The Boys from Brazil: Another Boom Crutch

Dennett critiques a manipulation-based responsibility argument by Greene and Cohen inspired by The Boys from Brazil. He varies the scenario to examine whether loaded details about design and control are driving the intuition.

A manipulation story can make ordinary causal influence feel like control by a hidden puppeteer. Dennett challenges a responsibility argument inspired by the film by varying details that may steer intuition, including deliberate design, inevitability, and the description of the agent. The issue is what actually supports the responsibility judgment.

A useful analysis separates causal history from capacities, coercion, knowledge, and available alternatives at the time of action. These factors may interact, and different moral theories weigh them differently. The thought experiment invites careful comparison; it does not calculate blame or prove that environment matters more than genes.

When to use it

Use when an extreme manipulation story is generalized to ordinary agency or when causal explanation is treated as automatically settling accountability.

How it can help

Separate causal influence, deliberate manipulation, probability, and practical decision capacities before drawing a responsibility conclusion.