Strawson and the impossibility of moral responsibility
Contemporary philosopher Galen Strawson wrote a famous article called 'The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility' in which - as the title suggests - he argued that it is not possible for anyone to be truly morally responsible. I think he is wrong.
A terminological issue to begin with: by 'moral responsibility' Strawson means something quite specific - he means being 'deserving' of benefit or harm due to what one has done. So he's talking about being responsible in a 'retributivist' sense.
Anyway, his argument - and it isn't really 'his' argument as lots of others have made it in one form or another (Nietzsche, for instance) - is that any decision we make is going to be the product of how we are. A product, in other words, of our characters. And so, he reasons, to be morally responsible for any decision that we make would require that we be morally responsible for being the way that we are - for having the characters that we do. The assumption here seems to be that to be that if B is caused by A, then one can only be morally responsible for B, if one is morally responsible for A.
But then he argues that our characters are a product of causes for which we clearly lack any responsibility. My original character was not a character I gave myself, for instance. And although it has become the character it is now through, in part, choices I have made, those choices were a product of that original character - for which I am not morally responsible - being caused to make those choices by an environment for which I am not morally responsible. And so no matter how different my current character is from my original one, it is nevertheless not a character for which I am morally responsible, as it remains the product of causes that I was not morally responsible for. Again, the principle seems to be that if I am not at all morally responsible for A, and not at all morally responsible for B, and A and B jointly cause C, then I am not at all morally responsible for C.
Strawson concludes that the only way in which we could ever be morally responsible for anything we do, is if we created our own original characters - if we created ourselves from nothing, so to speak. But as this is manifestly impossible, none of us are morally responsible for anything.
Why is he wrong? Well, first it needs to be appreciated that he has the burden of proof. Our reason represents us to be morally responsible for our decisions, and we are default justified in believing what our reason represents to be the case (for otherwise nothing can be justified). I don't think Strawson would deny this, he'd just argue that his argument above discharges that burden, for it is itself an appeal to reason.
However, I think he hasn't because there isn't really any evidence that you need positively to have created yourself in order to be morally responsible for what you are subsequently caused to do. What we have evidence for is a negative condition: that you need 'not' to have been created by alien forces. After all, if - per impossible - we did create ourselves from nothing, the reason that would make us in principle capable of being morally responsible for what we subsequently do is surely because under such circumstances nothing outside of ourselves would be responsible for us being how we are. So, the plausibility of Strawson's positive condition rests on the more fundamental negative condition: that to be morally responsible for how you are, you need 'not' to be a product of forces that have nothing to do with you.
This is important, because while it is clearly impossible to satisfy Strawson's positive condition - we can't possibly create ourselves, for that would require that we exist prior to existing, which is a contradiction - we can satisfy the negative one. We would satisfy the negative condition if we are uncaused causers - that is, if we are prime movers. We know already that there must be some such things, for otherwise we get a regress of causes. So, some things must exist uncaused. If we are ourselves such things, then the negative condition on moral responsibility will be satisfied.
And as the default is that we are indeed morally responsible, we now have reason to conclude that we are indeed prime movers. Of course, many will find that hard to swallow because it is an unusual conclusion and it flies in the face of the conventional naturalistic worldview. But a) so what? and b) the alternative - that we are not morally responsible for anything - is also unusual and flies in the face of our rational intuitions. And if you are rational and confronted with a choice between believing something that flies in the face of convention and something that flies in the face of rational intuitions, then you should opt for the first, as 'conventions' aren't evidence whereas rational intuitions are.
So there we are: Strawson is wrong. Contrary to what he has argued, moral responsibility is not impossible, it just requires being a prime mover. And as we are morally responsible, we are prime movers.
A terminological issue to begin with: by 'moral responsibility' Strawson means something quite specific - he means being 'deserving' of benefit or harm due to what one has done. So he's talking about being responsible in a 'retributivist' sense.
Anyway, his argument - and it isn't really 'his' argument as lots of others have made it in one form or another (Nietzsche, for instance) - is that any decision we make is going to be the product of how we are. A product, in other words, of our characters. And so, he reasons, to be morally responsible for any decision that we make would require that we be morally responsible for being the way that we are - for having the characters that we do. The assumption here seems to be that to be that if B is caused by A, then one can only be morally responsible for B, if one is morally responsible for A.
