The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility Author(s): Galen Strawson Reviewed work(s): Source: Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, Vol. 75, No. 1/2, Free Will, Determinism, and Moral Responsibility (Aug., 1994), pp. 5-24 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4320507 . Accessed: 20/08/2012 03:46 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition. http://www.jstor.org GALEN STRAWSON THEIMPOSSIBILITY OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY (Received 15 September1993) I Thereis an argument,which I will call the Basic Argument,which appearsto provethat we cannotbe trulyor ultimatelymorally respon- sible for our actions. Accordingto the Basic Argument,it makesno differencewhether determinism is trueor false. Wecannot be trulyor ultimatelymorally responsible for ouractions in eithercase. TheBasic Argument has various expressions in the literatureof free will, andits centralidea can be quicklyconveyed. (1) Nothingcan be causa sui - nothingcan be the causeof itself. (2) In orderto be truly morallyresponsible for one's actionsone wouldhave to be causa sui, at leastin certaincrucial mental respects. (3) Thereforenothing can be trulymorally responsible. Inthis paper I wantto reconsiderthe Basic Argument, in thehope that anyonewho thinks that we canbe truly or ultimately morally responsible for ouractions will be preparedto say exactlywhat is wrongwith it. I thinkthat the pointthat it has to makeis obvious,and that it has been underratedin recentdiscussion of freewill - perhapsbecause it admits of no answer.I suspectthat it is obviousin sucha waythat insisting on it too muchis likely to makeit seem less obviousthan it is, given the innatecontrasuggestibility of human beings in generaland philosophers in particular.But I am not worriedabout making it seemless obvious thanit is so long as it gets adequateattention. As far as its validityis concerned,it canlook afteritself. A more cumbersomestatement of the Basic Argumentgoes as follows.1 Philosophical Studies 75: 5-24, 1994. ? 1994 KluwerAcademicPublishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 6 GALENSTRAWSON (1) Interestedin free action,we are particularlyinterested in actionsthat are performed for a reason(as opposed to 'reflex' actionsor mindlesslyhabitual actions). (2) Whenone acts for a reason,what one does is a functionof how one is, mentallyspeaking. (It is alsoa functionof one's height,one's strength,one's place and time, and so on. But themental factors are crucial when moral responsibility is in question.) (3) So if one is to be trulyresponsible for how one acts, one must be trulyresponsible for how one is, mentallyspeaking - at leastin certainrespects. (4) Butto be trulyresponsible for how one is, mentallyspeaking, in certainrespects, one musthave brought it aboutthat one is theway one is, mentallyspeaking, in certainrespects. And it is notmerely that one musthave caused oneself to be theway one is, mentallyspeaking. One musthave consciouslyand explicitlychosen to be theway one is, mentallyspeaking, in certainrespects, and one musthave succeeded in bringingit aboutthat one is thatway. (5) But one cannotreally be said to choose, in a conscious, reasoned,fashion, to be the way one is mentallyspeaking, in any respectat all, unless one alreadyexists, mentally speaking,already equipped with someprinciples of choice, 'P1' - preferences,values, pro-attitudes, ideals - in thelight of whichone chooseshow to be. (6) Butthen to be trulyresponsible, on accountof havingchosen to be the way one is, mentallyspeaking, in certainrespects, one mustbe trulyresponsible for one's having the principles of choiceP1 in the lightof whichone chosehow to be. (7) Butfor thisto be so one musthave chosen P1, in a reasoned, conscious,intentional fashion. (8) Butfor this, i.e. (7), to be so one mustalready have had some principlesof choiceP2, in the lightof whichone choseP1. THEIMPOSSIBILITY OF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 7 (9) And so on. Here we are settingout on a regressthat we cannotstop. Trueself-determination is impossible because it requiresthe actual completion of an infiniteseries of choices of principlesof choice.2 (10) So truemoral responsibility is impossible,because it requires trueself-determination, as noted in (3). Thismay seemcontrived, but essentially the sameargument can be given in a morenatural form. (1) It is undeniablethat one is the way one is, initially,as a resultof heredityand early