Galen Strawson's Argument Analysis

The idea of blame, defined as, “A particular kind of response (e.g. emotion), to a person, at fault, for a wrongful action,” plays a significant role in the study of crime, with respect to degrees of “fault.” In most modern societies, “criminal culpability,” or degrees of wrongdoing, makes a difference between the kinds of punishment one receives for his action(s). To be culpable for a crime, there must be a guilty act (Actus Rea), and a guilty mind (Mens Rea). Degrees of culpability often depends on the kind of mental state, (Mens Rea), one brings to the act in which he engaged. How much one is blameworthy for wrongful conduct depends in part on the state of mind in relation to the wrongful conduct. One’s mental state while engaging in wrongful conduct, which in a legal sense is determined by legislators, is characterized by the following terms: purposely, knowingly, recklessly and negligence.

According to Downing, author of On Course, when it comes to personal responsibility, there are two ends of the spectrum: creator and victim. A creator is someone who believes they have the sole responsibility for the outcome of their life, they understand that their actions have been ineffective, and strive to change them to “create the best results they can” (21-22). Though he uses different language to explain, Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of

Lastly, everyone possesses hypocritical actions and takes credit for their actions either socially, emotionally, physically, or mentally. Outside influences including other people and societal conditions play a key role in also taking credit for people's actions. In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne,

Williams also delivers the idea of agent-regret which, to him, matters to the person in the unlucky case more than any extrinsic moral judgments. Agent-regret is defined as “thought being formed in part by first personal conceptions of how one might have acted otherwise”, (Williams, p.27), and required “a first-personal subject-matter” and “not yet merely a particular kind of psychological content, but also a particular kind of expression”, (Williams, 27). Hence, even if the driver A is morally treated as equal as driver B, the agent-regret of guilt may follow him to the

In society, people often are not held accountable for their actions. Arthur Miller brings this to life in the Crucible. Abigail Williams drank a blood charm to kill the wife of John Proctor. After being exposed for this, she turns on those she knew was weaker than her. (Miller “You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!” 468). S: Betty knows what Abigail did M: Betty wants Abigail to own up to what she has done R: People are often not held accountable for their actions. I: People need to own up to their mistakes and accept what will happen because of it. On the other hand, some people believe that the greatest flaw of society is that people are too independent.

Ayer’s problem with holding one morally responsible for their actions when caused deterministically is based on the fact the determinists believe that all decisions are based on casual laws which say that one’s destiny is already formed and one can not change the outcome. This gives people the illusion of free will. The believe they can decide between say two cars, A or B, but in fact based on casual laws they were determined, even before birth, to choose car A. Ayres states that with situations like this we can not hold them morally responsible for their choosing of car A as it was not their choice to begin with. According to Ayer the problem with holding someone responsible for accidental errors is that they simply could not control the

My statement, is highly focused by Miller through his play: that humans are unwilling to be accountable for their actions or words.

Mason Myers, the author argues between the views of a libertarian theist and soft determinist theist. According to the author, “we cannot consistently regard an omniscient and omnipotent creator to be free to blame for seemingly evil human choices unless we also maintain the radical agathistic theory that no human choice is evil in the sense that some alternative choice would have been better” (Myers, 1987). Myers does make some valid points because how is a person capable of making a choice if they do not know of any alternative. In the article, “Theodicy at the margins: New Trajectories for the problem of evil” by Mark Stephen Murray Scott, the author develops a new model which he refers to as “theodicy at the margins.” This view looks at very specific problems and attempts to find specific answers for these problems.

No individual is always solely at fault for his or her actions. There are always certain situations where there are exceptions to who is primarily responsible. Human beings are social creatures, therefore linking them into many different situations in multiple ways, sometimes in ways no one would even believe. Prime examples of this are in the book, Macbeth by William Shakespeare, the article, The Amritsar Massacre, the news story “Owen Labrie, Student in NH Rape Trial, Breaks Silence After Conviction” and the article “Teen Driver in Fatal Alcohol-Related Crash is Sentenced to 18 Months in Jail”. In each of these examples there are multiple people who are at fault and could be seen as holding the primary responsibility, depending on how

After researching classical and neoclassical theories, I find myself siding with the assumption of freewill associated with the classical theory. Although, the neoclassical theory concedes there are factors that can inhibit freewill, I believe people still have a choice, but simply choose what they believe is best for them at the time, giving little care for the consequences. Therefore, I believe people are completely responsible for there actions, even with potentially inhibiting factors. Just look at several of the recent premeditated mass murders being committed by individuals who were later determined to be insane; should they not be held accountable simply because some psychological exam has determined them to be mentally diminished?

In Strawson’s argument I don’t see how this pattern of reasoning can provide that much of an argument against moral responsibility. I could understand if Strawson argued that to be responsible for how one acts, one must have chosen to be the way one is and leave it at that. However, Strawson adds the part that in order to be responsible for how one acts at, one must also be responsible for the prior choices that lead to one being a particular way. This is not the case because there are cases of intentional self-modification that allows someone to be responsible for what they do, without choosing it. Intentional self-modification is my argument against Strawson’s argument and I will elaborate with examples throughout the paper.

Introduction: Responsibility is being accountable for something within one's control. Relating to Shakespeare's play Macbeth, the supernatural is held responsible for Macbeth’s actions, despite actions being within Macbeth’s control. Due to the facts, people have the free will to make their own choices. Moreover, the actions chosen by people are the result of their own desires. Accordingly, the supernatural should not be blamed for the actions of others, as people are responsible for their own fate.

draws between an outcome-based and rule-based mind-set as irrelevant to the assessment of the good life. He states that "[n]othing important, I believe, turns on the answer: doing what you take to be your duty because it is your duty is hardly disreputable. Nor is it culpably self- regarding to worry about the impact of behaving badly on the character of one’s life ... In any case, however, these questions of psychology and character are not relevant to the question that I am posing here" (3). However, Dworkin does agree with the findings of Cornelissen et al. that moral self-image impacts the behavior of those possessing an outcome-based mind-set since these findings successfully integrate moral actions towards others with ethical self-interest. Cornelisson et al. explain that "[m]oral-balancing approaches argue that when the moral self-image exceeds the moral-aspiration level, the individual feels “licensed” to engage in more self-interested, immoral, or antisocial behavior. When the moral self-image is below the moral-aspiration level, people tend to experience emotional distress ... and become motivated to enact some corrective behavior" (482). This statement and its supporting empirical evidence confirm Dworkin's assertion that "[o]ur question is the different one of whether, when we try to fix, criticize, and ground our own moral responsibilities, we can sensibly assume that our ideas about what

In Candide, the main character’s major revelation to this idea is with his loyal companion Martin. The two conversed, with the deterministic Martin arguing that to blame humans for their actions is as absurd as blaming hawks for eating pigeons. Candide, a strong believer in the philosophy of compatibilism, believed that humans could change their ways as they aren’t governed by animalistic natural laws as hawks are (Voltaire 76). Deterministically speaking, it’s seemingly believed in both of these works that people should not be held morally accountable for actions that are out of their control. In essence, Martin believes the ways of man are as set in stone as those of hawks, but only for Candide to think otherwise. From the viewpoint of Candide and his mentor Pangloss, humans are

"Whose was the responsibility? The act-utilitarian will quite consistently reply that the notion of the responsibility is a piece of metaphysical nonsense and should be replaced by ‘Whom would it be useful to blame?'" (Smart 54)