Inability and Responsibility

In our history, free will and moral responsibility have been longstanding debates amongst philosophers. Some contend that free will does not exist while others believe we have control over our actions and decisions. For the most part, determinists believe that free will does not exist because our fate is predetermined. Because our actions are determined, it seems that we are unable to bear any responsibility in our acts. Galen Strawson has suggested that “in order to be truly deserving, we must be responsible for that which makes us deserve.” However, Strawson also has implied that we are unable to be responsible. We are unable to be responsible because, as determinists suggest, all our decisions are premade; therefore, we do not act of our own free will. Consequently, because our actions are not the cause of our free will, we cannot be truly deserving because we lack responsibility for what we do. 

Free will implies we are able to choose the majority of our actions ("Free will," 2013). While we would expect to choose the right course of action, we often make bad decisions. This reflects the thinking that we do not have free will because if we were genuinely and consistently capable of benevolence, we would freely decide to make the ‘right’ decisions. In order for free will to be tangible, an individual would have to have control over his or her actions regardless of any external factors. Casado has argued that, “the inevitability of free will is such that if one considers freedom an illusion, the internal perspective – and one’s own everyday life – would be totally contradictory” (2011, p. 369). On the other hand, while we can determine whether or not we will wake up the next day, it is not an aspect of our free will because we cannot control this. Incidentally, determinism suggests everything happens exactly the way it should have happened because it is a universal law ("Determinism," 2013).  In this way, our free will is merely an illusion. 

For example, if we decided the previous night that we would wake up at noon, we are unable to control this even with an alarm clock. One, we may die in our sleep. Obviously, as most would agree, we did not choose this. Perhaps we were murdered in our sleep. In that case, was it our destiny to die in our sleep, or was it our destiny to be murdered as we slept? Others would mention that the murderer was solely responsible for his or her act, so it was his or her free will to decide to murder. Therefore, the same people might argue that the murderer deserved a specific punishment. The key question, then, is the free will of the murderer. If we were preordained to die in the middle of the night at the hand of the murderer, then the choice of death never actually existed. Hence, the very question of choice based on free will is an illusion.

Considering that our wills are absolutely subject to the environment in which they are articulated in, we are not obligated to take responsibility for them as the product of their environment. For example, if we were born in the United States, our actions are the result of our country’s laws. Our constitutional laws allow us the right to bear arms and have access to legal representation. In addition, our constitutional laws allow us the freedom to speak and write what we want and the freedom to believe in a higher power or not. We often believe we are free to act and do what we want because of our free will. Harris (2012) has agreed that “free will is more than an illusion (or less), in that it cannot even be rendered co-herent” conceptually. Either our wills are determined by prior causes, and we are not responsible for them, or they are a product of chance, and we are not responsible for them” (p. 46). This being the case, can we be deserving if we can so easily deflect the root of our will and actions? Perhaps, our hypothetical murder shot us. In that case, our United States laws provided him or her means to commit murder. Either the murderer got a hold of a gun by chance or he or she was able to purchase one. While purchase is not likely, one would have to assume that someone, maybe earlier, purchased the weapon. Therefore, it was actually the buyer’s action that allowed this particular crime to take place. Essentially, both would ‘deserve’ some sort of punishment. 

According to The American Heritage Dictionary (2001), the word “deserving” means "Worthy, as of reward or praise” (p. 236), so it regards to punishments, it seems deserving has a positive meaning. However, the meanings will change depending on our position. For example, some would suggest that the murderer acted upon his or her own free will. However, once they are caught and convicted, they are no longer free in the sense that they can go wherever they want. On the other hand, they are free to think however they want. If they choose to reenact their crimes in their thoughts, they are free to do so. Some many say, in the case of the murderer, he or she is held responsible for his or her crime, thus he or she deserves blame. However, if the murderer was schizophrenic and was unaware, he or she committed a crime, should we still consider that the murderer acted upon his or her free will? With that in mind, it seems that Strawson’s argument is valid because the murderer was not acting of his or her free will. 

Many would consider Strawson to be a “free will pessimist” (Timpe c. Compatibilism, Incompatibilism, and Pessimism, 2006, para. 5).  Strawson does not believe we have the ability to act on our own free will. However, he does not believe our actions are predetermined either. Specifically, in his article “Luck Swallows Everything,” Strawson (1998) has claimed that “One cannot be ultimately responsible for one's character or mental nature in any way at all” (para. 33). While some would agree young children and disabled adults would not hold any responsibility, others would claim that criminals should bear responsibility when they commit a crime. 

Similarly, if our actions are casually determined by prior events, including a chain of events that goes back before we are born, libertarians do not see how we can feel responsible for them. If our actions are directly caused by chance, they are simply random, and determinists do not see how we can feel responsible for them (The Information Philosopher Responsibility n.d.). After all, one would not argue that murderers are worthy of a positive reward; however, Strawson has argued that we, whether good or evil, do not deserve any types of rewards. Instead, our actions and their consequences are based on luck or bad luck. In order to have ultimate moral responsibility for an action, the act must originate from something that is separate from us.

We consider free will the ability to act or do as we want; however, there is a difference between freedom of action and freedom of will. Freedom of action suggests we are able to physically act upon our desire. In a way, some believe that freedom of will is the choice that precedes that action. In addition to freedom of act or will, free will also suggests we have a sense of moral responsibility. This moral responsibility, however, is not entirely specified. For example, is this responsibility to us or those around us?