experience, and it is undeniablethat these are things for whichone cannotbe held to be in any responsible(morally or otherwise). (2) One cannotat any later stageof life hopeto accedeto truemoral responsibility for the way one is by tryingto changethe way one alreadyis as a resultof heredity andprevious experience. For (3) boththe particularway in whichone is movedto try to changeoneself, and the degreeof one's successin one'sattempt at change,will be determinedby how one alreadyis as a resultof heredityand previous experience. And (4) anyfurther changes thatone canbring about only afterone hasbrought about certain initial changeswill in turnbe determined,via the initialchanges, by heredity andprevious experience. (5) This may not be the whole story,for it maybe thatsome changes in theway one is aretraceable not to heredity andexperience but to theinfluence of indeterministicor random factors. But it is absurdto supposethat indeterministic or randomfactors, for which one is ex hypothesiin no way responsible,can in themselves contributein anyway to one'sbeing truly morally responsible for how one is. Theclaim, then, is not thatpeople cannot change the way they are. Theycan, in certainrespects (which tend to be exaggeratedby North Americansand underestimated, perhaps, by Europeans).The claimis only thatpeople cannot be supposedto changethemselves in such a way as to be or becometruly or ultimatelymorally responsible for the waythey are, and hence for their actions. 8 GALENSTRAWSON II I have encounteredtwo main reactionsto the Basic Argument. On the one handit convincesalmost all the studentswith whomI have discussedthe topicof free will andmoral responsibility.3 On the other handit oftentends to be dismissed,in contemporarydiscussion of free will andmoral responsibility, as wrong,or irrelevant,or fatuous,or too rapid,or an expressionof metaphysicalmegalomania. I thinkthat the Basic Argument is certainlyvalid in showingthat we cannotbe morallyresponsible in the way thatmany suppose. And I thinkthat it is thenatural light, not fear, that has convinced the students I havetaught that this is so. Thatis why it seemsworthwhile to restate the argumentin a slightly different- simplerand looser - version, and to askagain what is wrongwith it. Some may say that thereis nothingwrong with it, but that it is not very interesting,and not very centralto the free will debate. I doubtwhether any non-philosopheror beginnerin philosophywould agreewith this view. If one wantsto thinkabout free will andmoral responsibility,consideration of someversion of theBasic Argument is an overwhelminglynatural place to start.It certainlyhas to be considered at somepoint in a full discussionof free will andmoral responsibility, evenif thepoint it hasto makeis obvious.Belief in thekind of absolute moralresponsibility that it showsto be impossiblehas for a long time beencentral to theWestern religious, moral, and cultural tradition, even if it is now slightlyon the wane(a disputableview). It is a matterof historicalfact that concern about moral responsibility has been the main motor - indeed the ratio essendi- of discussion of the issue of free will. Theonly way in whichone mighthope to show(1) thatthe Basic Argumentwas not centralto the freewill debatewould be to show(2) thatthe issue of moralresponsibility was not centralto the free will debate.There are, obviously, ways of takingthe word'free' in which (2) canbe maintained.But (2) is clearlyfalse nonethe less.4 In sayingthat the notionof moralresponsibility criticized by the BasicArgument is centralto theWestern tradition, I amnot suggesting thatit is some artificialand local Judaeo-Christian-Kantianconstruct thatis foundnowhere else in the historyof the peoplesof the world, THE IMPOSSIBILITYOF MORAL RESPONSIBLITY 9 althougheven if it were that would hardlydiminish its interestand importancefor us. It is naturalto supposethat Aristotle also subscribed to it,5and it is significantthat anthropologists have suggested that most humansocieties can be classifiedeither as 'guiltcultures' or as 'shame cultures'.It is truethat neither of thesetwo fundamentalmoral emo- tionsnecessarily presupposes a conceptionof oneselfas trulymorally responsiblefor what one has done. But the fact that both are widespread does at leastsuggest that a conceptionof moralresponsibility similar to ourown is a naturalpart of thehuman moral-conceptual repertoire. In factthe notion of moralresponsibility connects more tightly with the notionof guilt thanwith the