Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Reformed Theology - Analytic ...

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Paul L. Manata © 2011
Moreover, libertarians tell us, it just seems intuitively right that if you ought to do
something, you can do it. Alternatively, if you ought not do something, you can
refrain from doing it. What sense does it make, they ask, to hold a man
responsible for not saving a drowning child if he could not save the child?
Suppose he is in a wheel chair and so cannot swim. Would we say that he’s
morally culpable for not saving (or at least attempting to save) drowning
children? Or, what if someone really just couldn’t help blurting out swear words,
perhaps someone suffering from Tourette’s syndrome. Would we hold him
morally responsible for blurting out obscenities during church? Libertarians claim
it is the same with determinism. For on determinism we cannot do other than we
do, but ought-­‐implies-­‐can, so no one can be morally responsible on determinism.
There is a certain intuitive appeal to all of this. For it certainly seems to me that I
do have an open future, that I may really choose either the Lucky Charms or the
grape-­‐nuts, and that this fact is settled only when I actually choose one.
Libertarians say that our common sense assumptions fit best with their picture of
the world, and they wonder why we would be so massively misled in this way,
especially if God created us. But, libertarians must also admit that there are some
surface cases that don’t seem to fit their theory. For example, they are well
aware that, say, a drunk driver cannot avoid certain collisions he might find
himself about to get into yet still be held responsible for the accident. They also
know of cases where it seems like we cannot do otherwise. Take Martin Luther
for example. He is reported to have said, “I can do no other” at the famous Diet
of Worms. Perhaps Luther’s character would not allow him to do otherwise.
Surely the libertarian knows that there are many people whose character has
been formed such that they act in accordance with their character, unable to do
otherwise. These are empirically indisputable facts and libertarianism would be
an extreme position indeed if it had to deny them.