January 2011 - Second Year - Philosophy of Film Essay
The following dilemma is presented in Minority Report:
If pre-criminals have free will then it's not clear how we can be sufficiently certain that they would have committed the crimes for which they are being punished. But, if they lack free will then it seems like we have reason to believe that they cannot be morally responsible for their actions, and thus cannot be punished.
Explain how Frankfurt and Smilansky arguments can be combined to find a way out of this dilemma. You will need to explain compatabilism and show it how makes pre-punishment morally permissible.
In the film Minority Report (Spielberg:2003), there is a police unit responsible for arresting "precriminals" - people who it is known will commit a crime in the near future. That it can be known with certainty what persons will do suggests a determined universe, but if future is determined we should worry that persons do not have free will and should not be held responsible for their actions. In this paper I confront these issues. First I will explain why we might think there is no free will and moral responsibility in a determined universe, and why this should make punishment problematic. Then I will introduce the idea of compatabilism as a way to accommodate free will in a determined universe and make punishment permissible. Thirdly I will draw on Frankfurt's argument in advance of a compatabilist viewpoint (Frankfurt:1969), then Smilanky's explanation that compatabilists must support prepunishment (Smilansky:2007). Finally I will reflect on Smilansky's objective : in showing that compatabilist's must endorse prepunishment, he reduces their overall claim that determinism has no impact on a person's moral responsibility to absurdity (Smilansky:2007).
If the future is determined, then it seems we do not have free will. When we think about ourselves as creatures with free will, we think of ourselves as choice makers, Each time we make a choice, we believe we could have chosen differently. I decided to take a philosophy class, but I believe that I did so freely and could have chosen to study Italian instead. But if the future is determined, then it would always have been the case that I chose philosophy and not Italian. I could not have made an alternative choice, which would mean that I do not have free will.
If we do not have free will, then the idea that we are morally responsibility for our actions seems problematic. We usually think that a person is only morally responsible for actions they freely chose to take. When someone commits an offence because they are being coerced to do so, or because they are mentally ill, then we believe that they could not have done otherwise and it does not seem right to hold them morally responsible. But if the future is determined and we do not have free will, then it is true for all actions that an agent could not have done otherwise, so if we are consistent then it does not seem right to hold any agent morally responsible, for any actions, in a determined universe.
We usually think that moral responsibility is necessary for punishment. There may be other objectives for punishment (for example, to deter others from offending), but we think that what justifies punishing a particular person is that they are deserving of the punishment. But again this raises the problem - could the person have done otherwise? If they could not - if they did not have free will - then it seems they are not morally responsible, and if they are not morally responsible then it seems they do not deserve punishment. Again, an offender who has been coerced or is mentally ill seem relatively uncontroversial examples here. So if the future is determined, there is no free will and we cannot hold people morally responsible for their actions, or be justified in punishing them.
Minority Report is a science fiction film that suggests a determined world where future crimes can be predicted. For now I will ignore some narrative elements that question whether the future is determined at all, and focus on the moral question raised by the film's treatment of those who are foreseen to commit crimes. These offenders-to-be are prepunished. Prepunishment is punishment administered before a crime has been committed.
To be morally justified in prepunishing an offender, we must be certain the future is determined. If the future was not determined, there could be the possibility the offender-to-be would change their mind and not go through with the crime. We must also address the epistemic problem of how the future could be accurately predicted. Suppose the epistemic problem could be overcome, we still face the problem that in a determined universe a criminal cannot be held morally responsible, so how could punishment of any kind be permissible? A compatabilist perspective can be utilized here, offering an argument that free will is compatible with a determined universe. If compatibilism is true, then an agent can be held morally responsible and can be permissibly punished. For the remainder of the paper, I will consider Frankfurt's argument advancing a compatibilist perspective (Frankfurt:1969), and Smilanky's case that compatabilism is compatible with not only punishment generally, but prepunishment specifically.