Human beings have the inherent need to feel responsible. The American Heritage Dictionary (2001) defines ‘responsible’ as "Being a source or cause" (p. 712). In the case of parents, mothers and fathers feel as though they have a parental responsibility for their children. When their children are young, parents are a source of food, shelter, and protection. However, as their children mature, parents expect their children to develop their own sense of responsibility. Subsequently, the parents are no longer the cause of a child’s responsibility. At the same time, parents may feel the need to lecture their children if they believe they are not acting responsibly. Fischer (2012) explained, “on the Strawsonian approach, moral responsibility also involves being appropriate participants in activities, such as moral praise and blame and punishment” (p. 119). Thus, this determines the ultimate result of the actions taken by the participants. Regardless of parents providing their children with praise when they behaved or punishment when they misbehaved, it is likely the children would act depending on their surroundings. Moral responsibility, in this sense, is delineated by our reactions to a given scenario.

In other words, we only act because of the personality and individuality we have cultivated within ourselves, and we do not necessarily choose to act. We act through the compulsions of our identity. Free will advocates profess we act because it is our freedom to do so, but Strawson has suggested that he does not “think living without the feeling of DMR a realistic option for most of us” (Sommers, 2003, no page). Deep moral responsibility (DMR) is the allegedly the ultimate responsibility. According to The Information Philosopher (n.d), Strawson asserted “strong free will (ultimate moral responsibility) is provably impossible whether determinism is true or false” (Galen Strawson). Thereby, it is an irrelevant question because whether or not we, as individuals, are deserving of such means nothing because determinism can neither be proven nor disproven and our moral responsibility is simply whatever we choose to do within the dichotomy of right and wrong. At the same time, we have conditioned ourselves to believe we should behave morally.

While right and wrong does not necessarily mean good and evil, we expect ourselves and others to practice good measures. However, Peter Strawson, Galen Strawson’s father, has argued “being an evil person is an exempting condition” (Barry, 2011, p. 5). On the other hand, how to be an ‘evil’ person requires a definition of its own. Nietzsche’s master-slave morality supposes that the social elite, as it were, will always seek dominion over the weak (Ansell-Pearson, 2006). Is this action not what one would consider as being evil or morally wrong? Or is the morality of the action itself artificial and instead to express power over another the natural state of man? Galen Strawson (2010) argued that we “can’t be ultimately responsible for the way we are” (“Your move: The maze of free will, section (3)). If this is the case, our hypothetical murderer does not deserve a punishment because he or she is not responsible for what made him or her murder. Perhaps, murder was simply ingrained in their psyche and became an essential, but unknown, element of their personalities. 

When we consider that our maxims (Kant, n.d.) essentially are our modus operandi, we often presuppose moral responsibility or obligation to anything other than fulfilling our personal beliefs. Barry (2011) has reiterated that the elder Strawson suggested “that moral responsibility is tied up with the membership in a moral community” (p. 9), more so humanity than self, and fundamentally it establishes a different set of rules and morals for each separate community. An obvious discrepancy is that no two moral communities necessarily share the same morals. The maxims that they create may not fully mesh with the world or society at large. Smilanksy (2012) has noted that “Control-based moral responsibility (if it exists) generates desert, which is then an adequate moral basis for praise, blame, [and] a host of reactive attitudes such as…punishment” (p. 213). To be morally responsible for these actions would indicate that we are then worthy of a reaction. However, this does not necessarily mean that we deserve this reaction. Though we may be responsible for the action that causes the reaction, we are not responsible for the reaction itself.

Nonetheless, Haji (2012) declared “that when one is praiseworthy, one’s moral standing has been enhanced owning to one’s freely doing what one takes to be right or obligatory; and when blameworthy, one’s moral standing has been diminished” (p. 177) because he or she freely did something wrong. The capacity for wrongdoing is implicative of being undeserving because if our moral standing is only benefitted by the ‘right’ behavior, we would be unable to commit an action that does not benefit us freely—particularly if we are supposedly responsible for our decisions. In addition, Haji (2012) claimed that “an agent is praiseworthy for an action provided that she freely does it on the basis of the nonculpable belief that she is doing something morally permissible or obligatory” (p. 176). If the individual is praiseworthy, and his or her behavior is morally permissible and encouraged, we can reason that behind the action does not imply an obligation but instead the result of the action. This reasoning assumes that individuals are not responsible for the reaction of their actions because if they freely do it regardless of any willing, they are acting in accordance with their own particular beliefs. Subsequently, this would exonerate their actions from any blame.

In sum, Strawson suggested that we need to study “our experience of freedom. Because it may be that the experience of freedom is really all there is” (The Information Philosopher, n.d.). Especially if our free will is an illusion, or a sensation that is created with each ‘moral’ action that we take. This simulation of freedom absolves us from any consequences of our actions. As this freedom was never given to us in the first place, we are neither deserving nor capable of deserving.

Consequently, if we decided to live as determinists suggest, we would be unable to experience or have the idea of freedom. Our minds are powerful, and our environments are equally powerful. While we assume our personal and moral responsibility defines us, we only have a mere suggestion of what that is. In order to deserve, we have to deliberately act towards that reward. If we are uncertain of our future, or if determinism has already created our future, we cannot act deliberately. Instead of living our lives in the pursuit of rewards, we can continue to live according to our environment. Essentially, it is our environment that bears responsibility, and we are merely the actors and our environment’s consequences. 

References

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