How To Be Responsible For Something Without Causing It
Carolina Sartorio
1
On the face of it, it would seem that one cannot be morally responsible for outcomes that one didn’t cause. This is to say, if one of my actions or omissions makes me morally responsible for a certain outcome, then it is natural to suppose that that action or omission of mine must have caused the outcome. Imagine that I fired my gun at my enemy but I missed. At the same time, a sniper shot the bullet that killed him. Then I am not responsible for the death, although I wanted it to happen, and the reason why I am not responsible for the death seems to be that I didn’t cause it, even if I tried. In other words, the reason why I am not responsible for the death seems to be that my firing my gun, the only thing I did that could have made me responsible for the death, wasn’t a cause of it. For, if my firing the gun wasn’t a cause of the death, then I cannot be responsible for the death in virtue of having fired my gun. Or so it would seem.
In this paper I will argue that, surprisingly, one can be responsible for outcomes without causing them. More precisely, I will argue that the following claim,
MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL: If an agent is morally responsible for an outcome in virtue of his j -ing (failing to j ), then his j -ing (failing to j ) caused the outcome,
is false. I will focus on a particular type of cases of combined responsibility by omission. I will argue that, in those cases, a moral agent’s failure to act in a certain way makes him responsible for an outcome without causing the outcome. Hence, MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL is false. Moreover, it is false in an interesting way. In particular, it is not false because, as some people have claimed, causation by omission is simply impossible. If causation by omission were impossible, then MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL would be trivially false, because it is clear that we can be responsible for outcomes in virtue of some of our omissions. Following intuition, I will assume that causation by omission is possible. Still, I will be claiming that, in the type of examples that we will look at, there is responsibility without causation by omission.
Next, I will consider the question: If the relation between moral responsibility and causation is not the one expressed by MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL, then what is it? Certainly, there seems to be some interesting connection between the two concepts. I will make an alternative proposal about their relation, and I will motivate it by appeal to the same kind of cases that I use to show that MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL is false.
Throughout the paper I will focus on the responsibility of agents for the occurrence of bad outcomes, such as outcomes that represent some harm to some human being, and with regard to which it may be appropriate to attribute blame to the agents. For the purposes of this paper, moral responsibility can be understood as blame. For instance, we can take the claim that an agent is morally responsible for a death to mean that the agent is to blame for the death.
2
Imagine the following situation. There was an accidental leak of a dangerous chemical at a high-risk chemical plant, which is on the verge of causing a terrible explosion. The explosion will occur unless the room containing the chemical is immediately sealed. Suppose that sealing the room requires that two buttons, call them "A" and "B", be depressed at the same time t (say, in two seconds). You and I work at the plant, in different rooms, and we are in charge of accident prevention. Button A is in my room, and button B is in yours. We are both aware of what we are supposed to do, but we independently decide to keep reading our magazines instead of doing our job. So we don’t depress the buttons, and the explosion occurs. Now consider the following variation of the case. Again, button A is in my room, and I fail to depress it. This time, however, there is no one in the room containing button B. Instead, a safety mechanism has been automatically set to depress B at t. When the time comes, however, B becomes stuck. Just like in the original case, then, B isn’t depressed at t and the explosion occurs. Call the two cases "Two Buttons" and "Two Buttons-One Stuck", respectively. The cases differ in the respect that, in Two Buttons, B isn’t depressed because you decided not to depress it, whereas, in Two Buttons-One Stuck, it isn’t depressed because it got stuck.
Now, let us focus on Two Buttons for a moment. Intuitively, you and I are responsible for the explosion in this case. It was our job to depress the buttons, and we neglected to do our job. Moreover, had we both done our job, that is, had we both depressed our buttons, the explosion would have been prevented. Two Buttons strikes us as a case where two moral agents share the responsibility for an outcome. This seems clear even though neither of our individual actions consisting in our depressing our buttons would have been sufficient, in the absence of the other, to prevent the explosion (since the explosion would only have been prevented if both buttons had been depressed). Intuitively, I am responsible for the explosion, even though I couldn’t have prevented it, given that you independently decided not to depress your button, and the same goes for you. Here is an analogous case. A person that has been poisoned is going to die unless he gets the antidote, which can only be obtained by combining two rare substances. The substances can be found in two different villages, where you and I live. It is my responsibility to provide the first substance when someone sends for it, and it is your responsibility to provide the second substance when someone sends for it. However, we both simultaneously ignore our responsibilities and fail to provide the substances. The person dies from the poison. In this case we are both responsible for the person’s death, regardless of the fact that both substances were required to save the person’s life, and thus, regardless of the fact that, had I decided to provide the first substance, the person would still have died, given that you failed to provide the second substance (and the same goes for you). We were supposed to provide the substances for the antidote, and we refrained from doing so. Moreover, had we both done what we were supposed to, the person would have lived. Hence we are both responsible for the person’s death. And, similarly, in Two Buttons, we are both responsible for the explosion.
