turned out to be gross underestima-

tions. In the original experiment, 25 of 40 subjects shocked their subjects through

to the end. And in a variant in which the learner mentions a heart condition at the

outset, to be told by the experimenter in a confident, somewhat dismissive tone

that although the shocks may be painful, they cause no permanent tissuedamage, the results were similar:

10. See Ross and Nisbett (1991, 31) for a helpful overview.

11. See Ross and Nisbett (1991, 32) and Asch (1952, chapter 16).

12. There are obvious real-life parallels to this experiment, as well, including the building

and use of gas chambers in the death camps of Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. Such par-

allels were noted as soon as the experiments were complete. See, for example, Milgram (1969, 1).


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188 Dana K. Nelkin

26, or approximately two thirds of the 40 subjects, shocked their partners to the

end of the series.13

In each of the experiments described, certain aspects of the situation were

surprisingly influential. Whether one found oneself in an empty room with somechange on the table, found a dime, was in a hurry, was near a stranger, or was

politely asked by an experimenter to continue to shock a fellow human being, for

example, played a larger than expected role in subjects behavior. Each of these

cases has been taken to support situationism. For in each case, certain situational

factors seem to play a large role in determining behavior, whereas whether we

would have described the subjects antecedently as generous or sadistic or sensi-

tive appears to be less important. While these cases are among the most well

known, they represent a small sampling of cases in the situationist tradition.14

III. POSSIBLE ROUTES TO THE THREAT

Again, these cases seem troubling, at least in part because they raise the question

of whether we really are free and responsible agents.15 Why? In this section, I iden-

13. The chart is based on Doris (2002) helpful adaptation of Milgram (1969, 5661).

14. For extended arguments that these cases generalize, see Ross and Nisbett (1991) and

Doris (2002). For a somewhat more skeptical view, see Krueger and Funder (2004).

15. Not everyone has this reaction, at least not to all the experiments. For example, one reac-

tion to the Milgram experiments is to have as ones first thought, not that the subjects were lessthan completely responsible, but that the rest of us, too, are likely not as good as we hope to be,

and would likely do something blameworthy if put in the same situation. And, to continue thereasoning when thinking about Nazi sympathizers, ones first reaction can be that we, too, would

probably behave in a way that is seriously blameworthy were we in similar circumstances. Now I

think both reactions are understandable, as is a fluctuation between them. My claim here is simply

that the experiments naturally raise questions about responsibility and freedom, even if they are

very quickly answered for some. For those not yet convinced, I believe that exploring some of the

reasons that others have offered as to why they find the experiments at least initially disturbing

Voltage level Learner response Number for

whom

maximumshock

Slight Shock 1560 No Response 0

Moderate 75120 Ugh! Hey this really hurts. 1

Strong 135180 Ugh!!! Experimenter! Thats all . . . 6

heart trouble . . . let me out!

Very Strong 195240 . . . You have no right to keep me in 1

here . . . Let me out! Let me out!

Intense 255300 (Agonized Scream.) I absolutely 3

refuse to answer . . .

Extreme Intense 315360 (Intense and prolonged agonized 2

scream.) . . . heart . . .

Danger: Extreme Shock 375420 No response. 1

XXX 435450 No response. 26


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tify five candidate routes from situationism, or, as I hope to show, from the situa-

tionist literature, to the rejection of freedom and responsibility.

a. Characterological Views of Freedom and Responsibility

A natural suggestion is that situationism threatens freedom and responsibility

because (1) it undermines any attribution of robust character traits and disposi-

tions, and (2) actions are free and responsible only to the extent that they issue

from ones character and dispositions.

It is true that a number of philosophers, Hume notable among them, appeal

to a notion of character in setting out conditions of freedom and responsibility and

offer them as intuitive. For example, Hume writes:

For as actions are objects of our moral sentiment, so far only as they are

indications of the internal character, passions, and affections; it is impossible

that they give rise either to praise or blame, where they proceed not from

these principles, but are derived altogether from external violence.

(1748/1977, section VIII, part 2 [66])

On a natural reading of the passage, we are responsible for our actions

apt subjects of praise and blameonly if our actions flow from our char-

acter. However, whether Hume and others who invoke character are thereby com-

mitted to a particular notion of character that would even appear to be

undermined by the situationist literature is not obvious. Even Hume acknowledges

the possibility that character is something that strikes us as irregular, writing

that

even when an action, as sometimes happens, cannot be particularly

accounted for, either by the person himself or by others;we know, in general,

that the characters of men are, to a certain degree, inconstant and irregular.

This is, in a manner, the constant character of human nature; though it be

applicable, in a more particular manner, to some persons, who have no fixed

rule for their conduct, but proceed in a continued course of caprice and

inconstancy. The internal principles and motives may operate in a uniform

manner, notwithstanding these seeming irregularities; in the same manner as

the wind, rain, clouds, and other variations of the weather are supposed to

be governed by steady principles; though not easily discoverable by human

sagacity and enquiry. (Hume 1748/1977, section VIII, part 2 [58])

In this passage, Hume seems willing to acknowledge that we dont seem to

act consistently in character while maintaining that there is something durable

and constant (65) from which ones actions must flow if one is to be praisewor-

can help to make alternative reactions understandable, as well.Also, let me emphasize that every-

thing I go on to say is consistent with its being the case that in fact, the subjects are blamewor-

thy, a subject to which I return briefly at the end of the paper.


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190 Dana K. Nelkin

thy or blameworthy. It is possible that our durable and constant dispositions need

not mirror traditional character traits, then.16

It is not easy to find contemporary philosophers invoking character either

when writing about freedom and responsibility, and even when they do, they do

not always have so-called robust character traits in mind.17 Even if there is some

sense in which people must act in character to be free or responsible, it doesnt

follow that people must act out of traits like generosity or ruthlessness, for

example.

