Strawson: What is at Stake?

Strawson provides the basic argument, which is meant to show that true moral responsibility is impossible.  In short, because we are not responsible for how we are, we are not responsible for what we do.  He thinks that any compatibalist notion of moral responsibility will be too weak.

But why should we care if I cannot be in control of every single thing about myself?  Why does it matter if there are some things that I do or some ways that I am that I do not control?  Well, Strawson reminds us of the notion of heaven and hell.  Hell is a place of eternal punishment.  Heaven is a place of eternal reward.  If we are not completely responsible for who we are or what we do, then it seems like no person will ever really deserve heaven or hell!  In order to be deserving of either eternal punishment or eternal rewards, it seems like there must be absolute moral responsibility for actions.  And as Strawson points out, absolute responsibility for what we do depends on absolute responsibility for who we are.  Since we don't control everything about ourselves (where we were born, what family morals we were brought up with, etc.), we cannot be truly responsible in a way that makes us deserve either heaven or hell.

3 Responses to the Basic Argument

Strawson talks about three basic kinds of responses to the Basic Argument.

1.  The compatibalist response will be to say that moral responsibility does not require that a person is completely in control of how they are.  In other words, one can say that moral responsibility is compatible with my inability to completely shape who I am.  Strawson responds to this by saying that such responsibility is not 'true' moral responsibility.

2.  The libertarian will simply deny that what I do is determined by who I am.  Some actions are indeterministic, according to Kane.  Strawson replies that in such a case, the indeterministic nature of my actions only makes them more random.  This randomness also seems to conflict with the notion that I am morally responsible.

An alternate libertarian objection would be simply to deny that determinism is true.

3.  The phenomenological response will be so say that it feels like there is some self, S, that can act independently from all the contingent facts about myself.  In other words, no matter what my pre-existing personality, character and motivations are, my 'self' can still choose to act independently of these facts.  Strawson responds by saying that in reality, this 'self' is dependent upon your character, personality and existing motivational structures.

Shame vs Guilt

Shame is a feeling we have about the judgments of other people. Guilt is a feeling that accompanies a judgment about ourselves. We can feel shameful for the acts of others, but guilt is a feeling we have about our own acts. For example, I can feel ashamed about my brother if he goes to jail for a crime. I do not feel responsible for his actions, but I feel shame for them. Or I can even feel shame about my own actions even if I do not think I have done something wrong. Say I voted for Ron Paul in a recent election. I may think that I did the right thing, but I may realize that others think I acted incorrectly. I may feel ashamed about my actions even if I do not feel guilty. Guilt is the emotion that is connected with moral responsibility because guilt is a feeling about the wrongness of my own actions.

Strawson: The Basic Argument

Strawson presents what he calls The Basic Argument, which is supposed to show that moral responsibility is impossible.  The argument goes like this:

1.  You do what you do because you are the way you are.

2.  To be truly morally responsible for what you do, you must be responsible for the way you are.

3.  Since you can't be responsible for the way you are, you can't be truly responsible for what you do.

4.  To be truly responsible for the way you are, you must have intentionally brought it about, which is impossible.

5.  If you intentionally brought about how you are, you must have first had a certain nature that allowed you to intentionally choose to be a certain way.

6.  In order to be truly responsible for how you are, then you must be responsible for the 'certain nature' that allowed you to choose.

7.  If you could intentionally bring about a certain nature, then you must have already had a prior nature that allowed you to choose the 'certain nature' that allows you to choose the way you are...

The problem is that if you try to explain your behavior in terms of your own choices, you must also appeal to a capacity for choice that must be present before your choices are made.  For each choice, there must be the ability to make that choice.  So if you want to explain behavior in terms of choice, you always must introduce a capacity for choice-making.  Doing so leads to an infinite regress.

The main point is that humans are not causa sui.  In other terms, human are not the ultimate causes of themselves.  It seems like true moral responsibility requires that we are causa sui.  Because we are not the ultimate causes of ourselves, we cannot be truly morally responsible.