Another way to see that you and I are responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons is by appeal to the notion of collective responsibility. Collective responsibility is the type of responsibility had, not by an individual person, but by a group of people. Just as individual responsibility, collective responsibility can be by action or by omission. A group is collectively responsible for an outcome by action when it is responsible for it in virtue of a joint action of the group (such as when a platoon of soldiers invades a territory and civilians die as a result). By contrast, a group is collectively responsible for an outcome by omission when it is responsible for it in virtue of a joint omission of the group. A joint omission can be either planned in advance by the members of the group (such as when a team of doctors refrains from operating on a patient after having discussed the issue and concluded that an operation would be useless), or not planned in advance (such as when a group of random people on the street fails to prevent a mugging, without even discussing the issue with each other). Two Buttons is a case of collective responsibility by omission (of this second type, where the joint omission isn’t planned in advance by the members of the group). The group consisting of you and me, the employees in charge of safety at the chemical plant, is responsible for an outcome (the explosion) in virtue of a joint omission (our joint failure to depress A and B).
Now, from the fact that we are responsible as a group, it seems to follow that we are also individually responsible. There is disagreement about whether the responsibility of a group always distributes among (at least some of) the members of the group; however, Two Buttons seems to be the type of case where there is no question that the collective responsibility distributes among its members. The cases where, arguably, there is collective responsibility without responsibility of any of the members of the group are very different from Two Buttons. They typically take the following form: a group is involved in a morally objectionable practice, for the consequences of which we wish to hold the group responsible, but the individual behavior of each of the members of the group is excusable. Suppose, for instance, that the members of the group have all been raised to regard the unjust practice as natural and, thus, have never thought of questioning it. Maybe the founders of the practice would have been regarded as responsible, had they still been alive, but they have all died long ago. Hence, if it were granted that the group is responsible (which is not completely clear, since the existence of a bad doesn’t by itself mean that someone or some group has to be responsible for it, but let this pass), then, this would be a case where the responsibility of a group doesn’t distribute among its members. However, plainly, the situation is different in Two Buttons. When we fail to depress our buttons, our behavior isn’t at all excusable. Each of us was aware of what we were expected to do, there was no impediment to our doing what we were expected to do, and we still voluntarily refrained from doing so. Hence it seems that the responsibility of the group should distribute among its members in this case. And thus, since there is no reason to hold one of us responsible without holding the other responsible, it follows that both of us are individually responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons.
So far I have argued that you and I are both individually responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons. In what follows I will focus, in particular, on my individual responsibility. What I am going to do now is argue that, if MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL were true, then, given some natural assumptions about causation, it would follow that I am not responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons. But this is untenable. So I will conclude that we must reject MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL. In other words, I will provide a reductio of MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL, based on the fact that I am responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons.
My argument will take the following form:
(1) My failure to depress button A didn’t cause the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck.
(2) If my failure to depress button A didn’t cause the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck, then it didn’t cause it in Two Buttons.
I will discuss (1) and (2) shortly. Now, from (1) and (2), (3) follows:
(3) Therefore, my failure to depress button A didn’t cause the explosion in Two Buttons.
Now, suppose we granted:
(4) MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL: If an agent is responsible for an outcome in virtue of his j -ing (failing to j ), then his j -ing (failing to j ) caused the outcome.
It would then follow from (3) and (4) that:
(5) Therefore, I am not responsible for the explosion in virtue of my failure to depress button A in Two Buttons.
But, as we have seen, (5) is false. Hence, if, as I will be arguing, (1) and (2) are true, and if (5) is false, it follows that MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL is false.
In the following two sections, I take up premises (1) and (2) in turn.
3
In this section I will argue for premise (1):
(1) My failure to depress button A didn’t cause the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck.
Before turning to my defense of (1), however, I would like to note the following fact: If (1) were true and if MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL were true, then it would follow that I am not responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck. For, if my failure to depress A didn’t cause the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck, and if one couldn’t be responsible for outcomes that one didn’t cause, then I wouldn’t be responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck. Now, notice that this seems to be the right result. Intuitively, the fact that button B was stuck in Two Buttons-One Stuck relieves me of any responsibility for the explosion. Even if I thought that I could have prevented the explosion by depressing A, and even if I acted negligently in failing to depress button A, my failure to depress A doesn’t make me, given the circumstances, responsible for the explosion. In other words, Two Buttons-One Stuck strikes us as a case of moral luck, where the obtaining of some external circumstances that are outside my control relieves me of any responsibility for the outcome.
Philosophers have discussed similar cases in the context of the debate about whether responsibility and determinism are compatible and, more particularly, in connection with the question whether one can be responsible for outcomes that one couldn’t have prevented. Here is an example: I am walking by the beach when I see that a child is drowning. I think I could prevent his death, but I deliberately refrain from jumping in to attempt the rescue. The child drowns. Unbeknownst to me, however, there was a patrol of hungry sharks in the water that would have attacked me as soon as I jumped in, and hence I couldn’t have saved the child. Am I responsible for the death of the child, then? It seems not. I might be responsible for not trying to save the child, but not for his death. Similarly, it seems that, in Two Buttons-One Stuck, I might be responsible for not trying to prevent the explosion, but not for the explosion itself.