At the same time, a number of philosophers advocate views inspired by

Hume,views that require that free and/or responsible actions flow from ones real

self, yet do not require that the self be identified with a set of traditional charac-

ter traits. These views deserve their own treatment, and I turn to these below. In

the meantime, we can see that not many philosophers actually offer a charactero-

logical account of either freedom or responsibility that is directly threatened by

situationisms apparent undermining of character.

Still, such a view could be a plausible and implicitly accepted account

of freedom or responsibility. And the account itself could actually gain support

by appealing to the fact that it offers a simple and straightforward explanation

16. It is worth noting that Hume also suggests that to be blameworthy, for example, requires

acting from a certain kind of principle (. . . actions render a person criminal, merely as they are

proofs of criminal principles in the mind; and when, by an alteration of these principles, they cease

to be just proofs, they likewise cease to be criminal [66]. Yet acting from principles does not nec-

essarily entail that one has corresponding traditional character traits.

17. There are some exceptions who do offer characterological accounts, as well as some whogo as far as possible in the opposite direction by explicitly disassociating character from respon-

sibility. Brandt (1969) is a member of the first group, and offers a view of responsibility accord-

ing to which one will not be excused from responsibility if ones action manifests a defect of

character. It is important to note that Brandt thinks of defects of character as defects of moti-

vation. So, for example, we can think of honesty as an aversion to deception and to appropria-

tion of the property of others and a defect of honesty as an insufficient degree of the

corresponding want (356). As Adams (in preparation) points out, this sort of view of traits hasmore resources to resist the challenge of the situationist experiments than does a view that iden-tifies traits directly with behavioral dispositions. It is also worth noting that when trying to figure

out whether something counts as a defect of character as opposed to something like a disease,

Brandt directs us to be guided in our classification by whether we think one is responsible for the

action. For this reason, too, the situationist thesis might not be quite as troubling for Brandts view

as it first appears. For the view does not begin with a completely independent characterization of

character traits, whose existence is then threatened by (S). Sankowski (1980) is another excep-

tion, arguing that actions that flow from character traits are paradigm free and responsible actions.

But he does not claim that flowing from character traits is a necessary condition for freedom or

responsibility. So although it would be a serious blow to lose the theorys paradigms, the account

might have resources to absorb it. Arpaly and Schroeder (1999) may be another exception.However, Arpaly (2003) explicitly distinguishes her view from a view that responsibility requires

acting from traditional character traits, arguing instead that acting from character is more plau-

sibly understood as acting from deep moral concern rather than as acting from a long-standing

and frequently exemplified traditional trait. (See Arpaly 2003, 9398.) Thus,her view is not directly

threatened by situationism, either.

Campbell (1951) is one who goes to the other extreme, claiming that one must act out of

character in order to act freely, and Haybron (1999) argues that a more purely evil character is

less condemnable than one who is not as thoroughly evil.


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of why the situationist literature appears to threaten freedom and responsibility.

So we need to take seriously the question of whether a character based

account of either freedom or responsibility does in fact explain the challenge of

situationism.

In fact, we are faced with a plethora of apparent counterexamples to char-

acterological views. Perhaps it was consideration of just these sorts of cases that

led Hume to compare people to the weather. We do not always withhold praise

and blame when people appear to act out of character.We probably all have stories

like this one: a person I would describe as wonderfully conscientious misses an

appointment without a very good excuse. She is responsible for missing the

appointment, even blameworthy, despite the fact that in some sense she acted out

of character.18 Now we can always re-evaluate her character on the basis of this

new information, but reflection on the case suggests that acting from traditional

character traits is not a requirement for being responsible. Nor does it seem

required for acting freely.

If characterological views of freedom and responsibility do not have a great

deal of plausibility, then situationism is not threatening to freedom and responsi-

bility in virtue of its apparent undermining of character. At the same time, when

someone acts out of character, it suggests that something is amiss, and gives us an

opportunity to explore whether she is in fact responsible for her action. When our

apparently conscientious friend misses her appointment, our first thought might

be whether she is all right. Only when we find out that she has not been in an acci-

dent, and so on, can we think of blaming her for missing the appointment. For this

reason, in undermining characterological explanations, situationism might appear

to raise an indirect threat to freedom and responsibility. As we will see, there are

other more fundamental accounts of freedom and responsibility that might accom-

modate this insight.

But we can already draw an important lesson here. Even if we reject char-

acterological views as implausible, this does not eliminate the challenge posed by

the situationist literature. It does not, for example, eliminate all question as to

whether we should assign responsibilityor perhaps blame, in particularto the

subjects of the Milgram experiments, or assign praise to the subjects of the Isen

and Levin experiments who helped pick up papers. And this in turn suggests that

we would do well to distinguish explicitly between a threat posed by situation-

ismthat is, (S), the substantive thesis concerning the role of traditional charac-

ter traits in our behaviorand a threat posed by the situationist literature. In other

words, even if freedom and responsibility do not appear to be threatened by (S)

itself, the experiments that have been taken to support (S) may still raise very real

questions for our assumption that we are quite generally free and responsibleagents. Once we make this crucial distinction between situationism and the situa-

tionist literature that details the experimental results, we are free to see that dif-

ferent experiments can be troubling for different reasons, even if psychologists

18. Doris (2002) tells a compelling story of a Jewish gangster in Nazi Germany who, one time

in his life, takes a stand and pays with his life. He, too, seems to act out of character without our

being inclined to withhold praise on that account.


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192 Dana K. Nelkin

have drawn the conclusion that they all support situationism.19 Further, we can see

that the situationist literature raises important questions for freedom and respon-

sibility whether the truth of (S) is ultimately borne out or not.20

b. The Fundamental Attribution Error

Another route from the situationist literature to the apparent undermining of

freedom and responsibility that looks tempting is through the FAE. On this view,

to act freely and responsibly requires self-knowledge, and the FAE shows that we

lack it in a fundamental way.