But then he argues that our characters are a product of causes for which we clearly lack any responsibility. My original character was not a character I gave myself, for instance. And although it has become the character it is now through, in part, choices I have made, those choices were a product of that original character - for which I am not morally responsible - being caused to make those choices by an environment for which I am not morally responsible. And so no matter how different my current character is from my original one, it is nevertheless not a character for which I am morally responsible, as it remains the product of causes that I was not morally responsible for. Again, the principle seems to be that if I am not at all morally responsible for A, and not at all morally responsible for B, and A and B jointly cause C, then I am not at all morally responsible for C.
Strawson concludes that the only way in which we could ever be morally responsible for anything we do, is if we created our own original characters - if we created ourselves from nothing, so to speak. But as this is manifestly impossible, none of us are morally responsible for anything.
Why is he wrong? Well, first it needs to be appreciated that he has the burden of proof. Our reason represents us to be morally responsible for our decisions, and we are default justified in believing what our reason represents to be the case (for otherwise nothing can be justified). I don't think Strawson would deny this, he'd just argue that his argument above discharges that burden, for it is itself an appeal to reason.
However, I think he hasn't because there isn't really any evidence that you need positively to have created yourself in order to be morally responsible for what you are subsequently caused to do. What we have evidence for is a negative condition: that you need 'not' to have been created by alien forces. After all, if - per impossible - we did create ourselves from nothing, the reason that would make us in principle capable of being morally responsible for what we subsequently do is surely because under such circumstances nothing outside of ourselves would be responsible for us being how we are. So, the plausibility of Strawson's positive condition rests on the more fundamental negative condition: that to be morally responsible for how you are, you need 'not' to be a product of forces that have nothing to do with you.
This is important, because while it is clearly impossible to satisfy Strawson's positive condition - we can't possibly create ourselves, for that would require that we exist prior to existing, which is a contradiction - we can satisfy the negative one. We would satisfy the negative condition if we are uncaused causers - that is, if we are prime movers. We know already that there must be some such things, for otherwise we get a regress of causes. So, some things must exist uncaused. If we are ourselves such things, then the negative condition on moral responsibility will be satisfied.
And as the default is that we are indeed morally responsible, we now have reason to conclude that we are indeed prime movers. Of course, many will find that hard to swallow because it is an unusual conclusion and it flies in the face of the conventional naturalistic worldview. But a) so what? and b) the alternative - that we are not morally responsible for anything - is also unusual and flies in the face of our rational intuitions. And if you are rational and confronted with a choice between believing something that flies in the face of convention and something that flies in the face of rational intuitions, then you should opt for the first, as 'conventions' aren't evidence whereas rational intuitions are.
So there we are: Strawson is wrong. Contrary to what he has argued, moral responsibility is not impossible, it just requires being a prime mover. And as we are morally responsible, we are prime movers.
Comments (111)
I think the more interesting question is what in practically terms does it mean to be morally responsible ? How many different ways can we look at the issue of responsibility? The answer, it seems to me , is connected with the issue of how we understand how human psychology is organized. We can go back to tribal cultures in which moral ‘responsibility’ did not take into account intent, back to medieval Western cultures in which torture and execution were considered proper responses to deriliction of moral responsibility( because one was responsible for one’s being good or evil).
We can fast forward to certain recent philosophies in which one is considers ‘ responsible ‘ for one’s being socially constructed. So really Strawson’s claim amounts to more of a semantic gloss than a deep examination of the the ethical implications of concepts of moral responsibility. To grapple with those is to deal with how our motives and intents are shaped in our relations with the world.
Quoting Joshs
I don't know what that means. Which claim of Strawson's are you talking about? It's complete gibberish, methinks.
By contrast we cannot, by reason alone, come to the conclusion that we are not prime movers. You have to feed in certain beliefs - and then reason from those beliefs - to get to that conclusion.
For example, I cannot by reason alone know that there is an external sensible world. And so I cannot, by reason alone, arrive at the conclusion that I am a sensible object. And yet it is on the basis of the belief that we are sensible objects - which is the conventional belief of the age we live in, or at least the conventional belief of the educated classes in the age in which we live - that one comes to the conclusion that one is not a prime mover, is it not?
