Soft Libertarian Free Will

Blogspot seems to have made some changes that has made it impossible to post comments. My comment section works, probably because I'm still using an old theme, but I've been on two other blogspot blogs lately, and neither one will let me post comments. One of them is Evan Minton's blog. He recently posted an explanation of soft libertarian free will. Soft libertarianism differs from ordinarily (hard?) libertarianism in that your choices are limited to being within your nature (i.e. moral character). You're still free to choose between various options that are within your nature to choose, but you can't choose things that are against your nature.

This is the comment I tried to leave on Evan's blog post (edited a little since my last attempt).

How does moral accountability work with soft libertarianism? Some people say that you can't be blamed for doing wrong if you are unable to do good, and you can't be praised for doing good if you are unable to do bad. But if your nature restricts the scope of your options to good or to bad, then how can you be morally accountable for your actions?

Let's suppose you're in a situation where you can either choose to do X or choose to not do X. Doing X is morally obligatory, which entails that not doing X is wrong. If a person's nature constrains them in such a way that they can only do the right thing, then wouldn't that determine their choice in this case?

The reason I ask is because you defined soft libertarianism as being constrained to your nature, but free within your nature. But when it comes to individual choices, it's not a matter of doing X or doing Y; rather, it's a matter of doing X or not doing X. I can see how if your nature is good, and X and Y are good, then you could choose between X and Y, but if X is good, and not-X is bad, and you had to choose between X and not-X, you'd be determined to choose X, in which case soft libertarianism seems to reduce to determinism.

I suppose you could say there are some goods that are not obligatory. Or some actions are morally neutral. In your example, there's nothing wrong with playing a video game or writing a blog post, but there's also no obligation to do either. They're morally neutral. So you're free to do either. But in cases where some action is either forbidden or required, that wouldn't be the case. If it's forbidden, and your nature is to always do the right thing, then you'd be determined to choose not to do it. If it's required, and your nature is to always do the right thing, then you'd be determined to choose to do it.

So I'm not sure soft libertarianism accounts for a lot of the moral choices we have to make. If you are required to do X, and your nature is to do either right or wrong, then whether you choose X or not, you could not have done otherwise. Can a person be morally responsible for failure to do their duty if it was not within their nature to do their duty? Or can they be worthy of praise for doing their duty if it was not in their nature to refuse?

One of the objections compatibilists like myself have to the notion that Jesus or God had libertarian freedom is that it entails the ability to do evil (see "Does God have free will?"), which they are unable to do because of their perfectly moral character. The fact that Jesus and God are worthy of praise even though they are unable to do evil shows that libertarian freedom isn't necessary for moral responsibility. Soft libertarianism appears to be designed to avoid these criticisms. But I don't think it works. If we're going to say that some kind of libertarian freedom is necessary to be morally responsible, then there are a lot of things Jesus can't be praised for. The demands of the Mosaic law, combined with Jesus' perfect moral character, would've determined his choices in a lot of cases. Also, it seems to me that under the supposition that libertarianism is necessary for moral praise and blame, an act can only be good if one could've done otherwise, and the otherwise must be not good. How could one be worth of praise for choosing one good thing instead of another equally good thing? It seems like the instead of would have to be a bad thing or at least a less good thing. Can you imagine saying, "Oh, you are such a wonderful person because you chose to do that good thing when you could've just as easily chosen to do a different good thing"? That doesn't make sense. I would like to know from anybody who subscribes to soft libertarianism and thinks some kind of libertarianism is necessary for moral praise and blame, why does my ability to choose an equally good option instead of the one I chose make me worthy of praise? How does this improve upon a situation in which I'm determined by my moral character to choose a specific good action, and I couldn't have chosen a different action that was equally good? It seems to me, given the usual way that libertarians think of moral responsibility, I can't be praised for doing good unless I could've chosen evil, and I can't be blamed for choosing evil unless I could've chosen good. So soft libertarianism doesn't seem to solve the problems raised by compabilitists against libertarianism concerning Jesus and God's moral abilities and inabilities and their worthiness of praise.

See also "Does libertarian freedom entail the ability to do good or evil?"