I think that there is an important insight here. But interestingly, the FAE

turns out not to be essential to it. The reason is that although we regularly use

characterological explanations for the behavior of other people, we much more

frequently use situational factors to explain our own behavior (Nisbett and Ross

1991, 140). A variety of studies reveal that actors tend to offer fewer dispositional

explanations for their behavior than observers. For example, Nisbett and col-

leagues (1973) conducted a study in which they asked subjects why they chose

their college major and why they dated the person they did. Subjects tended to

explain their own choices in situational terms (e.g., I date her because shes a very

warm person.). On the other hand, observers tended to explain subjects choices

in terms of subjects dispositions (e.g., He dates her because hes very dependent

and needs a nonthreatening girlfriend.) And there are natural theories to explain

this asymmetry. As Nisbett and Ross put it, when we observe another person, an

actor, it is the actor who is figure and the situation that is ground (1991, 139).

In contrast, for the actor, the situation is presumably figure against the ground

of oneself. So it seems that we do not make the FAE as often when it comes to

ourselves.

Still, the situationist literature contains evidence that we lack self-knowl-

edge. For example, in the debriefings of studies by Latan and Darley and Latan

and Rodin, like those described earlier on group effects, subjects systematicallydeny that the presence of others had an effect on their actions, even though the

overall statistical picture seems to undermine the claims of at least some subjects.21

There is also indirect evidence of a lack of self-knowledge provided by cases

like the Milgram experiments in which, as we saw earlier, people who were asked

to predict the behavior of subjects in the experiments radically underestimated

the number of people who would shock their fellow subjects. Since the subjects

themselves were not obviously different in relevant ways from those making the

predictions, it is not too great a leap to suppose that many would not have pre-

19. In this way, worries about freedom and responsibility are importantly different from

worries about virtue ethics that do seem to arise from situationismper se. See Harman (1999) and

Doris (2002) for arguments that situationism undermines virtue ethics, and Adams (in prepara-

tion), Annas (in preparation) and Miller (2003) for a corresponding defense of virtue ethics.

20. Others have questioned whether the situationist literature really succeeds in undermin-

ing our attributions of character traits in part by offering characterizations of character traits thatseem to resist the challenge. For example, see Adams (in preparation).

21. Latan and Rodin (1969, 197), Latane and Darley (1968) and (1970).


13/26


dicted their own behavior in the experimental situation. And this in turn suggests

some sort of lack of self-knowledge, as well.

Importantly, then, there is a reason to worry about self-knowledge, but not

primarily because of its support for either situationism or the FAE. Many situa-

tionist cases are troubling, not because they purport to show that we mistakenly

attribute our actions to our characters when they really depend on situational

factors, but because they seem to show that we misidentify the particular situa-

tional factors that really bring about our actions. What we need to do, I believe, is

distinguish between the FAE and problems of self-knowledgeand even knowl-

edge more generally.22

Having made these key distinctions, we can see that some of the experiments

do seem worrisome because they indicate a lack of self-knowledge. Why is it that

a lack of self-knowledge seems threatening to freedom and responsibility? Is it

essential to freedom and responsibility because it is required for something else,

or simply essential in its own right? These are important questions, and I will

address them in sections e and f below.

c. Determinism

Even though the situationist literature does not seem threatening primarily

because of its support for either situationism (S) or the FAE, we have seen that

the experiments themselves still seem to pose a challenge for freedom and respon-

sibility. And a natural place to turn in seeking an explanation is the long-standing

challenge of determinism. In particular, one might think that the experiments are

threatening because they suggest that some sort of psychological determinism is

true, and psychological determinism is incompatible with freedom and/or respon-

sibility.

Now a first response here is that the cases dont even hint at the truth of psy-

chological determinism since in no case do 100% of the subjects actually behave

in one way or another.Yet this is too quick. One might think that the experiments

suggest that if only we could identify all of the variables, we could predict with

100% accuracy what people will do. For the experiments certainly appear to

increase our ability to make predictions about what people will do in various sit-

uations, and that in turn might suggest that some sort of determinism underlies

our behavior.

Each step in this reasoning might be questioned, including the assumption

that predictability entails or points to determinism and the assumption that deter-

minism precludes freedom and responsibility. But even setting aside the important

debates surrounding each of these assumptions, I do not think that the situation-ist literature is threatening primarily because it suggests some sort of psychologi-

22. Based on debriefings after their Good Samaritan experiment, for example, Darley and

Batson suggest that our seminarians in a hurry noticed the victim in that in the postexperiment

interview almost all mentioned him as, on reflection, possibly in need of help. But it seems that

they often had not worked this out when they were near the victim . . . (Darley and Batson 1973).

Thus, knowledge of the salient features of the situation may have been lacking at the time. This

does not indicate a lack of self-knowledge, but of knowledge more generally.


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194 Dana K. Nelkin

cal determinism. One reason is that there seem to be particular features of the sit-

uationist experiments that are troubling, and troubling aside from their merely

increasing success in predicting behavior. For example, if we were to find an exper-

iment that showed that 90%or even 100%of people entering a credit union

to conduct business with a teller stepped into a path bounded by a pair of hip-high

ropes leading to the tellers stations, I, for one, would remain untroubled. If that

were to happen, it wouldnt defy expectations, and doesnt seem to threaten the

idea that we are both free and responsible. The lesson from this imaginary case

seems to be that it is not the fact that the actual situationist experiments point to

a useful degree of predictability that is particularly problematic. Rather, other

aspects of the actual situationist experiments that are not present in the imaginary

credit union case are troubling in their own right.