So you do not arrive by reason alone at the conclusion that you are not a prime mover, rather you arrive at it by first coming to believe that you are sensible object and then coming to believe that sensible objects have external causes of their existence and that you, as one such object, have an external cause.
But if we stick ruthlessly - as we should - to following reason, then we will come to the conclusion that we are prime movers. For we can, by reason alone, know that we are morally responsible for what we do. And we can, by reason alone, know that for this to be the case, we would need to be prime movers.
Do you mean "our intuition"?
Quoting Bartricks
And I could argue that in order to arrive at the conclusion that we are morally responsible for our decisions you have to assume we are rational movers. You make the unsubstantiated claim that reason alone shows us that we are morally responsible whereas to believe that we are not prime movers needs premises. I could flip that and make the equally unsubstantiated claim that reason alone shows us that we are not prime movers, and to believe we are morally responsible requires premises (one of which is that we are prime movers).
Quoting Bartricks
Again, I think you mean intuition. If by reason alone we could know that we are morally responsible Galen Strawson and many others wouldn't have made the argument in the first place. You don't see many people claiming that 2+2=5 because that is actually something that we can arrive at by reason alone. On the other hand, the age of the argument made by Strawson and others hints that maybe it is not something that we can arrive at by reason alone.
Which behaviors and attitudes? What does
Strawson advocate in terms of dealing with crime?
Those behaviours and attitudes that presuppose we are morally responsible for what we do. They're known as the 'reactive attitudes' and would include guilt, resentment and forgiveness among others.
Quoting Joshs
I don't know - probably some kind of consequentialist approach.
It's irrelevant though, as it doesn't have any bearing on the credibility of his case. The practical implications of a conclusion don't tell us anything about its truth.
Our reason is a faculty. It's deliverances are 'intuitions'. It is by intuition that you know this argument is valid:
1. P
2. Q
3. Therefore P and Q
That is, if your reason is working well, anyway.
But 'intuition' is a term of art and is sometimes used to cover beliefs too. That is not how I use it. By talking about deliverances of our reason it is quite clear what I am talking about. If instead I used the word 'intuition' it would be less clear, precisely because that term is used to cover far more than just deliverances of our reason.
Quoting khaled
Go on then.
I explained why that's mistaken. Again: it is by reason - so, by means of a rational intuition - that I am aware I am morally responsible. And it is by rational intuition that I am aware that I would not be morally responsible if everything I did traced to external causes. So:
1. I am morally responsible
2. If I am morally responsible, not everything I do traces to external causes
And by rational intuition I can see - and so can you, surely - that it follows from these two apparent truths of reason that:
3. therefore not everything I do traces to external causes.
Those who can't reason well - that is, those who do not have very good faculties of reason, or those who just don't bother using their faculties of reason well - may not be able to see that this conclusion follows. But it does.
Quoting khaled
Strawson is appealing to reason too. I acknowledged this. I then explained why his case fails. That is, I explained why, if we attend more closely to what our reason says and stop importing conventional assumptions, we will see that his case fails.
Strawson appeals to the rational intuition that I appeal to as well - the one expressed in 2 above. He too thinks that we are not morally responsible if everything we do traces to external causes. But he falsely assumes that the only way in which this would 'not' be the case is if we create ourselves. I am pointing out that this is not the only way in which tis would not be the case: if we are prime movers then not everything we do traces to external causes.
You should run that by a Wittgensteinian or a Pragmatist.
Indeed
I think the belief that we are morally responsible comes precisely from the intuitions that are NOT deliverances of reason. “I am morally responsible” certainly doesn’t seem as clear to me as “2+2=4”. The latter is what I would call a rational intuition, not the former.
Quoting Bartricks
Sure. Except you have yet to show that premise 1 is a rational intuition. You have repeatedly stated that it is 4 times now, but haven’t shown it to be.
Your “critique” of strawson involves assuming the opposite of what he is saying in premise 1. It is the most textbook case of question begging you can have. You keep stating that your first premise is an apparently rational intuition but have not shown it to be.
Again, if “I am morally responsible” was as clear an intuition as “2+2=4” you wouldn’t have so many people making the argument that people aren’t morally responsible.
Exactly.
@Bartricks the vast majority of your inane posts could be avoided if you could just grasp the very simple concept that what seems to you to be the case does not necessarily seem so to others. What seems to any current culture to be the case does not necessarily seems so to other cultures. Even what seems to entire populations to be the case does not necessarily seems so to previous populations.