Contrast this with what we want to say about Two Buttons, and a puzzle arises. Intuitively, there is a moral difference between the two cases. In both cases, I couldn’t have prevented the explosion by depressing button A, since the other button wasn’t going to be depressed (in one case, because it got stuck; in the other case, because you failed to depress it). However, whereas we want to say that I am responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons, we don’t want to say that I am responsible for it in Two Buttons-One Stuck. Two Buttons strikes us as a case where two moral agents share responsibility for an outcome; Two Buttons-One Stuck, by contrast, strikes us as a case where nobody is responsible for the outcome (assuming, of course, that no one is responsible for the fact that button B got stuck, and for the chemical leak). But, why is there such a difference in responsibility? How can we account for it? This is the puzzle that arises with regard to Two Buttons and Two Buttons-One Stuck. I will suggest a possible answer to this question in section 6. But a negative answer to the question will emerge shortly, from my defense of premises (1) and (2). It will be clear from my discussion of those premises that I do not take the difference to be causal.
Let us now turn to my defense of (1). Why do I claim that my failure to depress A did not cause the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck?
I will argue that we had better accept (1), or else we would be committed to the result that there is far more causation by omission than it seems right to say there is. Imagine that we said that my failure to depress A did cause the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck. To say that it did is to say that it caused it even if button B was stuck and, hence, even if depressing A wouldn’t have prevented the explosion. Had I depressed A and had B not been stuck, then the explosion would have been prevented, but my depressing A wouldn’t have been sufficient to prevent it. Still, it would have been a cause. Now, if this is so, we should probably say that my failure to act in the relevant way caused the outcome in all of the following cases. In the case given above, where a child is drowning but there are sharks in the water that would have thwarted a rescue attempt, I would have caused the death of the child by failing to jump into the water to rescue him, when I couldn’t have saved him, given the presence of the sharks. After all, had I jumped into the water to save him, and had there been no sharks in the water, I would have saved him. Similarly, a doctor’s failing to operate on a patient would have caused the patient’s death, when he couldn’t have saved him, for, had he operated, the patient’s allergic reaction to anesthesia would have killed him immediately. After all, had the doctor operated, and had the patient not been allergic to anesthesia, the patient would have lived.
If these results are not implausible enough, we can always come up with more and more implausible ones. For consider a case where many more different factors are in play (the thought here is that, clearly, the mere number of factors cannot plausibly make a causal difference). Suppose that a child is about to drown in the ocean. The only way to save him now would be by reaching him in a super fast boat. Suppose that I am the manufacturer of the only engines in town that could have been part of such boat. Naturally, though, the engine wouldn’t have been enough: many other materials would have been necessary to build the boat. But, had the engine, and the wood, and the steel, and the iron, and all the other things necessary to build the boat been available yesterday, and had we put the parts together in the right way then, we could have saved the child by using the super fast boat today. Should we say, then, that my failure to provide the engine to build the boat caused the death of the child? This is extremely implausible. But it would be hard to avoid this result if we rejected (1).
My claim, then, is that we should accept (1), or else we would be committed to far more causation by omission than seems reasonable to accept. This result is bad enough in itself. But it is presumably made even worse by the fact that we wouldn’t just get a lot of spurious causation this way; we would also get a lot of spurious symmetric overdetermination. There is symmetric overdetermination when an outcome occurs as a result of more than one complete set of causes. Philosophers who believe in the possibility of symmetric overdetermination tend to think that the following type of example illustrates the phenomenon. Two similar rocks hit a window at exactly the same time, and the window shatters as a result. However, either rock, in the absence of the other, would have made the window shatter, and, let us assume, in exactly the same way as it actually did. Hence there is more than one complete set of causes of the shattering. Either one of the rocks’ trajectories, plus conditions such as the presence of the window, the absence of barriers that could stop the rocks, etc., is a complete set of causes of the shattering. There is no reason to prefer one set of causes over the other (for instance, it is not the case that one of the rocks hit the window first, or deflected the other rock, or was heavier than the other rock). Hence the shattering of the window is symmetrically overdetermined by the two sets of causes.
Why do I say that rejecting (1) would commit us to widespread symmetric overdetermination? Because, in all of the examples that I have just given, my failure to act in the relevant way and the other factors in play were independently sufficient, in the circumstances, for the outcome. Hence, if we were to count them as causes of the outcome, as rejecting (1) would require, then it would turn out that there is more than one complete set of causes of the outcome. As a result, there would be symmetric overdetermination in all of these cases. Take the case of the super fast boat. The super fast boat couldn’t have been built unless I provided the super fast engine; so my failure to provide the super fast engine was sufficient, in the circumstances, for the drowning of the child. Also, the boat couldn’t have been built without wood; so the absence of the wood was sufficient, in the circumstances, for the drowning of the child. And so on. Hence, if these conditions were all causes of the drowning, then there would be more than one complete set of causes of the drowning. In fact, there would be many: either one of either my failure to provide the fast engine for the boat, or the absence of wood, or the absence of steel, etc., plus factors such as the child’s being in the water, his not wearing a life vest, etc., would be complete sets of causes of the drowning.
Now, the problem with this is that symmetric overdetermination is usually regarded as a rare phenomenon, if possible at all. For instance, a well known objection to the causal efficacy of the mental (where the mental is considered to be not identical with, but supervenient on, the physical) is that, if mental states were causally efficacious, then there would be widespread symmetric overdetermination between those mental states and the physical states on which they supervene. And, the objection goes, it is implausible to believe that symmetric overdetermination is such a widespread phenomenon. Similarly, my claim is that rejecting (1) would commit us to a lot of symmetric overdetermination, while it is implausible to believe that symmetric overdetermination is so widespread.