In saying this, I do not mean to minimize the worry that determinism is

threatening to freedom and responsibility. I only mean to suggest that we do not

find the situationist experiments troubling in virtue of their (possible) support for

determinism. And even if I am wrong about this, and that one reason the experi-

ments are troubling is that they appear to support determinism, we are entitled to

conclude from our response to the imaginary credit union case that there are other

aspects of the experiments that add their own reasons for worrying about freedom

and responsibility. For the situationist experiments seem troubling in ways that the

credit union case is not.

d. Weakness of Will

One might think that freedom and responsibility are undermined by situationism

because in cases like those I described people are shown to lack self-control in the

sense that they are acting in a weak-willed way, or akratically or, in other words,

against their better judgment. Doris considers this suggestion:

Weve seen how noncoercive situational factors may result in ordinary,

decent people acting in ways they know to be wrong: Milgrams subjects

tearing their hair as they shocked their victim, a Stanford Prison Experiment

guard awash in self-loathing as he abuses inmates, and the anxiety

experienced by some passive bystanders in the experiments of Darley and

colleagues. Such data suggests weakness of will, incontinence, or as Aris-

totle . . . called it, akrasiacases where a person knowingly acts other than

as she thinks is best. (Doris 2002, 134)23

On this model, there is an apparent problem for freedom and responsibilitybecause it is natural to want to excuse those who act against their better judgment

when overcome by intense, or a fortiori irresistible, pleasures and pains (Doris

2002, 134).

23. While Doris seems to accept the suggestion in the text as an apt description of at least

some of the subjects in the experiments, he goes on to question whether satisfying such a descrip-

tion really oughtto absolve one of responsibility, and raises what I take to be reasonable doubts

on this score.


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While the situationist cases may indeed raise worries about self-control, it is

not obvious that what they suggest is an akratic, or weakness-of-will model of

behavior. In some situationist cases, we simply lack evidence of distress on the part

of individuals,24 let alone any other, more direct, evidence that the subjects are

acting against their better judgment. And even in cases in which we have reports

that subjects are in distress, such as the Milgram experiments, in which some sub-

jects reportedly tore at their hair and engaged in bizarre fits of nervous laugh-

ter,25 it is far from clear that the subjects are acting against their better judgments.

Distress or anxiety is perhaps an interesting indicator of the phenomenon of

akrasia, but such states are also compatible with a wide variety of descriptions of

the subjects states of mind. For example, the subjects in the Milgram experiments

might simply be conflicted and so not have embraced a single better judgment.

Or they might have decided that they were doing the right thing while still har-

boring regrets about the consequences. To take a less momentous case as an illus-

tration, it sometimes causes me distress (admittedly not of the hair-tearing variety)

to give a low grade to a student I like, despite my not acting akratically when I do

it. In this case, I actually act according to my best judgment, but the presence of

the temptation that I have resisted continues to cause distress. We simply do not

know if the Milgram subjects were more like me in this situation or more like the

classic akratic or importantly different from both.

Still, it may be that we read in an akratic interpretation to cases like the

Milgram one because it seems so obvious to us that peoples best judgmentshould

be to refrain from shocking other subjects. If so, then this could be one reason

why we are tempted to see the situationist experimentsor at least some of

themas threatening to freedom and responsibility. But I think we should be cau-

tious even here.

An equally natural hypothesis about the Milgram experiments is that the

subjects are acting against some general value commitments they hold, rather than

against some particular best judgment in the face of temptation. If one sees the

situation this way, however, we dont even appear to have a classic case of giving

in to temptation. Rather, the problem posed by certain situationist experiments

is a more general one of failing to translate ones commitments into action. This

can happen because one gives in to temptation, but it can also happen because

one somehow fails to see how ones deep commitments apply in a particular case,

for example.This is an important problemand one that might be understood as

a problem of self-control, as well. It is a problem that is accommodated by at least

two pictures of freedom and responsibility. On the first of these, the Real Self View,

or Identificationism, freedom and/or responsibility require that one act from ones

real self, or that one identify with ones actions (or, at least have the ability to doso).26 We can see that if the real self is constituted by ones general value com-

mitments, then the failure to translate ones commitments into particular motives

24. E.g., Isen and Levin (1972).

25. Milgram (1963, 375).

26. See Frankfurt (1971, 1987, 2002), Watson (1975), and Bratman (1996) for a sampling of

discussions of identificationism, as well several essays in Buss and Overton (2002).


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196 Dana K. Nelkin

and actions would be to fail to act on ones real self, and, on one variant of the

real self view, to fail to act freely and responsibly. Let us examine this view in more

detail.

e. Real Self Views (Identificationism)

A fifth general route to the undermining of freedom and responsibility is this:

(1) situationismor, better, the situationist literatureshows that people do not

identify with their actions in a wide range of situations, and (2) freedom and/or

responsibility require identification with ones actions. Now there are at least two

ways in which (1) might receive intuitive support. First, we can appeal to the idea

that identification requires self-knowledge (if you dont know what motives you

are acting on, for example, how can you identify with them?) and that situation-

ist experiments reveal a lack of it. Second, we can appeal to the idea that identi-

fication is a matter of acting in character, the possibility of which, as weve seen,

is often thought to be called into question by situationist experiments.