It's really not that difficult a concept to get your head around, I can't see why you're having such trouble with it.
There are many areas where we have people assume moral responsibility where it really hasn't helped. Drug addiction, obesity, poor performance in school, poverty, inability to hold a job, issues related to depression and suicide and the list goes on. Basically, the statistics and science often contradict the moral narrative. Many issues where the line between moral deviant and victim is blurred. An individual can be singled out and we can identify how this person could take actions to get themselves into a better situation, anecdotes are given as the evidence that the advice works, even if statistically the advice doesn't work. It's something of the equivalent of saying gambling is a great way to make money and pointing out someone who won the jackpot, even though statistically, we can see gambling has the opposite effect.
It's all well and good to feel morally responsible for something but if the statistics show that someone with your circumstances is generally suffering the same fate, are your feelings really accomplishing anything?
When it comes to crime for example, in 99.99% of cases, the person committing the crime is doing something self-destructive, illogical and with disastrous implications for themselves. The more egregious the crime, the truer that is. It is not the action of a rational, educated and mentally well person with many options and there are generally underlying issues that lead to the crime. In most cases where someone is taking moral responsibility, they themselves are in fact also a loser in that situation.
I don't really know what "moral responsibility is impossible" means because responsibility is just an intellectual idea and it exists if someone says it exists, to them, no matter what. However, I do think that for much of what we do that is wrong, there are serious external factors which share responsibility with us. Sometimes, it seems futile to insist people take responsibility when the statistics or science indicate that the issue is clearly bigger than them. It'll be interesting to see if when we have more knowledge about how various nature or nurture circumstances correlate with specific behaviours, whether public opinion will lean towards seeing those behaviours as just the result of bad luck. Turning an immoral action into an unfortunate one or an immoral person into a victim.
You are literally assuming that we are morally responsible as a first premise in a debate about whether or not we are morally responsible....
He has an argument - I described it - that appears to show that to be morally responsible requires something impossible, namely the power to create oneself from scratch.
I argued that this is false and that the evidence he adduced actually shows that what's needed is that one not have been created by anyone or anything external to oneself.
That condition - a negative condition - can be satisfied.
If it is possible for us to be morally responsible - which Strawson denies but I defend - and we also appear to be - which is not in dispute - then the conclusion it is rational to draw is that what could be the case is in fact the case.
You are focusing on the wrong issue. The issue is whether moral responsibility requires something impossible - self creation - or something possible- absence of creation.
Why? Because she doesn't 'deserve' to be punished.
Moral responsibility is not an 'idea'. It is something we have an idea 'of'. That doesn't mean it's an idea. I have an idea of you. That doesn't mean you are an idea. Yet that is how you are reasoning, yes? We have an idea of moral responsibility, therefore moral responsibility is an idea? If that's not the fallacious basis upon which you've come to your now no doubt irrevocable conclusion, kindly provide the valid means by which you did so.
False. You are assuming that we ARE morally responsible, not just appear to be.
Quoting Bartricks
As you wrote yourself. If you change premise 1 to “We appear to be morally responsible” then 3 doesn’t follow.
And if 3 doesn’t follow then the negative condition is not satisfied either.
You don't seem to understand what the issue is. The issue is whether it is 'possible' to be morally responsible. If it is possible, then it is reasonable to suppose we are, as that's what the appearances say. With that Strawson would not disagree. The disagreement is over whether it is possible or not..
That is an argument with the conclusion that “It is reasonable to suppose we are morally responsible”. Obviously everyone here agrees with this. Because if they disagreed they would be in jail and wouldn’t be here.
But you haven’t argued that we are morally responsible. If all you wanted to say is that it is reasonable to assume that we are then I can get behind that. That’s weirdly along pragmatist lines even though you disagree with the view.
But then I disagree with the way you made the argument. Appearances also say that there is an external physical world. And they say that everything has a cause. Those intuitions are just as valid as the intuition that we are morally responsible. So, yes it is possible to be morally responsible. It is also possible that we are not morally responsible. Some appearances point to one and some appearances point to the other. Why are you favoring “We appear to be morally responsible” over “Every effect appears to have a cause”
You’ve classified one as “a premise” and the other as “a rational intuition”. Really they’re both just appearances. You’ve yet to provide a reason why I can’t dub the former a premise and the latter the “rational intuition”.