I have shown that rejecting (1) would commit us to a lot of spurious causation by omission and symmetric overdetermination. These implausible consequences would be avoided if we accepted (1). Hence, I conclude that we should accept (1).
4
Now let us turn to the second premise in my argument:
(2) If my failure to depress button A didn’t cause the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck, then it didn’t cause it in Two Buttons.
My argument for (2) will be based on the fact that the two cases, Two Buttons and Two Buttons-One Stuck, are relevantly similar. There are some differences between them (and, as I have briefly indicated, they should be enough to ground a moral difference between the cases), but I will argue that the differences that exist between the cases could not plausibly matter causally.
The cases have been laid out in such a way that the essential difference between them is that a person is in control of button B in one case, but a mechanism is in control in the other. In both cases, button B isn’t depressed at the required time, but, in Two Buttons, it is because you failed to depress it, whereas, in Two Buttons-One Stuck, it is due to a mechanical failure. Hence saying that (2) is false would amount to saying that whether there is a causal connection between my failure to depress A and the explosion can depend on whether a person, as opposed to an unconscious mechanism, is in the other room. But, on the face of it, this is highly implausible. That is, it is highly implausible to believe that the mere fact that a person is in the other room, as opposed to a machine of some sort that behaves in relevantly similar respects as the person does, might make a difference to my causal powers. The fact that button B wasn’t depressed could certainly matter to my causal powers in room A, given that B’s being depressed was necessary to prevent the explosion. But it seems that whether B wasn’t depressed as a result of a person’s failing to depress it or as a result of a mechanical failure of some sort simply shouldn’t be relevant to whether I caused the explosion by failing to depress A.
Let me illustrate this point with an analogous example. In order for the example to be sufficiently analogous, I suggest that we look at a purported case of symmetric overdetermination. (The reason for choosing this type of example is that, as we have seen in the last section, cases like Two Buttons-One Stuck have the basic structure of a symmetric overdetermination case in that, were we to say that there is causation, we would thereby have to say that there is symmetric overdetermination). Take the case of the two rocks simultaneously hitting the window, and imagine that I threw one of the rocks. Now, suppose that we are trying to establish whether my throwing my rock was a cause of the shattering. Would it matter, for these purposes, whether the other rock was thrown by another person or by an unconscious mechanism (say, a catapult)? Clearly not. Whether a person or a catapult threw the other rock seems completely irrelevant to the causal powers of my throw. What does seem to matter is whether the other rock impacted the window (or whether it was just my rock that impacted it), and how it impacted it (in particular, whether it made any important difference to the shattering of the window, or whether my rock was responsible for the major crack that ended in its shattering). But whether all this happened because a sentient being or an unconscious mechanism threw the other rock is simply irrelevant to whether my throw caused the shattering.
Similarly, it seems that whether a person was in charge of button B in the other room, or whether a mechanism was, should be simply irrelevant to whether my failure to depress button A caused the explosion. What does seem to matter is whether B was depressed (if it had been depressed, then my failure to depress A would have been a cause), and the kind of effect that depressing B would have had for the explosion (if depressing only button A had been sufficient to prevent the explosion, then, again, my failure to depress A would have been a cause). But whether B wasn’t depressed as a result of a human failure or as a result of a mechanical failure seems irrelevant to whether my failure to depress A was a cause of the explosion.
As far as I can see, the only thing that one could try to say to reject (2) is that there is another difference between the cases that comes hand in hand with the difference in the existence of a person in room B, and that this other difference can be relevant to my causal powers. This would have to be some feature that is normally associated with the presence of a moral agent. But, what could this feature be? One might think that the uncertainty about the outcome of a person’s deliberation could be such a feature. It is generally true that the presence of a moral agent brings more uncertainty to whether a certain outcome will occur; in this case, the fact that there is a moral agent in room B makes it more uncertain whether button B will be depressed at t than if there is a machine that was inevitably going to fail. In other words, it would have been "easier" for button B to be depressed if it had been in a moral agent’s hands than if it hadn’t. Hence, the proposal would be that my failure to depress button A had more bearing on whether the explosion would occur when a person was in room B than otherwise, and thus it is more likely to be a cause in Two Buttons than in Two Buttons-One Stuck. It is widely accepted that causation is linked in some important ways to what would have happened had things been slightly different from actuality. Hence it shouldn’t be so surprising if my causal powers ended up depending on how easy or hard it would have been for button B to be depressed at t, and, thereby, on whether there was a person in room B.
My reply to this suggestion is that the appeal to the certainty/uncertainty distinction won’t help. This can be seen in two ways.
On the one hand, it is not clear that the certainty/uncertainty distinction can do the causal work that the objector is attributing to it. Consider a variation of Two Buttons where the person in the other room decides not to depress B without hesitation. So he fails to depress it without even rethinking what he’s doing. Should this matter to whether I caused the explosion in virtue of having failed to depress my button? It is hard to see how it should. Consider, again, the purported case of symmetric overdetermination of the two rocks that hit the window simultaneously. Suppose, again, that I threw one of the rocks, and that we are trying to establish whether my throw was a cause of the window’s shattering. Would it matter, for these purposes, whether the other rock was thrown as a result of a mere fluke, or as a result of some extremely reliable process? Clearly not: the only thing that matters is whether it was thrown, and in what way, not how likely its being thrown was at the time that it happened. Similarly, it seems that, in Two Buttons, what is relevant to whether my failure to depress A caused the explosion is, if anything, that button B was not depressed, not how easily it could have been depressed given that it wasn’t.