To assess the suggestion that the situationist literature appears to threaten

freedom and responsibility in either of these ways, it will be helpful to look at par-

ticular identificationist accounts. On one kind of identificationism, one identifies

with a motive just in case one explicitly endorses that motive, either by desiring it

to be effective or by valuing it, and one is free and/or responsible just in case one

identifies with it.27 On this kind of view, it would seem that at least one kind of

self-knowledge would be required for identification. For you would have to know

what motives you were acting on in order to endorse them. However, perhaps it

is not very plausible that an explicit endorsement is required in order to identify,

or act from ones real self. Fortunately, identificationists, including Frankfurt,

whose name is perhaps most closely attached to this position, and Doris, who has

responded to the situationist threat in great detail, have offered accounts of iden-

tification that avoid this potentially problematic feature.28

In contrast to the version of identificationism described earlier, Doris

account does not require actual endorsement or identification in order to be

responsible for ones actions:

27. See Frankfurt (1971):Suppose that a person has done what he wanted to do, that he did

it because he wanted to do it, and that the will by which he was moved when he did it was his

will because it was the will he wanted. Then he did it freely and of his own free will (94). And

Watson (1975): The possibility of unfree action consists in the fact that an agents valuational

system and motivational system may not completely coincide. Those systems harmonize to the

extent that what determines the agents all-things-considered judgements also determines hisactions . . . The free agent has the capacity to translate his values into action; his actions flow from

his evaluational system (106).28. See, for example, Frankfurt (2002, 16061). Doris (2002) offers an identificationist

account of responsibility and Nahmias (2001) one of freedom (see 16162). In conversation, both

have reported a lack of complete identification with their earlier views. Although there are a

number of interestingly different indentificationist accounts, I will focus primarily on Doris

account for the purposes of this paper.


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(NI) Narrative integration: One is responsible for an action if one acts on

motives that admit of narrative integration. Such narratives may reveal

identification even where the narrative subject disavows the motive in ques-

tion by illuminating the ways in which the motive expresses the subjects

operative priorities or evaluative orientation.29 (14042)

According to (NI), identification holds when ones motives are narratively

integrated.30 Narrative integration of ones motives seems to occur when the

motive has a role in a coherent psychological story of the agent, even if the agent

himself might disavow the motive. And one important aspect of narrative inte-

gration is its ability to bring out how the agents motives express the agents

general values and ends.

Although (NI) is an account of responsibility and not of freedom, it will be

helpful to keep in mind that similar accounts might be given for freedom as well.

The general approach appears to postpone the worry stemming from self-knowl-

edge mentioned earlier. For since you dont have to make an explicit endorsement

of your motives for identification to hold, it appears that you dont have to know

which particular motive you are acting on in order to be responsible in a given sit-

uation. Thus, a lack of self-knowledge is not immediately threatening to identifi-

cation, and so the situationist literature does not pose an immediate challenge via

a challenge to self-knowledge.

But the problem of self-knowledge does not entirely disappear. For one

might think that we need to know about our motivations in general in order to

learn how to make them effective and develop habits that make them effective.

This appears to me to posit a contingent relationship between self-knowledge and

this version of identificationism, and so, perhaps, to freedom and responsibility.

But even a contingent relationship can explain why the situationist literature

appears threatening.31

29. The notions of operative priorities and evaluative orientation are found in Watson (1996,234).

30. Note that on this account, actual identification in the form of narrative integration is

required (call this an actual identification account). On other accounts, the ability to identify is

sufficient. (See for example, Watson [1975/1982] who at one point suggests such a view: The free

agent has the capacity to translate his values into action . . . [106, italics mine].) Call these ability

accounts. This is an important distinction. For example, ability accounts seem to have an easier

time allowing for one to be responsible for akratic action, or action contrary to ones deep values.

Nevertheless, ability accounts are harder to defend as straightforward compatibilist accounts offreedom and responsibility, and ultimately require some account of ability or capacity. For

example, if ability is understood in one particular way, then it can argued that if determinism is

true, then one has no unexercised abilities, and so if determinism is true, then no one can freelyact akratically or be responsible for an akratic action.

31. It may seem that if one adopts an ability account (see note 30), the lack of self-

knowledge revealed by the situationist experiments does not appear to be threatening in the same

way, because to act freely or responsibly only the ability to identify with ones motives is neces-

sary. However, the situationist experiments may suggest not only that we fail to identify with our

motives in a range of cases, but that our ability to do so is systematically blocked in some wayfor example, because of a lack of self-knowledge.


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198 Dana K. Nelkin

Yet while this seems to tell part of the story, I am not convinced that it tells

the whole story of why a lack of self-knowledge is problematic.To see why, suppose

that someonenot a human being presumablywas amazingly lucky or was set

up in such a way that that she did what she really wanted, because she wanted to.

Suppose she really wanted to act because of the odd situational factor, for

exampleshe wanted to help people upon finding dimes in phone booths, or she

wanted to shock innocent people just in case she was being asked politely by a

man in a white lab coat. Upon so acting, she would have identified with what she

did, despite not being aware of her motives at the time. Would this eliminate the

worry stemming from the situationist literature and the apparent lack of self-

knowledge it reveals? I am not convinced, and will try to explain why in the section

to follow.

But first, turn to a second way of seeing the situationist literature as threat-

ening to freedom and responsibility via identificationism.The idea is that identifi-

cation is just a matter of acting in character. (Character is back, and this time

through the back door!) As we saw there are identificationist views of freedom

according to which you are free to the extent that you endorse (or would endorse)

the motives on which you act, thereby doing what you really want or value. But it

might be argued that what we really wantat least at a general levelis to express

certain character traits. For example, we want to be kind and generous, or ruthless

and ambitious.32 So, to the extent that we dont act from robust character traits,

we dont do what we really want. Now on one reading of this view, there is only a

contingent connection here between robust character traits and what we really

want. But, again, if the contingent relationship occurs with frequency, then the sit-

uationist literature could show that identification occurs less frequently than we

thought. And if identificationism is a plausible and natural view of freedom, then

we can see how freedom appears threatened by the situationist literature.

