Did you read the entire piece? "Earlier I mentioned a third position on the issues of determinism, free will, and moral responsibility: skeptical incompatibili

Did you read the entire piece? "Earlier I mentioned a third position on the issues of determinism, free will, and moral responsibility: skeptical incompatibilism. The skeptical incompatibilist agrees with the libertarian that we are blameworthy for our actions only if we have free will in the requisite sense (the incompatibilist part). But, contra the libertarian, the skeptic concludes that we don’t have the requisite free will, or at least there is no persuasive evidence that we do. Although a minority view, skeptical incompatibilism has many eloquent defenders in contemporary moral philosophy. I have trouble seeing the case against it." and "Why, then, have so many thoughtful people invested so much intellectual energy in making the world safe for blame? Here are some possible explanations. (i) We can’t not believe in free will, and hence in moral responsibility, because each person’s daily experience of life is as an agent. [...] The fact that we are all instinctive libertarians has given libertarian incompatibilism a free pass on the empirical front. If those instincts are impossible to dislodge—if they are the firm deliverances of ordinary experience—then some accommodation must be made. But if the predisposition to blame is no more than an instinct and habit, the argument for accommodation is not a moral one. [...] (ii) Even if conduct is not blameworthy, blame is an indispensable tool to control antisocial behavior. This justification does not rest on the moral desert of the party we blame. It rests on the social benefits that flow to the rest of us from locking up the morally blameless and throwing away the key. [...] (iii) Blaming others is a way to show respect for them. [...] (iv) Blame is here to stay, and if we can’t beat it, we might as well do what we can to civilize it." I can't see how this can't be seen as anything except a hard refutation of the concept of blame as morally just, arguing instead that we continue to use it out of instinct and convenience even though it is objectively immoral to blame -- because free will does not exist or at least we cannot prove that it exists.