Captain Canada,
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The concepts of 'free will', 'cause and effect' and 'responsibility' have always been interesting to me for the reason that the ideas are central to our understanding of the world and yet also so ill-defined and poorly understood (in my view). It's intersting that the ideas of 'free will' and 'responsibility' are (I would say) necessary for society to function. However, as commonly understood (or at least as I beleive them to be commonly understood) the concepts make little sense to me.
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"Free will" has a sensible meaning that has nothing to do with any alleged fiction that is "necessary for society to function." Examples: (1) If I take you somewhere at gunpoint, you are acting less freely than if you went there on your own initiative, and clearly you are less responsible. (2) If you move your arm in your sleep and strike your wife, you are not acting from free will, even if you move it to smite an enemy in your dream, because it is not of your will that you strike your wife. If you had been awake, it would be.
You may object that this type of free will is merely relative, but so far I'm only addressing the question of a fiction that is needed for society to function. This relative free will is needed for society to function, but it is not a fiction. However, you may object that when I blame you for striking your wife while you're awake, I assume that you are entirely free, not just more free than when you're asleep. But that's not true! I don't require you to be entirely free, in order to blame you. I would blame you even if you had struck her because you were upset or slightly drunk or were being coerced in any other way that was not extreme. All I require is that you be __free enough__ to make and act upon a morally informed decision whether to strike her. If you make the right decision, I infer that you were free enough to make it. If you make the wrong decision, I look for a reason of self-interest that is in conflict with the moral rule, and if I find one, I infer that you were free enough. I only infer that you were not free enough if I can't find a reason. For example, you may be mentally ill.
So far, I have not found any assumption of complete freedom that is necessary for society to function. Perhaps you'll say that this "necessary" is not crucial to your position (such as it is), since even without "necessary," you can still say that free will makes "little sense"; but I think it's important, because I've just shown that free will does make sense. You've spoken of our having "no choice or control" over our actions, but it is impossible that we could have no choice or control while also having degrees of choice or control, because "nothing" doesn't come in degrees.
This doesn't necessarily mean that I've won, but it does mean that, whatever you mean by "free will," it is not what we ordinarily mean by it. For us to have "no choice or control," the degrees I've shown must be mere appearances of degrees of something that does not exist; the evidence is not evidence; it counts for nothing; we are being deceived.
This raises the question of how there appear to be degrees of something that does not exist. There are such things, e.g., degrees of elevation of the sun, when actually the sun does not move, but the degrees correspond to something that does exist, the rotation of the earth. So this example, at least, does not suggest an answer to the question. Besides, it is not true in any absolute way that the sun does not go around the earth every day; we could recalculate all the motions of heavenly bodies on the basis that it does, and no one could say we were wrong; they could only say that our description of the universe was unnecessarily complex. (Galileo was wrong about this; he claimed that the sun __really__ stood still.)
Now let me get to your idea that general responsibility is not the same as moral responsibility; i.e., that you may be responsible for your acts in some sense, but not necessarily the moral sense.
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I think that this depends entirely upon your definition of responsibility. You have adopted an understanding of it as 'proximate cause'. This certainly resolves the problems of 'free will' (or lack of it), but I don't think it's an understanding of responsibility that many of us would recognise morally.
Are we talking about 'responsibility' only in the sense of causation or are we also talking about the moral implications? If we're only talking about causation then I presume animals as well as rocks, trees and other such objects are 'responsible' for certain events.
If we're speaking morally then is it fair to (assuming we both agree on causal chains) hold people responsible for actions in which they had no choice or control over (in the sense of 'willing an action'). Regardless of how far back the chain goes, if we accept that there is one, the responsibility must be equal at all times in the sense of choice or will. They may be physically responsible in the sense of 'proximate cause', but in this they are equally as responsible as an asteroid falling from the sky or a tree that is blown down.
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A person is not a falling asteroid. If an asteroid fell by calculating its path, taking on fuel, starting an engine, and propelling itself toward the earth, this would be nearer to what a person is, but it would still not be the same (since the asteroid might contain a computer). A person's actions depend more on the particular person than an asteroid's falling depends on the particular asteroid; any object in the same circumstances as the asteroid will fall the same, even if its mass is vastly different from the asteroid's mass.
So a human is more responsible for his actions than an asteroid is for its actions, even if he is not morally responsible; the calculation occurs in the human. In your view, this is not sufficient for moral responsibility. You admit that a human can perform acts that are called moral or immoral, as an asteroid can not, but you deny that he should be called morally responsible for them. This is odd, because it denies that a human is responsible for something for which only a human could be responsible, so it implies not only that he is not morally responsible but that the notion of moral/immoral makes no sense in the first place; morality is nothing without responsibility.
Now, clearly it does make sense to speak of moral and immoral. For example, if you take something from me without paying and against my will, this is immoral. We're able to make the distinction. Then how does it not make sense? Perhaps you'd say that your act was not "ultimately" or "absolutely" immoral. I would reply that this only means that the act is not moral or immoral once it is divorced from its context of ownership and so forth. But no one would deny this, because when we say "moral" or "immoral," we are not divorcing the act from context.
If it makes sense to speak of moral and immoral, it must make sense to speak of moral responsibility. Provided that "moral" makes sense, you are the moral cause of your acts. This is like saying that, provided that "physical" makes sense, you are the physical cause of your acts. The fact that there are causes antecedent to you does not change this. Just as it would be uninformative to say that I stole your money, not because I wanted the money, but because my parents met, it would be uninformative to say that I stole it, not because I made a moral consideration, but because my parents met.
To deny this, you must say that assigning moral responsibility to me gives me a heavier burden than is indicated by what it means to say that I made a moral consideration. But that is precisely what it does not do. For example, we do not assign moral responsibility to a person who harms someone by accident, since the moral consideration was not involved. The same goes for crazy people, drunk people, unconscious people, etc.
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Of course regardless of all this the concept of responsibility (linked to free will) is one that is vital for society to function.
But to me, responsibility morally depends upon free will. If we are speaking of responsibility as a 'proximate cause' then I have little problem with it, apart from the fact I believe that to be a definition few would commonly recognise.
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The reason few would recognize it is as moral responsibility is that it's broader; it includes moral responsibility. Furthermore, moral responsibility is even narrower than that might suggest; e.g., a crazy person is the proximate cause of his acts, but he is not morally responsible.
Suppose that someone's being morally responsible for a bad act did not entail a requirement to punish him in any way, nor even for him to feel badly. Would you still say that he was not morally responsible for it, or would you admit "proximate cause" (plus his having made the considerations) as sufficient for saying he was morally responsible? I think you'd have to admit it, but this would mean that your issue was punishment. You'd be saying that "morally responsible" was good enough as a description of the relationship between him and the act but not good enough to justify punishing him for it.
Bagman