Still, it isnt obvious that identification and character traits need be so closely

tied together. At least some of Frankfurts descriptions of his own identification-

ist accounts suggest that objects of identification are desires directed at particular

actions rather than general cross-situational dispositions that we embrace.33 If so,

identificationist accounts of freedom and responsibility are not necessarily threat-

ened by the situationist literature via an undermining of character traits.34

One might also wonder how character and identification are related on

Doris view in particular. Does narrative integration bring with it some sort of

characterological organization? Doris insists that it does not. But here, too, we

might ask whether there is a contingent connection. If peoples evaluative prior-

ities are contingently directed toward acting on character traits (e.g., being brave,

32. See, for example, Nahmias (2001, 199).

33. See Skare (unpublished) for an interesting argument to this effect when it comes to iden-

tificationist accounts like Frankfurts. Objects of identification are more often specific types ofdesires that we resolve to act on than they are general across-situational dispositions that we

aspire to. See also Frankfurt (2002, 160).

34. I leave as important further questions whether the best identificationist accounts should

require an association of character traits,and whether, as an empirical matter what we really want

and value is to have and act on certain character traits.


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honest, generous), then we could see how situationism could undermine the idea

that we identify with our actions most of the time. If one must identify with ones

actions to be responsible, then the situationist literature would indeed appear to

threaten the idea that one is responsible.

Finally, the situationist experiments raise interesting questions for identifi-

cationists even when we set aside questions of self-knowledge and character. For

example, to what extent do (or should) identificationist views require stability and

consistency of motives for genuine identification?35 For even if our dispositions

and motivational structures dont line up exactly with what we traditionally think

of as robust character traits, we might nevertheless require some fairly general

evaluative orientation and operative priorities that cohere with one another. And

in that case, it would be worth exploring whether the situationist literature threat-

ens even these.

Although I have tried to motivate two possible reasons why the situationist

literature might be seen to threaten the claim that we act from our real selves on

a regular basis, it isnt clear that these capture allor even the most important

partof why the situationist literature appears troubling for freedom and respon-

sibility. To see why, let me turn to a final explanation of our reactions to the situ-

ationist experiments.

IV. THE SITUATIONIST EXPERIMENTS ANDREASONS-RESPONSIVENESS

One way of seeing the situationist casesor at least some of themas troubling

is this: simply put, the subjects seem to be acting for bad reasons, or at least not

acting for good reasons, and they seem stuck doing so. At the same time, having

the ability to act for good reasons is essential to freedom and/or responsibility. In

the dime and the phone booth case, it would be nice if the subjects acted primar-

ily because they picked up on a strangers need for help, the lack of sacrifice on

their part that would be required to help, and so on. Acting because of a moodboost is not as appealing.36 With more at stake, but in a similar way, the subjects

in Milgrams experiments seem not to be acting for good reasons. Perhaps they

are acting out of a desire to please the experimenter. Whatever the case, it seems

that they are not acting for good reasons. That this is a troubling aspect of the

experiments in its own right gains support from reflection on the imaginary credit

union experiment described earlier.The imaginary case is far less troubling, if trou-

bling at all, and a key difference between it and situationist experiments like the

Milgram and dime ones is that subjects in the imaginary experiment do not seem

35. This is a question addressed by Arpaly (2003). Her answer is that consistency over time

is not necessary for responsibility; but since it is a contingent truth that deep concerns from

which one must act to be responsible tend not change quickly, consistency is an indicator of some-

thing that is essential (96).

36. It might very well be that these explanations are perfectly consistent in the end, a pointto which I will return shortly. But again, I am focusing on why the cases mightseem to be under-

mining of freedom and responsibility.


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200 Dana K. Nelkin

to be blocked from acting on good reasons whereas subjects in the real ones at

least lead us to ask whether they are.37

The idea is that the experimental results threaten our attributions of freedom

and responsibility because they suggest that we arentand are perhaps system-

atically blocked fromresponding to good reasons. So an account of responsibil-

ity that requires the capacity to act for good reasons gains support from reflection

on the experiments.

Fischer and Ravizza, for example, suggest that responsibility should be

understood, at least in part, in terms of what they call moderate reasons-

responsiveness,which is, in turn,understood as acting on a mechanism that is both

sensitive to reasons and can translate those reasons into actions. In particular,

(FR) In order to be morally responsible, an agent must act on a mechanism

that is regularly receptive to reasons, some of which are moral reasons, and

at least weakly reactive to reason.38 (Fischer and Ravizza 1998, 82)

While Fischer and Ravizzas account attributes the reasons-responsive capacity to

the mechanism on which an agent acts, Wolf offers an account that attributes a

reasons-responsive capacity to agents:

(W) An agent is responsible if and only if the agent can do the right thing

for the right reasons.39 (Wolf 1990, 68)

Now the differences between these two views are at least as interesting as

the similarities,40 but for the moment, I will continue to use very broad brush-

strokes by focusing on what they have in common. And in fact I think that the

common insight provides one way of seeing a variety of situationist cases as threat-

ening. As Ive emphasized, particular experimental results may be threatening in

different ways. But ultimately, many of them seem problematic because the sub-

37. One of Krueger and Funders (2004) complaints is that professional publishing favors

surprising results over unsurprising ones,with the result that we overgeneralize the extent of caseslike the Milgram ones.

38. Regular receptivity requires an understandable pattern of reasons-recognition, mini-

mally grounded in reality, where this in turn requires that an agent, acting on the same mecha-

nism in different situations in which there were other reasons to act differently, would appreciate

at least a coherent set of those other reasons. Weak reactivity requires that, in some other possi-

ble world in which there were a reason to act differently, the agent would act on that reason.

Although this seems a weak requirement, Fischer and Ravizza go on to say that . . .reactivity is

all of a piece. That is, we believe that if an agents mechanism reacts tosome incentive to (say)

do other than he actually does, this shows that the mechanism can react to any incentive to dootherwise . . .That is, the mechanism on which one acts must have the general capacity to respond

to reasons to do differently (although the agent herself need not have the power in the particu-

lar situation to do otherwise) (Fischer and Ravizza 1998, 73). Importantly, Fischer and Ravizza

do not think that reasons-responsiveness is sufficient for responsibility. They also advocate a his-

torical condition, according to which an agents action must be her own in the sense that she has

accepted responsibility for it (see 207ff.).

