but I have a huge problem with T1.

First of all your formulation as it stands is [if free then responsible]. But this of course does not rule out [if not free then responsible] on pains of committing the fallacy of denying the antecedent.
So, I take it that what you really mean is
[If responsible then free].
That’s better, now denying the consequent (not free) implies not being responsible.
But now, why think that the relation between “freedom” and responsibility is one of implication? For instance, using Alvin Plantinga’s initial definitions of freedom and moral significance in his Free-Will Defense, I can easily show that the relation that he sets forth as holding between “freedom” and responsibility is one of conjunction - not implication. Responsibility has to do with being accountable for actions:An action A is morally significant for S if it would be wrong for S to perform A and right for S to refrain from performing A or vice versa. Freedom has to do with how those actions come about:”If a person is free with respect to a given action, then he is free to perform that action and free to refrain from performing it; no antecedent conditions and/or causal laws determine that he will perform the action, or that he won’t”.
As you can see, freedom so understood neither says nor implies anything about accountability. And responsibility so understood neither says nor implies anything about how actions come about. What does this mean? It means that both are logically compatible with the other or its contradictory. That is to say that responsibility is compatible with either freedom or non-freedom, and that freedom is compatible either with responsiblity or non-responsibility. In logical terms the variable in question acts as a multiplier over the disjunct of the contradictories:
a(b + b’)
The variable a itself does not tell us which of the contradictories is true since it can “live” with either of them.
It all boils down to a choice: b or b’
eg choose between freedom or non-freedom; either way you’re gonna have responsibility.
But responsibility so understood cannot help you to make that choice. Other factors are required for that to occur.
As for Plantinga, he chooses freedom and then conjoins that with responsibility as follows:
S is significantly free if S is free with respect to a morally significant action.

Being significantly free then is not a matter of implication, it is a matter of conjunction of two compatible definitions: freedom and responsibility.

This means that the old chestnut, the so called logical tension between Sovereignty and responsibility is an illusion: Non-freedom is just as compatible with responsibility as freedom is - check Plantinga’s definitions again! The real problem comes when people forget that freedom has to do with how an action comes about, not accountability, and that responsibility has to do with accountability, not how an action comes about.

JMAC

I remember those days together well, and I still chuckle at some of the more humorous stories from that class. I hope you will uphold the Farnellian tradition and make the class both interesting and entertaining (although the latter might have come more from the students).

Make sure that you penalize your students if they should try to play tricks on each other during class (e.g., if one of them should fall asleep in class and his classmates repeatedly turn his notes upside down - that should earn double punishment). :-p

If we ever happen to attend a Shepherd’s conference together, we’ll have to sit down for a coffee and reminisce!

Warm regards,

1/2 of the chair of Moses