Frankfurt advances a compatabilist argument by disputing the proposition that an agent is morally responsible for what they do only if they could have done otherwise (Frankfurt:1969). To do this, Frankfurt focuses our attention on the reasons for an agent's action. He draws out examples where an agent acts in a certain way and could not have done otherwise, but that they could not have done otherwise is not their main reason for acting so. (Frankfurt:1969)
The key idea in Frankfurt's argument is that what matters for morally responsibility is why I do what I do (Frankfurt:1969). Suppose I am choosing whether to eat an orange or an apple. Unbeknownst to me, an evil demon has seized partial control of my brain and is determined that I will choose the orange. The demon is capable of directing my choice towards the orange, however will only do so if I first choose the apple. If I choose the orange outright, the evil demon will not need to intervene. Now the facts of the matter are, I can only choose the orange. If I attempt to do otherwise, the evil demon will ensure that I do in fact, choose the orange. I cannot do otherwise. And yet, suppose I don't decide to choose the apple - I go straight for the orange, and the demon does not intervene. Haven't I chosen the orange freely? Certainly my experience is of exercising free will and not being coerced. It was the reason I chose the orange rather than the presence of the demon that was necessary for me having free will.
Frankfurt argument challenges that free will requires could have done otherwise (Frankfurt:1969). His new argument is that free will requires could have done otherwise OR acted for reasons other than could not have done otherwise (Frankfurt:1969). Even if the future is determined, we do not have the experience of the determination. We have an experience of thoughts and feelings contributing to our choice makers. We act for our own reasons, and not because of some sense of coercion. All of my choices may be as certain as the certainty I would choose the orange in the above example, but that is not my experience of those choices, and it is my experience of my own agency and choice making that is necessary for free will.
Frankfurt's argument supports the idea that we can live in a determined universe and yet still experience free will, be held morally responsible, and be punished when appropriate (Frankfurt:1969). As I type this sentence, then if the future is determined it was always the case that I would type this sentence, yet my experience of it is still something I choose to do freely. Just as I can be permissibly rewarded for writing a good sentence, I can permissibly be punished for committing a crime.
Smilanky argues that if we accept that determinism is compatible with free will, we must think that prepunishment is morally permissible in a determined universe (Smilansky:2007). The common sense view is that prepunishment is morally reprehensible because people are innocent until they commit a crime, but in a determined universe the crime will necessarily be committed, there is no special moral reason why the punishment should be administered after the crime and not before (Smilansky:2007).
Smilansky is not arguing that the compatabilist should always prepunish, or that prepunishment is unproblematic. He allows that there may be epistemic and pragmatic problems with prepunishment. What Smilanksy is emphasizing is that there may be circumstances where post punishment is not possible, and in these circumstances a compatibilist has no principled reason not to adopt prepunishment (Smilansky:2007). What is important is that the criminal is punished, when the punishment takes place in the chronological sequence of events is of no consequence (Smilansky:2007).
We can combine Smilansky's (Smilansky:2007) and Frankfurt's (Frankfurt: 1969) arguments to conclude that prepunishment is morally permissible in a determined universe, if we adopt a compatibilist view. But Smilansky has offered his argument not as a defense of compatabilism, but to illustrate the absurd conclusions a compatabilist must make (Smilansky:2007). Prepunishment goes so against our strong intuitions about how persons should be treated, that it shows compatabilism is wrong to say a determined universe does not change the morally responsible status of persons (Smilansky:2007). I think Smilansky is correct here, showing that what is meaningful to us when we speak of free will has not been captured by the compatibilist argument. Our sense of the kind of creatures we are is intrinsically linked to our idea of ourselves as choice makers. Our relationship to the future is one of expectation of many possibilities. The possibilities the future offers justify our effort as human beings, as we labour and as we labour over our choice making. A determined universe undermines that effort, so the prospect of it lacks moral resonance as well as undermining the sense that our lives have any purpose at all.
This paper has examined the problem of prepunishment in a determined universe, prompted by the film Minority Report (Spielberg : 2003). I have explained the problems attributing moral responsibility to persons if the future is determined, and considered the argument of Frankfurt (Frankfurt : 1969) in defence of a compatibilist position. I have drawn on Smilansky's (Smilansky : 2007) argument that compatibilists must support prepunishment and presented his conclusion that this shows the compatibilist position to be absurd.
Bibliography
Frankfurt, H (1969) <span>Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility</span>, Journal of Philosophy, vol. 66, no. 23, p. 829-839.
Smilansky, S., ( 2007) <span>Determinism and prepunishment: the radical nature of compatibilism</span>, Analysis, vol. 67, no. 4, p. 347-349
Spielberg, S., (c2003) <span>Minority report [videorecording]</span>, [United States] : 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
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