39. Note that Wolf thinks this is true of freedom as well as responsibility.

40. I discuss these in detail in Nelkin (in preparation).


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jects in them dont seem to be acting for good reasons, or at least their behavior

raises a question about whether they are. And further, the way in which the sub-

jects seem to proceed raises a question about whether they can act for good

reasonsin some important sense of can.41

Thinking of a lack of reasons-responsiveness as providing a fundamental

threat from the situationist literature allows for a unifying explanation of at least

some of our responses to the experiments. It can also help explain the temptation

of some of the other suggestions we have canvassed.

For example, knowing about ones own motives can be seen as one kind of

knowledge needed to respond well to reasons.42 Other sorts of knowledge, too,

other than self-knowledge are crucial, and might be thought to be missing in some

of the situationist experiments. For example, do the seminarians simply notsee the

person slumped in the doorway? Does the observation not register as a morally

salient piece of information?43 If so, then this suggests that the situationist

experiments call into question knowledge of a variety of kinds and even perhaps

the ability to acquire them that is essential to having the ability to respond to

reasons.

Second, return to the question of self-control. As we saw earlier, while the

situationist experiments do not obviously suggest a wide-scale epidemic of intense

temptations to act against our better judgment, they might suggest that we have

trouble translating our commitments into actions. And this can be accommodated

by reasons-responsive views, as well. For the problem can be seen as a problem in

applying our correct conception of general moraland otherprinciples to par-

ticular situations.While it seems so obvious to observers that subjects in Milgrams

experiments should not shock their fellow subjects to the point of heart failure,

we have good reason to think that were some group of those observers actually

in the situation, they would most likely act in ways very different from their pre-

dictions about others. It seems then that for many there is a failure to apply their

general commitments in the particular situation.

41. To put this in a form that would show Fischer and Ravizzas view to be challenged by

the situationist literature, we should ask whether the experiments show that the mechanisms on

which agents are acting are not reasons-responsive. Given the apparently relative weakness of

their reasons-responsive requirement (requiring, for example, only recognition of a pattern of

reasons, but not any particular sort of pattern), it is perhaps less obvious that the situationist lit-erature poses a threat to responsibility on their view than on others. If one is antecedently inclined

to see the literature as troubling for attributions of responsibility, this might point to a need for

some sort of strengthening of the reasons-responsive requirement. But it is also true that the

requirement may be stronger in certain respects than it seems. See Fischer and Ravizza (1998, 73)

and note 38.

42. It is important to note that Doris, too, is interested in the idea that lack of knowledge isa potential threat to responsibility. Where we differ is that he sees knowledge of various kinds as

ultimately important in virtue of its support for the possibility of identification, and as being rel-evant insofar as an agent can use these kinds of knowledge to better achieve a kind of instru-

mental rationality. In contrast, I see knowledge of reasons and of morally relevant information as

important independently of identification and as (sometimes) relevant to the agents ability to set

ends as well as to achieve those already set by the agents real self.

43. Darley and Batson (1973) seem inclined to favor a negative answer, at least for some

seminarians. See note 22.


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202 Dana K. Nelkin

Finally, return to robust character traits. It may be that we usually expect

free and responsible people to act from character (or at least to act with that

ability). And this general, and perhaps defeasible, expectation can be explained as

follows: we expect that if we have the ability to act from good reasons, those

reasons should hang together in a way that might resemble the endorsement of

character traits. For example,acting for good reasons in the Stanford Prison Exper-

iment might require recognizing that there is a need to stand up for what is right

in order to save people unnecessary pain. If one adopts this as a general reason

for action, then one might naturally endorse acting from both bravery and com-

passion. To what extent the ability to act on good reasons must look like this is a

question I leave open. At the same time, the explanation of concerns about char-

acter traits that this view provides is arguably more complete than the one given

by real self views.

But we need not see these views as exclusive. Some sorts of reasons-respon-

sive views might be thought to encompass real self views, as long as we remove

the suggestion that acting from ones real self gives a sufficient condition for

freedom or responsibility. For example, it is possible to see both views as requir-

ing that a person act onor have the ability to act onones deepest thoughts

and feelings. This could turn into a reasons-responsive view by simply adding that

ones deepest thoughts and feelings must also be identifiable with the product of

ones successful exercise of reason.44 In this way, a reasons-responsive view could

accommodate the insights of the real self view, while providing additional explana-

tory power.45

It remains to consider a final question. Is there another unifying thread

through the experiments that can do the same work with fewer commitments? In

particular, one might argue that what troubles us about all of the experiments is

that they ultimately point to a surprising lack of self-knowledge, and while self-

knowledge (or the capacity for it) may very well be an essential requirement for

the capacity to respond to reasons, it is too much to infer that self-knowledge is

ultimately important in these cases in virtue of its apparent undermining of

reasons-responsiveness. 46 The apparent lack of self-knowledge in the experiments

might seem to explain as much of the attraction to other approaches to the

problem as does the reasons-responsive account. Perhaps, for example, the reason

some of the experiments suggest a possible lack of self-control is because the

subjects do not know what is in fact controlling their behavior. Thus, a lack of

self-knowledge itself can account for a great deal.

44. Wolf (1990, 75). Fischer and Ravizzas requirement that the agent have made the mech-

anism on which she acts her own by having taken responsibility for it can also be seen as incor-porating an insight from real self views. (See note 38.)

45. It is also possible to see the two sorts of views as explicating different notions. So perhapsone view is better at capturing the notion of freedom, the other better at capturing the notion of

responsibility, or each as capturing distinct notions of responsibility. One might also see the two

views as playing the role of two different parameters, each of which is capable of fully capturing

an instance of freedom or responsibility in different circumstances. For discussion of parameter

space views, see Churchland (2002) and Moreno-Davis (unpublished).