On the other hand, the appeal to the certainty/uncertainty distinction (or to distinctions of a related sort) would be of no help to the ultimate purpose, which is to hold on to MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL. The problem is the following. If the certainty/uncertainty distinction did make a difference to my causal powers, then it would help us say that my failure to depress A caused the explosion in the original Two Buttons case, and thus avoid the conclusion that I am not responsible for the explosion. But, at the same time, and for the same reasons, it would make us say that I did not cause it in the variant of the case where the person in the other room was completely determined to not depress his button. However, if MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL were true, then this would mean that I am not responsible for the explosion in such a case. But it is very implausible to believe that I am not responsible here; the mere fact that the person in the other room was determined to do the wrong thing does not get me off the hook (especially since we are under the assumption that I was unaware of the other person’s intentions). In other words, if we adopted the strategy based on the certainty/uncertainty distinction, the problem would reappear in connection with the case where the person in the other room was determined to not depress button B. And thus we would still have to reject one of the other premises.
In sum, it is very hard to see how (2) could be rejected. I conclude that we should accept (2): If I didn’t cause the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck, then I didn’t cause it in Two Buttons either. I haven’t relied on any particular theory of causation to show this; rather, I have relied on the fact that the structure of the two cases is relevantly similar in the ways that seem to matter causally. But it is worth noting that different theories of causation of different types are likely to entail that the two cases are causally on a par, in the sense that, either my failure to depress A caused the explosion in both cases, or in neither. (Although different theories might disagree about whether it is a cause in both cases or in neither.) I will briefly indicate why this is so, and with this I will end my discussion of premise (2).
Traditionally, theories of causation are classified into "regularity" theories and "counterfactual" theories. Very roughly, and in its simplest version, a regularity theory deems something a cause when it is sufficient, in the circumstances, and given the laws, for the occurrence of the effect. And, also very roughly, and in its simplest version, a counterfactual theory deems something a cause when it is necessary for the effect (in the sense that, if it hadn’t happened, the effect wouldn’t have happened). A regularity theory is likely to entail that my failure to depress A is a cause of the explosion in both cases, Two Buttons and Two Buttons-One Stuck. For my failure to depress A was sufficient, in the circumstances, and given the laws, for the explosion. Whether there is a person or a mechanism in the other room is simply irrelevant to the fact that my failure to depress A was sufficient for the explosion. A counterfactual theory, by contrast, is likely to entail that my failure to depress A is a cause in neither case. For, given that the explosion would only have been prevented by depressing both buttons, and given that the other button wasn’t depressed, my failure to depress A was not necessary for the explosion (the explosion would have occurred even if I had depressed A). Again, whether the other button wasn’t depressed due to a human or a mechanical failure is simply irrelevant to the fact that my failure to depress A was not necessary for the explosion. Despite their differences, then, both regularity theories and counterfactual theories are likely to entail that the two cases are causally on a par. Naturally, there are many varieties of both regularity and counterfactual theories of causation, and I do not intend for this brief sketch of theories of causation to span them all. However, it does serve as an indication that the kinds of factors that philosophers have considered as causally relevant are not the kinds of factors that distinguish Two Buttons from Two Buttons-One Stuck. And, consequently, it is likely that the causal verdict should be the same in both cases.
5
I have argued that premises (1) and (2) of my argument against MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL are true. Since I am responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons, it follows that we should reject MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL. Two Buttons is a counterexample to MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL: In Two Buttons, I am responsible for the explosion in virtue of my failure to depress A, but my failure to depress A does not cause the explosion.
Now, one might find this last result (that my failure to depress A did not cause the explosion in Two Buttons) extremely intriguing. If my failure to depress A didn’t cause it, and, by similar reasoning, your failure to depress B didn’t cause it, then what did? Naturally, the chemicals having leaked out of the place where they were stored did, but this answer isn’t fully satisfying: the buttons (in virtue of their not being depressed) seemed to have had something to do with the explosion too. After all, had they been depressed at the same time, the explosion would not have occurred. Also, accidents of that sort are generally prevented by depressing the two buttons simultaneously. Etc. So the question is, doesn’t my argument for (1) and (2) entail that some causes of the explosion will be left unnoticed (in both Two Buttons and Two Buttons-One Stuck)? If so, my argument had better be flawed.
This is the worry that I will address in this section. But, as will be seen shortly, answering this worry will serve a further purpose, that of shedding some light on how MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL could be fixed, a project that I will undertake in the final part of the paper.
My reply is to concede that the two buttons are causally relevant to the explosion, and to suggest that some other condition, not my failure to depress A, and not your failure to depress B, although one that is closely related to both, caused the explosion in Two Buttons. (And a similar story works for Two Buttons-One Stuck. But let me focus on Two Buttons.)
