Proyectos en desarrollo
Not in control but still responsible: lay perceptions of control and moral responsibility in the context of addiction (en colaboración con Gino Marttelo Carmona Díaz & María Fernanda Rangel Carrillo).
Theories of moral responsibility often include some version of a control condition, to the effect that agents are not aptly blamed for actions that are not under their control (e.g., Brink & Nelkin, 2013; Fischer & Ravizza, 1998; Pereboom, 2014; Sartorio, 2016; Vargas, 2013; Wallace, 1994). In turn, the view that addiction impairs the ability to control drug-related behavior is widely held in the technical literature. Given that people with addiction seem not to meet the control condition, some have argued that they should therefore be seen as less than fully responsible for moral harms that are secondary to decisions to use (e.g., Burdman, 2024; Kennett et al., 2015; McConnell, 2022; Sinnott-Armstrong, 2013; Wallace, 1999; Yaffe, 2011). Call this the control excuse (CE) view of moral responsibility in addiction. We conducted two experimental vignette studies (Study 1, N=325; Study 2, N=413) with the aim of probing into the lay view on CE. Both studies targeted a similar population of non-experts from two South American countries. According to our preliminary results, participants tend to think that people with addiction have a reduced ability to control their behavior, but not that they are less responsible, on that account, for harmful consequences of their actions. Interestingly, participants responded differently to an analogue scenario featuring a character with OCD, who was similarly seen as having reduced control, but whose responsibility was seen as significantly reduced. This suggests that, although people endorse a version of the ‘no control, no responsibility’ principle behind CE, something else undermines the force of this principle, in their view, when it comes to addiction and moral responsibility. Overall, our results put pressure on defenders of CE. We conclude, however, by discussing two possible ways in which defenders of CE can hold their ground.
Disfunción, desajuste y subdeterminación empírica (en colaboración con Juan R. Loaiza y Francisco Pereira)
¿Son los trastornos psiquiátricos causados por el funcionamiento incorrecto de la maquinaria de la mente? ¿O pueden explicarse como el resultado de la falta de ajuste entre nuestros mecanismos psicológicos y un ambiente diferente a aquel en el cual estos sistemas evolucionaron? En este artículo, adoptamos elementos centrales de la concepción de la función biológica desarrollada por Daniel Dennett para abordar una versión particular del debate entre teorías de la disfunción y teorías del desajuste, enfocándonos en casos de adicción a sustancias. Siguiendo la idea de Dennett según la cual no hay un hecho decisivo que determine la función propia de los sistemas biológicos, sostenemos que la decisión sobre la disfunción del sistema de recompensa en la adicción está subdeterminada por la evidencia. Nuestro argumento invita a reorientar la discusión, sugiriendo un nuevo foco en las consideraciones pragmáticas que pueden esgrimirse para elegir entre dos teorías empíricamente equivalentes.
¿Son básicas todas las emociones básicas? (en colaboración con Andrea Melamed)
En este artículo analizamos un problema para la tesis sobre el carácter básico de algunas emociones. Hay buenos motivos para pensar que algunos procesos afectivos son básicos en un sentido filogenético y ontogenético. Al mismo tiempo, algunos rasgos que caracterizan la vida emocional de los humanos adultos típicos son difícilmente atribuibles a los procesos afectivos filogenética y ontogenéticamente básicos. ¿Tienen el miedo, la ira, la alegría, etc., tal como las experimenta un humano adulto típico los mismos rasgos que atribuimos a emociones filogenética y ontogenéticamente primigenias? ¿En qué sentido son (o no) el miedo filogenéticamente antiguo y el miedo que experimenta un bebé una instancia del mismo tipo de estado psicológico que el miedo tal como lo experimenta un humano adulto típico?
Addiction ain’t (just) in the head
In this paper, I argue that the internalistic account of dysfunction in the context of addiction fails. I present three arguments against the internalistic account, and I conclude that the most plausible candidate for a dysfunction in addiction involves dysfunctional ways of interacting with a certain range of environmental conditions. If we want to pursue the idea that there is, in fact, a dysfunction in the context of addiction, we need to go externalistic. This poses a challenge for those inclined to endorse the conjunction between the dysfunction-based disorder claim and psychiatric internalism: if my argument is correct, they should abandon at least one of these views.
The Problem of Fitting Blame in Addiction
People suffering from addiction enjoy an ambivalent standing when it comes to moral responsibility. They are not credibly pictured as altogether exempt from accountability. But, when moral wrongs are connected with decisions to use, severely addicted agents appear to be less blameworthy than they would otherwise have been. In this paper, I introduce a problem about the fittingness of blame in the context of addiction which is premised on this view. If an agent’s blameworthiness is mitigated on account of their addiction, fitting blaming responses should appropriately register that fact. What could be the correct way of doing so? I refer to this question as the problem of fitting blame in addiction. The solution I offer is built around the contrast between retributive and scaffolding blaming responses.