46. I thank Jonathan Cohen for bringing this point to my attention.


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The question here is whether our initial reactions to the situationist litera-

ture are explained just as well by the apparent lack of self-knowledge it reveals as

by the apparent lack of reasons-responsiveness. For it seems that a requirement

of self-knowledge on either freedom or responsibility entails less of a commitment

than a requirement of reasons-responsiveness, since reasons-responsiveness itself

requires self-knowledge of a sort, but self-knowledge does not in turn require

reasons-responsiveness. Thus, theoretical restraint suggests that we rest content

with the less committal explanation of self-knowledge rather than appeal to the

more ambitious reasons-responsive explanationif both explain our reactions

equally well.47 Do they?

There is good reason to think that the reasons-responsive approach adds

something to the explanation that invokes a requirement of self-knowledge for

freedom and responsibility. First, although there is good evidence that in many of

the experiments there is a curious lack of self-knowledge on the part of subjects,

this is not true of all of the experiments. For example, Asch concluded from his

studies that a very few of those subjects who yielded to the majority actually came

to perceive the majority estimates as correct. Most came to believe that their own

perceptions were inaccurate, while others agreed with the majority despite believ-

ing their own perceptions to be correct. In an interview with a subject who yielded

to the incorrect majority 11 of 12 possible times, the subject reported that If Id

been the first I probably would have responded differently.Asch writes that [t]he

principal impression this subject produced was of one so caught up by immediate

difficulties that he lost clear reasons for his actions, and could make no reasonable

decisions (Asch 1951, 183).While debriefings can certainly be unreliable, and this

one does not offer an explicit affirmation of self-knowledge, it does provide some

reason to think that at least some subjects either knew why they acted as they did,

or could have known upon reflection. In this case, the presence of a unanimous

majority in opposition to the earlier evidence of ones senses had an effect, and

there is reason to think subjects knew about it at the time.

If self-knowledge (and, a fortiori, the ability to procure it) is not what is

missing here, then perhaps what is missing is a lack of capacity to respond well to

reasons in the situation. Such an account has the advantage of echoing Aschs own

conclusion about one featured subject, but it also promises to provide something

of a unifying thread of explanation for experiments which seem to reveal a lack

of self-knowledge and those that do not.

Further, some of the cases seem troubling not because of a lack of self-

knowledge exactly, but a lack of knowledge more generally. For example, return

once more to the seminarians. One of Darley and Batsons theories is that some

of their seminary student subjects simply failed to see the victim in their exper-iment. While it might be possible to assimilate this lack of knowledge to a lack of

self-knowledge, it seems more straightforward to conclude that what we have is a

47. Of course, one could have independent reasons for adopting a reasons-responsive

approach to freedom and/or responsibility. But the situationist experiments would not by them-

selves provide additional support for that thesis over other approaches that also require

self-knowledge.


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204 Dana K. Nelkin

failure to pick up on morally salient features of the environment, a failure whose

consequence is a failure to respond to reasons.

Now none of this is to say that either self-knowledge or the capacity for it

is inessential to freedom or responsibility, or that it fails to explain our reactions

to the situationist experiments. On the contrary. The lack of self-knowledge

revealed by the experiments plays a powerful explanatory role. My claim here is

simply that appealing to a reasons-responsive account of freedom and responsi-

bility adds to the explanation of our reactions to the experiment and does so in

part by providing a unifying thread through our responses to a wide variety of

experiments.

V. WHERE WE ARE

First, let me summarize some modest conclusions as to how the situationist liter-

ature should affect our thinking about freedom and responsibility. Distinguishing

between situationism and the situationist literature,and between the FAE and self-

knowledge (and knowledge generally), is liberating in an important way. It allows

us to see different experiments as threatening to freedom and responsibility for

different reasons. One ultimate reason the situationist literature appears to under-

mine freedom and responsibility is that the experiments challenge the idea that

we can control our actions on the basis of good reasons.

Now what should we conclude about whether we really are free and respon-

sible? Fortunatelyor unfortunately, depending on your point of viewthere is

no simple answer to this question. Since situationism does not provide a mono-

lithic threat to either freedom or responsibility, we do not face global skepticism

when we explore the situationist literature. At the same time, the situationist

experiments raise serious questions about whether we are free and responsible,

albeit questions that ultimately must be answered on a case-by-case basis. In each

case, we must look at whether the agent has the normative and other capacities

required for freedom and responsibility. For example, does she have the knowl-

edgeof herself and of the salient aspects of the worldto allow her to recog-

nize good reasons, and does she have the capacity to translate those reasons into

motives and actions?

Answering these questions is not easy, and depends on filling in both theo-

retical and empirical gaps in our understanding. What is it to have the relevant

capacities, for example? (This is a question that philosophers have long wrestled

with.48) And what exactly is the state of particular agents? Consider the subjects

of the Isen and Levin experiments, for example. Perhaps the mood boost that

results from finding a dime actually serves to enhance the capacity to recognizeand respond to good reasons for acting, in which case those who helped may very

well be responsible. We are not forced by the evidence to see the mood boost as

circumventing ones reason-seeking capacities. Similarly, those who didnt help

48. For just a few recent examples that focus on the question of how to understand capac-

ity in particular,see Ayer (1954/1982),Keim Campbell (1997), Lehrer (1976), van Inwagen (1983),

and Wolf (1990). I discuss this issue in greater depth in Nelkin (in preparation).


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pick up papers are not necessarily off the hook because they failed to receive a

mood boost. Whether they acted with the relevant normative capacities is a ques-

tion to ask about each subject.

Even more importantly, what is the state of someone like Private England?

What knowledge was available to her? Was she deceived in various ways about

relevant aspec

nelkin, d.k. - freedom, responsibility and the challenge of situationism1

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