What is this other condition? To see what it is, start by considering an example where just one agent is involved. Imagine that the orchestra has delivered a wonderful performance. At the end of the concert, I am expected to clap. Instead, I remain completely still. As a result, Jim forms the belief that I was rude. What caused Jim’s belief that I was rude? Clearly, it was my failure to clap. Now, notice that my failure to clap is my failure to move my left hand and my right hand in particular ways. My failure to move my left hand and my right hand in particular ways obtains just in case either I fail to move my left hand in particular ways or I fail to move my right hand in particular ways, or both. Had I moved just my left hand, I wouldn’t have clapped, and thus Jim would still have thought that I was rude. Had I moved just my right hand, I wouldn’t have clapped either, and thus Jim would have thought that I was rude too. Jim would only have failed to think that I was rude if I had moved both of my hands in the ways that clapping requires.
In other words, Jim’s forming the belief that I was rude was caused by my failure to perform a complex action (the action of clapping). The action of clapping is "complex" in that it involves moving more than one part of the body at the same time. Hence, the failure to clap obtains just in case at least one of those more basic movements fails to obtain. Let us represent the different conditions schematically. Let F(L) be my failure to move my left hand (in the required way, at the required time) and let be F(R) be my failure to move my right hand (in the required way, at the required time). Then my failure to clap can be symbolized as F(L Ù R), or as F(L) Ú F(R), which represents the fact that I failed to perform the complex action of clapping, either by failing to move my left hand, or my right hand, or both. My failure to clap should be distinguished from each of the individual failures, F(L) and F(R), as well as from the condition that results from conjoining the two, F(L) Ù F(R), which obtains just in case both individual failures obtain. The relations among the different conditions can be depicted by the following ordering in levels:
1. F(L) Ù F(R)
2. F(L), F(R)
3. F(L Ù R) = F(L) Ú F(R)
A condition in a higher level entails a condition in a lower level. The condition in level 1 entails either of the conditions in level 2 in that every world where F(L) Ù F(R) obtains is a world where F(L), or F(R), obtains. In turn, either of the conditions in level 2 entails a condition in level 3 in that every world where F(L), or F(R), obtains is a world where F(L Ù R) obtains.
My claim, then, is that F(L Ù R) caused Jim’s belief that I was rude. F(L Ù R) obtains in every world where I fail to move at least one hand. In all and only those worlds, Jim would have believed that I was rude. So it seems right to say that this is what caused Jim’s belief.
I am going to claim that the situation in Two Buttons is analogous. Consider a world where we depress A and B at t and the explosion doesn’t occur. In that world, we can single out, in addition to our individual actions (my depressing A and your depressing B), the joint action consisting in our simultaneously depressing A and B at t. (It is not important for my purposes that we actually consider this to be an action; we could also take this to be a mereological sum of two events, or a conjunctive fact. I will talk as if it were an action, but nothing hangs on this.) In the actual world, this joint action didn’t obtain. I submit that it is the failure of this joint action to obtain, or, in other words, our joint failure to simultaneously depress A and B at t, that caused the explosion in the actual world.
What is the failure of the joint action to obtain, or our joint failure to simultaneously depress A and B? It is the condition that obtains just in case either I fail to depress A, or you fail to depress B, or both. This condition obtains in the actual world given that both of us failed to depress our buttons, but it also obtains in worlds where only one of us fails to depress his button. If F(A) is my failure to depress A and F(B) is your failure to depress B, our joint failure to depress A and B can be represented as F(A Ù B), or as F(A) Ú F(B). Just as in the clapping case, F(A Ù B) should be distinguished from each of our individual failures, F(A) and F(B), as well as from F(A) Ù F(B), the condition that obtains just in case both of us fail to depress our buttons. Also, just as in the clapping case, F(A Ù B) is entailed by all of these conditions. And, finally, just as in the clapping case, there is good reason to believe that it is a cause of the outcome, the explosion. Why? For the same reason why my failure to clap is likely to be a cause of Jim’s forming the belief that I was rude in the clapping case. Namely, because, given the circumstances, the explosion occurs in all and only the worlds where F(A Ù B) obtains. These include worlds where both of us fail to depress our buttons, but, also, worlds where only one of us does.
Let me recapitulate. The worry that I wanted to address in this section was this: If, as my argument against MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL suggests, my failure to depress A did not cause the explosion in Two Buttons (and the same goes for your failure to depress B), then what did? Certainly, the two buttons had something to do with the explosion’s coming about. My reply is that our joint failure to simultaneously depress A and B did. This is a condition that obtains whenever at least one of us fails to depress his button.
Now, the question will surely arise: Is it possible to believe, as I am suggesting, that our joint failure to depress A and B caused the explosion, but neither of our individual failures, which entail it, did?
This is certainly possible. There are clear cases where X entails Y, Y causes E, but X does not cause E. Here is one. I am reading poetry, when I hear a cry for help (the child drowning in the ocean). But I decide to keep reading, and the child dies. Assuming that I could have saved the child, it is likely that my failure to jump into the water to save the child was among the causes of the child’s drowning. Now, my reading poetry at the time entails my failing to jump into the water: if I was reading poetry at the time, I couldn’t have also been jumping into the water. But it doesn’t seem right to say that my reading poetry caused the child’s drowning. In other words, my reading poetry entails my failing to jump into the water, which caused the child’s death, but my reading poetry didn’t itself cause the child’s death. Similarly, my claim is that, in Two Buttons, our individual failures to depress our buttons entail our joint failure to simultaneously depress them, and this joint failure of ours caused the explosion, but our individual failures didn’t themselves cause the explosion.
