Strawson- Free Will, Morality, Intro Philosophy

In this essay, I will explain and explore Galen Strawson’s skeptical view of free will in regard to his beliefs on ultimate moral responsibility. I will define the concept of ultimate moral responsibility and explain how Strawson believes that no one is ultimately responsible for their actions. I will evaluate his claims and address some controversial assumptions on which it depends. Finally, I will explore the consequences for his conclusions for morality and society.

Strawson’s skeptical argument against free will is based on his beliefs of moral responsibility. Strawson claims that in order for a person to be morally responsible for their actions, the fact that they had completed that action must emanate from something that is a part of them. In other words, a person completes a certain action because of who they are. Therefore, if someone claims that an individual is responsible for his actions, they are equally claiming that the individual is responsible for the way he is. It is at this point that Strawson sees a problem. While someone may possibly be responsible for the way that they were a few minutes prior to completing an action, it is difficult for one to hypothesize that the person was responsible for the way they were in the youngest years of their lives, especially during infancy and even extending into the prenatal period, without claiming that the individual is a “self-creator”. Many factors such as where someone is born, who their siblings are, and how their parents treat them, all shape someone’s personality and they are also factors out of the control of an individual. If it were possible for an individual to be a self-creator, then they would be God-like. However, since humans are not self-creators, meaning that we are not completely responsible for the way that we are now, then it holds that we are not morally responsible for our actions.

One main difference between Strawson's thoughts and the traditional hard deterministic view is that Strawson does not necessarily believe that determinism is true. As a result, Strawson is unconcerned by the claim that free will is incompatible with determinism, and non-committal about whether determinism is true or not. Unlike many other philosophers, Strawson does not view the question of the truth of determinism as the determining factor in the debate about free will. Hence, Strawson’s formulation that the fact that free will does not exist does not depend on the answer to the question of whether the universe is deterministic or not. Strawson’s views on free will and moral responsibility can account for both deterministic and indeterministic accounts of the universe, for in either case, a condition of control over our choices and actions must be satisfied if we are to be morally responsible for those actions.

What is not clear is what degree of control over our actions we need in order to have moral responsibility. Here, it is necessary to consider the concept of ultimate moral responsibility or deep moral responsibility in contrast to a less stringent idea of moral responsibility. To have ultimate moral responsibility for an action one must be responsible for all of the reasons and causes for that action. For example, if a man steals food he would be ultimately morally responsible for stealing the food if he could also be held responsible for the reasons and causes of doing so. For instance, if he were desperately poor and hungry, he would be ultimately responsible only if he were responsible for his hunger and poverty. As a result of this account of moral responsibility, one must examine and account for every possible order of desire, values, and psychological traits of the individual. The question as to what counts, or what should count, as a contributing reason or cause is an interesting question, however it is one that requires lengthy examination which would bring us outside the scope of this paper. In contrast, a more limited concept of moral responsibility would hold that the man is morally responsible simply because stealing is wrong, regardless of his motives. Galen Strawson believes that it is the stronger account of moral responsibility, ultimate moral responsibility, which is necessary to be able to truly place blame or praise on an individual. His choice in doing this may intuitively make more sense, given the way we as a culture seem to view moral responsibility, as evidenced by our judiciary