Strawson Basic Argument Summary

Strawson points out in premise two of his basic argument that in order to be truly morally responsible for one’s actions one would have to be Causa Sui, in a certain mental aspect. Causa Sui is the belief that something is the cause of itself. Which he later says is impossible to be the cause of oneself. If his basic argument relied on the validity of premise two then it would be impossible

Human factors are involved wildly in human behaviors and various social systems, including social laws and religion doctrines. Just like what I mentioned previously, scientists believe that the human life is pre-determined and human’s behavior is inevitable. They consider that if someone has all the information of one person, he or she may get to know how he or she is going to change in advance. But from the point of view throughout the history of human society people often turn to emphasize personal responsibility. Law and legal penalties for criminals act based entirely on the idea of individual “free will”. Most Jewish and Christian also believed that individuals should be responsible for the crime and suspects should be punished. We can imagine a psychology professor who believes determinism would say to a student: "You have to concentrate to your study, otherwise you will get nothing!" You can see the contradiction of human behaviors from this typical and ironic statement above, and notice that there exists a deviation between theoretical knowledge and actual human behaviors.

Over the course of time, in the dominion of philosophy, there has been a constant debate involving two major concepts: free will and determinism. Are our paths in life pre-determined? Do we have the ability to make decisions by using our freedom of will? While heavily subjective questions that have been answered many different authors, philosophers, etc., two authors in particular have answered these questions very similarly. David Hume, a Scottish philosopher from the 18th century, argues in his essay “Of Liberty and Necessity” that free will and determinism are compatible ideas, and that they can both be accepted at the same time without being logically incorrect. Alike Hume, 20th century author Harry G. Frankfurt concludes in his essay “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility” that the two major concepts are compatible. These two authors are among the most famous of Compatibilists (hence the fact that they believe free will and determinism are compatible ideas) in philosophical history. The question that then arises in the realm of compatibilism particularly, is one dealing with moral responsibility: If our paths in life are not totally pre-determined, and we have the ability to make decisions willingly (using free will), then how do we deem an individual morally responsible for a given decision? Frankfurt reaches the conclusion that we are held morally responsible regardless of

Experts argue about whether or not we have control over our lives. They question if destiny is determined by fate or by choices we make in our life. Two authors both take their sides on this topic producing evidence to support their claim. David Epstein author of The Sports Gene and Malcolm Gladwell author of Outliers: Story of Success both make an argument on how much we control in our lives in which they take different sides. David Epstein wrote about a track and field athlete who had incredible jumping ability despite never practicing high jumping. Malcolm Gladwell talks about how violinists were never able to float through musical school without putting in the practice hours. They each support their side with

Suppose that every event or action has a sufficient cause, which brings that event about. Today, in our scientific age, this sounds like a reasonable assumption. After all, can you imagine someone seriously claiming that when it rains, or when a plane crashes, or when a business succeeds, there might be no cause for it? Surely, human behavior is caused. It doesn't just happen for no reason at all. The types of human behavior for which people are held morally accountable are usually said to be caused by the people who engaged in that behavior. People typically cause their own behavior by making choices; thus, this type of behavior might be thought to be caused by your own choice-makings. This freedom to make

Parents have a responsibility to improve their children to the best of their abilities, and he claims that the ability to determine a child’s traits, would place a burden of responsibility on both the parents and the child for their genetic makeup, a crucially important choice which until now, has been left to a higher power to make.

The question “What makes us who we are?” has perplexed many scholars, scientists, and theorists over the years. This is a question that we still may have not found an answer to. There are theories that people are born “good”, “evil”, and as “blank slates”, but it is hard to prove any of these theories consistently. There have been countless cases of people who have grown up in “good” homes with loving parents, yet their destiny was to inflict destruction on others. On the other hand, there have been just as many cases of people who grew up on the streets without the guidance of a parental figure, but they chose to make a bad situation into a good one by growing up to do something

Galen Strawson refutes the idea that we have free will and claims that we cannot be morally responsible for our actions. According to his basic argument nothing can be the cause of itself or causa sui, and in order for one to be morally responsible for their actions they have to be the cause of one self. Therefore, since we are not causa sui we are not morally responsible for our actions. He claims that we do not have free will because we do actions that have a reason behind them and if a person acts for a reason they act that way because of how they are mentally. Thus, if no one responsible for their mental state they are not responsible for the actions that occur.

Much of how an individual turns out to be is not only dependant on the genes in which their parents have passed down to them, but also due to the family structure in which they were raised by.

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.

The world we live in, we like to depend on scientific findings to reason our claims. This reaction paper will analyze the findings by Mathew Jones and will critique specific sections on "Genetic Research Summarized" and "The Resulting Concern". Now if we solely depend on genetics to defend or accuse individuals of being a criminal it will not be an efficient strategy in the criminal justice system. Furthermore, although American Criminal Justice upholds the notion of free will, it has been discriminatory towards a marginalized population of the United States itself. So being dependent on such findings there will be a higher probability of wrong people being trialed because then the idea of free will and genetically findings will be in conflict.

The incompatibilists argue that one is morally responsible for what she has done given that she could have done otherwise. Further, they think that if determinism is true then one could not have done otherwise, so if determinism is true, one is not morally responsible for things she has done. In debates surrounding the issue of free will, philosophers have focused on discussing whether determinism is true or false. Harry Frankfurt thinks even though the requirement of alternative possibilities in order to be held morally responsible for our actions seems intuitively plausible, it is a questionable premise in the argument provided by incompatibilists. Frankfurt calls the premise that “a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise” the principle of alternative possibilities or PAP (Frankfurt, 829). He argues that PAP is false and a person can be held morally responsible even if she could not have done otherwise.

Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility talks about the principle of alternate possibilities. The principle of alternate possibilities states that someone is morally responsible if they could have chosen to do otherwise. People who believe in free will are very supportive of the principle Free will is the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion. The principle of alternate possibilities, moral responsibility, and free will are all involved in this paper written by Harry Frankfurt. Frankfurt states that “its exact meaning is a subject of controversy, particularly concerning whether someone who accepts it is thereby committed to believing that moral responsibility and determinism

Additionally, Eagleman states as we have a more thoroughly educated understanding of the human brain we can move from a legal system that labels people blameworthy, to a more forward-thinking system that will bring into account was it his fault or his biology’s fault? With that in mind, Eagleman suggest that if you don’t think a person’s genes effect how a person behaves consider this fact: If you are a carrier of certain genes, the probability that you will commit a violent crime is four times more likely than if you lacked those genes, your eight times more likely to commit a murder, and thirteen times more likely to be arrested for a sexual offence. As a matter of fact, the majority of prisoners carry these same genes, additionally, 98.1%

Although these arguments do not specifically argue that children are not responsible for their actions, they are good indicators that due to environmental and neurological factors, children are not always willingly and