Sofia Jeppsson

Practical perspective compatibilism Sofia Jeppsson

It can only be true that agents acted morally right or wrong if they acted freely. This statement is rather uncontroversial. However, any particular interpretation of "freely" will be controversial. Some philosophers believe that we cannot be free if the universe is deterministic, others that we cannot be free if it is indeterministic, and some think the morally relevant kind of freedom is impossible regardless of how the universe works. Moral philosophy thus has a problem; we discuss the right- and wrong-making features of actions and talk about people as being responsible for what they do, but it is not clear if there can be such things as rightness, wrongness and moral responsibility in the world. Practical freedom is the freedom we have when we must choose what to do and our wills are (at least as far as we know) efficacious. In this dissertation, I argue that practical freedom suffices for moral agency and moral responsibility, because morality is action-guiding. Therefore, what is irrelevant to deliberators and advisers is also morally irrelevant.