Internalism is the view that blameworthiness for unwitting wrongful acts must trace back to, or find its origin in, witting wrongdoing (i.e., acts accompanied by the belief that one is doing wrong all-things-considered). The view is internalist because it requires the agent to mentally represent the wrongness of the act or omission for the
act or omission to generate culpable ignorance.42 This idea is captured by Michael Zimmerman’s Origination Thesis:
Origination Thesis: Every chain of culpability is such that at its origin lies an item of behavior for which the agent is directly culpable and which the agent believed, at the time at which the behavior occurred, to be overall morally wrong. (Zimmerman 1997: 418; 2008: 176)43
The Origination Thesis involves commitment to a tracing condition and what is called
“clear-eyed akrasia.” Regarding tracing, culpability for an act must always terminate in, or trace back to, a point in the chain of culpability where direct culpability is established. An agent is directly blameworthy for something when she is not blameworthy for that act or omission in virtue of being blameworthy for something else. On the other hand, derivative blameworthiness involves blameworthiness for one thing in virtue of being blameworthy for something else. So, the tracing condition endorsed by the Origination Thesis requires blameworthiness to always terminate in acts or omissions that one is directly, as opposed to derivatively, blameworthy for. The Origination Thesis is internalist in that it limits what qualifies as an act or omission for which an agent is directly blameworthy to acts involving clear-eyed akrasia. Such
42 This contrasts with the externalist who does not exclusively require the agent to mental represent—
in the form of awareness or belief—the wrongness of the act or omission. The externalist allows that the agent may have no representation of the wrongness of the act or omission yet the act or omission may still be the terminus of culpability.
43 For internalists like Zimmerman the Origination Thesis is an advance over the benighting requirement put forward by H. Smith (1983). Zimmerman points out that Smith, “fails to acknowledge that culpability requires, at bottom, a belief concerning wrongdoing” (1997: 417-8 n.12). Externalists deny this point. They think Smith’s benighting requirement captures an important range of ways culpability can arise. Externalists grant that Zimmerman’s doxastic condition (i.e., when one has a belief that one is doing wrong all-things-considered) is sufficient for culpability, but externalists hold the doxastic condition is not a necessary condition—as culpability can originate in other ways.
akrasia requires a belief that one is doing wrong at the time that one is doing it, and it requires having the facts of the situation in full view.44 The akratic agent has such a belief that they are doing wrong, but they commit the act or omission anyway. Such an agent acts contrary to her all-things-considered judgment of what she morally ought to do. Thus, the Origination Thesis requires culpability to trace back to, or ground out in, an act of clear-eyed akrasia—an act the agent is directly culpable for.
We can apply the Origination Thesis to blameworthiness for benighting acts transferring to blameworthiness for unwitting wrongful acts. When looking at benighting acts such as those involving deficient investigation or deficient inference the agent must believe that it is all-things-considered wrong to omit to gather information or it is wrong to fail to make an inference supported by his or her background beliefs. In the absence of this belief in the all-things-considered wrongness of failing to discharge her epistemic duties, there would be no blameworthiness to transfer from the agent’s benighting acts to his or her unwittingly wrongful acts.
Internalism coupled with orthodox commitments (I) and (II) generates a regress of blameworthiness. I will illustrate the regress using the case of the mother who killed her infant by unwittingly administering a high dose of a narcotic:
(1) The mother is blameworthy for giving her infant the pill only if
44 This includes the relevant moral and non-moral (descriptive) facts concerning what a person is doing.
Typically, it requires awareness of such facts or beliefs concerning what one is doing.
(a) The mother believed that giving her infant the pill was wrong, or (b) The mother was then blameworthy for her ignorance that giving her infant the pill was wrong;
Condition (b) holds only if
(2) The mother is blameworthy for a past omission (e.g., failing to look at the label on the medicine bottle) that resulted in her ignorance of the wrongness of her act at the time she performed it;
Condition (2) holds only if
(c) The mother believed at the time of her omission that this omission was wrong (because a dereliction of her epistemic duties), or (d) The mother was then blameworthy for her ignorance of the wrongness of this omission;
Condition (d) holds only if…
The regress preys on the internalist commitment that blameworthiness must terminate in an akratic act for which the agent is directly culpable.45 Though the regress is not vicious, as it can terminate in satisfaction of conditions like (a) or (c), it
45 Internalism adds conditions (c) and (d) to the requirements for blameworthiness. However, condition (d) (i.e., the mother is blameworthy for her ignorance that the past omission is wrong) will only hold given that the mother believes that her ignorance that the past omission is wrong is wrong (what we might call “(f), or the mother is blameworthy for her ignorance that her ignorance that the past omission is wrong is wrong. This chain of ever hard to track culpability keeps regressing because internalism requires writing wrongdoing to halt the regress. As a preview, Rosen’s skeptical challenge arises because he embraces the internalist requirement to halt the regress and argues that it is very difficult from a first-personal or third-personal perspective to determine if, at the time of action, the person believed that what they were doing (or about to do) was wrong. He thinks it is rare that people’s wrongful acts done in ignorance are accompanied by clear-eyed akrasia. Even if they are so accompanied, this is very difficult to determine given considerations of the opacity of mental states and so on. Thus, he doubts that we are ever in an epistemic position that affords warranted ascriptions of responsibility, which is the skeptical challenge to responsibility. Thanks to Pamela Hieronymi for urging me to clarify internalism and the regress.
can lead to a skeptical result, as I will show in the next section. So, halting the regress is important for avoiding skepticism about moral responsibility.
Recall that in introducing the regress I said that, “Internalism coupled with orthodox commitments (I) and (II)” generates the regress of blameworthiness. The questions naturally arise: Why is this a regress for Internalism in particular; and what bit is Internalism adding to generate the regress? Doesn’t the regress just fall out of orthodox commitments (I) and (II)?46
Let me start by answering the question concerning what work Internalism is doing in generating the regress. In the regress, orthodox commitments (I) and (II) get us step (1), including (a) and (b), and step (2), minus (c) and (d). Commitment (II) does not specify what is required to make step (2) hold. Internalism adds (c) and (d) to indicate this, namely that the origin of direct blameworthiness for a benighting act is discovered when such an act occurs accompanied by a belief that one is doing wrong all-things-considered in committing the benighting act. This bit is added by the internalist embrace of the Origination Thesis—all chains of culpability must terminate in an act for which one in directly culpable, where direct culpability holds just in case, “the agent believed, at the time at which the behavior occurred, to be overall morally wrong” (Zimmerman 1997: 418; 2008: 176).
Now that it is clearer what Internalism adds to (I) and (II) to generate the regress, we are in a better position to indicate why this is a regress for Internalism in particular. Though the regress is not vicious, it is a regress considering the difficulty of locating—either from a first-personal or a third-personal perspective—whether a
46 I thank Hieronymi for comments prompting these questions and the need for clarifications.
benighting act was an akratic act. The search for blameworthiness in the chain is apt to keep regressing given Internalism’s narrow requirement on what counts as an act capable of being the origin of direct responsibility.47