Susan Wolf's "Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility"

Susan Wolf’s “Sanity and Metaphysics of Responsibility”

Susan Wolf writes from a compatibilist (or soft-determinist) perspective about the responsibility of the members of our society based on our free will. Susan Wolf argues that our actions are controlled by our desires, and that our first-order desires are controlled by our second-order desires, which make up the “deeper-self” and are inherent. First-order desires are the yearning to do or have certain things, and second-order desires are the desires one wants to have, which is essentially the values of the person. In Wolf’s philosophy, there are three different ways the deep-self, the will to act, and the actions themselves interact. The first is that the will to act is intact, and the individual can revise their actions based on the desires of their deep-self. The second is that the will to act is severed, and the individual cannot control their actions based on their deep-self desires. Examples of this are kleptomaniacs or people who have been brainwashed, because instead of having the deep-self control actions, an external force does. The third is that the will to act has no disconnections, but that the deep-self itself is bad (according to society’s norms) because it has been created in a flawed way. Examples of this are people who were brought up in abusive households.

A specific example that Wolf provided of the bad deep-self is Jojo, the son of the evil dictator Jo. Jojo grows up looking up to and loving his father, and the two of them engage in activities together that pervert Jojo’s deep-self to the point that Jojo cannot see any wrong in torturing and murdering other human beings. At that point Jojo has an “insane deep-self” because he truly wants to be the person he is. Jojo is not responsible for his actions because his flawed deep-self was a result of his heredity and environment. However, those with a “sane deep-self” (meaning nothing in their heredity or environment has created their deep-self in such a flawed way that they want to want bad things) are fully responsible for their actions. Our ability to revise our actions based on our values allows us to hold ourselves responsible while excusing the actions of those who grew up in such awful conditions that their environment made it impossible for them to be good by societal standards, like Jojo.

Our discussion of this topic focused on how people who have bad deep-selves should be treated. Wolf’s argument implies that those with a flawed deep self cannot be a part of our society, which many students had a problem with. Whether those with a bad deep-self should be rehabilitated to change the will to act to the point they could exist in society remained a topic of conversation throughout. Because the deep-self could not change and only the will to act could be rehabilitated, the confidence in the programs was low. Another debated topic was what the punishment of individuals who have a severed will to act should be if they violate the laws of our society. The example given was that an individual with a condition that inhibited their control of their actions murdered someone. The class discussed the punishment and rehabilitation the individual should receive in terms of our society, and was divided on whether the individual should go to jail, receive treatment, or some combination of the two.

An example of the revision of one’s actions by their deep-self to align with their true values is the change Cady (from Mean Girls) makes in her life when she realizes she is not the person she wants to be. She had allowed her first-degree desires to misalign from her deep-self, and after recognizing that, she changes her actions. That revision to improve based on the desires of the deep-self is the theory that Wolf examines in her essay Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility.

Here is a link to the clips from Mean Girls that encompass that change in Cady. Start watching at 3:40.