The Analysis On John Martin Fischer's Semi-Compatibilism Moral Responsibility View

This thesis briefly introduces John Martin Fischer's semi-compatibilism and responsibility view. By the presentation of its background, we can see the outline of the free will and responsibility debate in modern western philosophy. Fischer argues that PAP and Transfer NR are implausible by his illustration of Frankfurt's counterfactual examples. In doing so, he refutes the direct and indirect arguments of incompatibilism and draws the conclusion that moral responsibility and determinism are compatible. It assures the stability of responsibility as one of human's significant features. He points out that responsibility relies on the way we express ourselves rather than making a difference to the world. Meanwhile, he follows the plausible intuition of Consequence argument and assents that free will entails alternative possibility is incompatible with determinism. The unique standpoint of semi-compatibilism is a breakthrough of the view scholars take that free will and responsibility must go together. Based on the reflections of the famous thought experiments like Frankfurt's counterfactual examples, Fischer indicates that guidance control, which includes moderate reasons-responsiveness and ownership, is what grounds responsibility. He regards guidance control as the kind of control needed for responsibility ascription of action, omission and consequence. He builds a systematical theory of moral responsibility ascription for modern democratic society.This thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces modern western philosophical debate of free will and responsibility, which is the context of semi-compatibilism. The second chapter gives the main idea of Fischer's semi-compatibilism and moral responsibility view. In the third chapter, I shall discuss the merit of Fischer's idea and its possible further improvement.