6
I have argued that MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL is false. In particular, I have claimed that one can be responsible for an outcome in virtue of a failure to act a certain way, even though one’s failure to act that way does not cause the outcome. Thus, in Two Buttons, I am responsible for the explosion in virtue of failing to depress A, but my failure to depress A does not cause the explosion.
Does this mean that we have been completely in the dark about the relationship between moral and causal responsibility? Would we have to revise all of our ordinary claims about their relationship, as a result? In this section I will argue that a claim in the neighborhood of MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL might still be true. Hence, it is likely that we haven’t been completely in the dark about the relationship between moral and causal responsibility. Moreover, it is likely that we were at least on the right track.
How can I be responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons, if my failure to depress A didn’t cause it? I am going to suggest the following. In Two Buttons, I am responsible for the explosion, not in virtue of the fact that my failure to depress A caused it (since it didn’t), but in virtue of the fact that something for which I am responsible caused it. In other words, I am responsible for the explosion because there is a cause of the explosion that I am responsible for. What is this cause of the explosion that I am responsible for? I am going to suggest it is our joint failure to simultaneously depress A and B, that is, the condition that obtains whenever at least one of us fails to depress his button. In the last section, I argued that this joint failure of ours is a cause of the explosion in Two Buttons. In this section I am going to argue that I am responsible for this joint failure. It will then follow that something for which I am responsible caused the explosion in Two Buttons. By contrast, I am going to argue that, in Two Buttons-One Stuck, there is no cause of the explosion that I am responsible for. Hence, I will suggest that this serves to account for the difference in my responsibility between Two Buttons and Two Buttons-One Stuck.
But, before going into this, let us briefly tackle the issue of how MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL could be fixed, assuming that the story that I will tell works. Assuming that my story works, being responsible for an outcome doesn’t require having caused it, but it might require being responsible for something that caused it. That is, even if MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL is false, as shown by Two Buttons, the following principle might still be true:
MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL*: If an agent is morally responsible for an outcome, then that is because he is morally responsible for something that caused the outcome.
In other words, according to MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL*, if I am responsible for an outcome, it doesn’t have to be the case that something that I did or failed to do caused the outcome, but it does have to be the case that I am responsible for one of the outcome’s causes. The outcome’s cause that I am responsible for might be an action or an omission of mine, but it can also be, as in Two Buttons, a joint action or omission of a group that I am part of.
A word of clarification about MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL* is in order. It might be that this principle will have to be restricted to a particular range of outcomes, so as to avoid an infinite regress (the infinite regress would arise given that, according to MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL*, in order for me to be responsible for something, I would have to be responsible for a cause of it, and then, also, for a cause of a cause of it, etc.). One way to do this could be to restrict MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL* to outcomes outside of the agents’ brains, such as the fact that the explosion happened, or the fact that buttons A and B weren’t depressed. I will bypass this problem here. I will assume that this problem could be dealt with in some way or another. For present purposes, I only intend to suggest that MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL* is very plausible, maybe as plausible as MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL used to appear to us before we were introduced to cases like Two Buttons. And, properly restricted, MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL* does seem very plausible. On the face of it, I can only be responsible for the occurrence of an outcome if I am responsible for one of its causes. For instance, it seems that I wouldn’t be responsible for a death by shooting unless I were responsible for the bullet’s piercing the person’s heart, or for some other contributing cause, such as the person’s standing in front of the gun.
And not only does MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL* seem plausible, if properly restricted, but it also appears to be as fruitful as MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL used to seem to be. The paper started out with the remark that MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL appears to explain my lack of responsibility in cases like the following: I shoot at my enemy and miss; however, at the same time, a sniper shoots the bullet that kills him. Intuitively, I am not responsible for the death, and MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL seemed to explain why: I could only be responsible for the death in virtue of having shot a bullet at him, but my shooting that bullet didn’t cause his death; hence, I am not responsible for his death. I have argued that MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL is false. However, its substitute MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL* could explain equally well why I am not responsible in this case. Given that I am not responsible for any of the causes of the death (e.g., the sniper’s shooting), it then follows from MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL* that I am not responsible for the death.
I have explained how MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL could be fixed, assuming that I am responsible for our joint failure to simultaneously depress A and B in Two Buttons. So I now turn to the question: Why should we believe that I am responsible for our joint failure to simultaneously depress A and B in Two Buttons? Moreover, why am I not likewise responsible for a similar fact (presumably, the fact that the two buttons weren’t simultaneously depressed) in Two Buttons-One Stuck?
Let us start with Two Buttons-One Stuck. Just as I have argued that our joint failure to simultaneously depress the buttons was a cause of the explosion in Two Buttons, I think that we should say that the two buttons not being simultaneously depressed was a cause of the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck. Now, am I responsible for this cause of the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck?
It seems to me that I am not. Consider Bob, a young man, unemployed, with a certain kind of physical disability. Bob’s mother finds out about a job opening and tells him to apply by the deadline. Bob is a bit absentminded and forgets. However, as it turns out, being eligible for the job required lacking the type of disability that Bob has. The people who were eligible for the job were the people who applied by the deadline and that lacked that kind of disability. Hence, Bob is already not eligible for the job in virtue of having that disability. In addition, since he didn’t apply for the job, he is not eligible because he didn’t apply by the deadline. Now, consider the question: Is Bob responsible for his not being eligible? It seems not, given his disability. He is probably responsible for not applying for the job, especially since he had every reason to think that applying would make him eligible, but he is not responsible for his not being eligible.