Van Inwagen vs. Frankfurt

Frankfurt attempts to argue for compatibalism.  He wants to show that moral responsibility and determinism are compatible.  In order to do this, he shows that a classic incompatibalist thesis, PAP, is false.  PAP is the principle that states that you are morally responsible for an action only if you could have done otherwise.  Frankfurt provides thought experiments that are meant to show that there will be times that a person is morally responsible even if he or she could not have done otherwise than they did.

Van Inwagen wants to defend incompatibalism.  He thinks that there is a principle better than PAP that is not vulnerable to the kind of counterexamples that Frankfurt provides.  Van Inwagen's new incompatbalist principle is PPP: you are morally responsible for a something only if you could have prevented that thing from happening.

Remember Jones and Black.  Jones has decided to assassinate the president, and Black has put a device in Jones' brain that will make him kill the president even if he decides not to go through with it.  This is supposed to show that PAP is false, since if the reason why Jones does what he does is because he wants to (and not because he is forced to), then we would hold him morally responsible even if he could not have acted otherwise.  But when we apply PPP to this case, the tension seems to be resolved.  Jones could not prevent himself from killing the president,  so he is not morally responsible for this action.  This is supposed to be a principle that is not disproven by a case like Jones and Black.

According to PPP, moral responsibility requires the possibility to prevent states of affairs from obtaining.  So if determinism is true, then there are no states of affairs that can be prevented.  So there is no state of affairs for which anyone is responsible.

Frankurt responds that to talk about the ability to prevent things as a condition for moral responsibility (as states in PPP) is to stop talking about free will.  Frankfurt says that free will only has to do with what actions I perform with my body---the consequences that arise as a result of my actions are irrelevant to my free will.

Personal Reaction vs. Evaluation

PERSONAL REACTION simply states feelings, preferences	EVALUATION gives reasons for beliefs
I think Locke is wrong about personal identity.	…because personality traits are more important for defining a person than memories are.
Parfit is right about survival being more important than identity.	…because identity is a strict mathematical concept. It does not make sense to apply the concept of strict numerical identity to persons because persons are not the kinds of things that tend to have strict numerical identity.
I agree with Frankfurt about moral responsibility.	…because sometimes you do not have the ability to do otherwise, but this is not why you do what you do. If the reason why you perform an action is because you want to, then you are morally responsible.
I feel like Van Inwagen successfully defends Incompatibalism.	…because if determinism were true, then there would be no state of affairs that you could prevent. And if you can’t prevent something from happening, you can’t be morally responsible for it. Moral responsibility for something requires the possibility of preventing that thing from happening.

No True Scotsman Informal Fallacy

The no true Scotsman fallacy is an informal fallacy. A fallacy is an example of bad reasoning. Formal fallacies deal with the structure and form of an argument. Arguments that use informal fallacies may have logically valid structure, but they still represent bad habits for thinking.

The no true Scotsman fallacy takes its name from an example like the following:

1. No true Scotsman would put sugar in his tea.

2. Peter puts sugar in his tea.

3. Therefore, Peter is not a true Scotsman.

Again, notice how this argument follows a logically valid form (modus tollens)

1. If someone is a true Scotsman, then he does not put sugar in his tea (If P, then ~Q)

2. Peter puts sugar in his tea (Q)

3. Therefore, Petere is no true Scotsman (~P)

So what is problematic, or fallacious about this argument? The argument relies on a very narrow definition of what a ‘true Scotsman’ is. To show the problem, imagine the following exchange:

Bob: All Californians love Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Jay: But I hate Arnold and I am a Californian!

Bob: Well, you’re not a true Californian, then!

In the above exchange, Bob has not given reasons to support his claim (All Californians love the Schwarz). Rather, Bob attempts to argue just by narrowing the definition of the subject about which he is talking. He's not giving reasons to support his claims; he's just trying to make his claim more narrow to make it sound legitimate.   

This informal fallacy is relevant because we should ask if this is all that Frankfurt is doing when he responds that Van Inwagen isn't talking about 'real' free will.