Similarly, I submit that, in Two Buttons-One Stuck, I am not responsible for the fact that the two buttons weren’t simultaneously depressed. I am responsible for the fact that A wasn’t depressed, given that it was under my control and I voluntarily failed to depress it. But, since B was stuck, I am not responsible for the fact that A and B weren’t simultaneously depressed.
One might think of raising the following objection. I have claimed that Bob is responsible for his not applying for the job, but not for his not being eligible; however, his not applying for the job entailed his not being eligible. Similarly, I have claimed that, in Two Buttons-One Stuck, I am responsible for the fact that A wasn’t depressed, but not for the fact the two buttons weren’t simultaneously depressed; however, A’s not being depressed entailed that the two buttons weren’t simultaneously depressed. But, is it really plausible to believe that I can be responsible for X, although not for Y, in cases where X entails Y? My reply is: Yes, it is plausible to believe this. Suppose the enemy has launched a missile onto a city. If the missile follows the preset route, it will impact a densely populated area of the city. Upon realizing the gravity of the situation, Suzy, the city’s mayor, struggles to prevent the terrible outcome, and succeeds in deflecting the missile from its original path. However, after the missile is deflected, it hits a less densely populated area. Is Suzy responsible for the fact that the missile hit the city? Clearly not. But she is responsible for the fact that the missile hit the less densely populated area of the city, and this fact entails the fact that the missile hit the city. So one can be responsible for X, although not for Y, in cases where X entails Y.
I have argued that I am not responsible for the fact that the two buttons weren’t simultaneously depressed in Two Buttons-One Stuck. Now, wouldn’t it follow from this that I am also not responsible for our joint failure to simultaneously depress A and B in Two Buttons? If so, I would have failed to pin down the source of the difference in moral responsibility between Two Buttons and Two Buttons-One Stuck. However, this result doesn’t follow. It would only follow if the following principle were true:
(P) If one isn’t responsible for an existing state of affairs Y, then, for any existing state of affairs X, one isn’t responsible for the state of affairs that X or Y.
But (P) is false. Let me first explain why, if it were true, the unwanted result would follow. Then I will explain why (P) is false.
If (P) were true, then it would follow that I am not responsible for our joint failure to simultaneously depress A and B in Two Buttons. For, by assumption, I am not responsible for the fact that you didn’t depress B (you were in another room, and I couldn’t talk to you at all). So, if (P) were true, it would follow that I am not responsible for my failure to depress A or your failure to depress B, which, as I have explained in the last section, is our joint failure to simultaneously depress A and B.
However, (P) is false. It is not true that, whenever I am not responsible for Y, then I am also not responsible for the state of affairs that X or Y, for any existing state of affairs X. Suppose that two people, Shooter and Stabber, want Victim dead. So, at the same time that Shooter shoots him, Stabber stabs him. And suppose that, while they are responsible for their own actions, they are not responsible for the other's actions. Now consider the state of affairs that Shooter shoots Victim or Stabber stabs Victim. If (P) were true, then neither Shooter nor Stabber would be responsible for this state of affairs. For take Shooter: he is not responsible for the state of affairs that Stabber stabbed Victim. Hence, it would follow from (P) that he is not responsible for the state of affairs that Shooter shot Victim or Stabber stabbed Victim. And, conversely, take Stabber: he is not responsible for the state of affairs that Shooter shot Victim. Hence, it would follow from (P) that he is not responsible for the state of affairs that Shooter shot Victim or Stabber stabbed Victim. But it seems wrong to say that no one is responsible for the state of affairs that Shooter shot Victim or Stabber stabbed Victim; clearly, Shooter and Stabber are! After all, this state of affairs obtained just in virtue of what Shooter and Stabber did: had Shooter and Stabber acted differently, as they could have, Victim wouldn’t have ended up with a bullet and a knife wound on his chest.
This shows that (P) is false. More specifically, it shows that two moral agents can be responsible for a disjunctive state of affairs, whereas each of them is responsible for only one of the disjuncts. And this, I submit, is exactly what happens in Two Buttons. In Two Buttons, you and I are responsible for the disjunctive state of affairs that I failed to depress A or you failed to depress B, and each of us is responsible for only one of the disjuncts: I am responsible for the first, and you for the second. Just as in the Shooter and Stabber case, we are responsible for the disjunctive state of affairs because it obtained just in virtue of what we did: had I depressed A and had you depressed B, the two buttons would have been depressed simultaneously.
To sum up: I have argued that I am responsible for a cause of the explosion (our joint failure to simultaneously depress A and B) in Two Buttons, but I am not likewise responsible for a cause of the explosion (the fact that the two buttons weren’t simultaneously depressed) in Two Buttons-One Stuck. Since there clearly isn’t any other cause of the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck that I am plausibly responsible for, MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL* entails that I am not responsible for the explosion in Two Buttons-One Stuck (for MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL* states that I can only be responsible for an outcome if I am responsible for one of its causes). Hence, MORAL ENTAILS CAUSAL* helps to explain the difference in my moral responsibility between Two Buttons and Two Buttons-One Stuck.
7
My conclusion is the following. I can be responsible for something without causing it. However, it is likely that I cannot be responsible for something without being in turn responsible for something that caused it.