Look, why does Strawson think we're not morally responsible? Because he thinks it is impossible to be morally responsible. That's why. If he thought it was possible for us to be morally responsible, he'd no doubt agree with me that we are indeed morally responsible.
So, where do we - Strawson and myself, that is - disagree? We disagree over whether it is metaphysically possible for us to be morally responsible. That's the issue.
What's his case for thinking that it is metaphysically impossible for us to be morally responsible? This:
1. In order to be morally responsible, our decisions need 'not' to have been caused by events that we had nothing to do with.
2. All of our decisions will have been caused by events that we had nothing to do with unless we have created ourselves.
3. Therefore, in order to be morally responsible, we need to have created ourselves
4. It is not metaphysically possible to create oneself
5. Therefore, we are not morally responsible
Which premise have I challenged? Premise 2. So the issue is whether premise 2 is true. The issue is not whether we are morally responsible or not, for if premise 2 is true, then I agree with Strawson that no-one is morally responsible, and if premise 2 is false, then Strawson would no doubt agree that we 'are' morally responsible. So, again, the issue is whether premise 2 is true. That's what it all hinges on.
Now I presented an argument against 2. That argument you have ignored. So, I'll make it again.
Remember: I agree with Strawson over 1. I agree that to be morally responsible, your decisions must not trace to external causes - causes you had nothing to do with. Maybe you disagree with that - but both Strawson and I and, to date, virtually everyone I have discussed this with, has shared the rational intuition that yes, indeed, if a decision's causal story traces entirely to external causes, then one is not morally responsible for that decision. And there is no question the intuition is widely shared, for it is the key intuition that motivates incompatibilist positions on moral responsibility-grounding free will. And for as long as there has been debate over exactly what that kind of free will involves, there have been those - normally the majority - who defend incompatibilist views about the matter.
So, premise 1 is very well supported by rational intuitions - as both Strawson and I and everyone else who knows anything about this debate or has thought about it seriously for more than a few minutes would agree.
The issue, then, is not over the probative value of rational intuitions. No-one seriously doubts their probative value, for all arguments for anything appeal to rational intuitions. Hell, the validity of an argument is itself something that we can only tell by rational intuition. So, no matter how much you want to dispute the probative value of rational intuitions, that's beside the point for a) to do so is to do no more than demonstrate confusion and b) their probative value is not at issue.
Back to premise 2 then. What was my case against it? Well, I pointed out that if we are prime movers - so, if we have not been created - then the conditions of premise 1 would be met.
What Strawson has done is assume that there is only one way in which the conditions of premise 1 would be met - namely, if we create ourselves. What I am pointing out is that there is another way. Namely, if we exist uncreated. If we exist uncreated, then our decisions will not have causal histories that trace entirely to events outside of us.
To counter my case you would need to argue that it is impossible for something to exist uncreated. That's a tall order. We seem to know by rational reflection alone that if anything exists, at least something must exist uncreated, for if anything exists it has either been caused to exist or it exists uncreated. And if it has been caused to exist, we must eventually posit something that exists uncreated to operate as the originator of the causal chain that produced it. Plus, you have to argue that it is positively impossible for something to exist uncreated, not just that nothing in fact exists uncreated.
Quoting Bartricks
Why is that? Because we have the intuition that we are therefore it is reasonable to believe it? But we also have the intuition that every effect has a cause. You have to favor one and discard the other arbitrarily.
Quoting Bartricks
Compatibilists might have something to say about that.
Quoting Bartricks
No, I would only need to argue that we are not such things. That WE do not exist uncreated. Which is precisely what Strawson tries to do. You have not actually argued that we exist uncreated. You've said:
Quoting Bartricks
But then jumped to:
Quoting Bartricks
Which is fallacious.
1- If we are prime movers-> We are morally responsible
2- The default view is that we are morally responsible
3- Therefore, we are prime movers
4- Therefore we are morally responsible
Is clearly fallacious
Just like:
1- If Antinatalism is false -> It is ok to have children
2- The default view is that it is ok to have children
3- Therefore antinatalism is false.
4- Therefore it is ok to have children.
Is clearly fallacious.
This wacko argument can be used to make any A and B true if A->B and B is the default view (not even if B is true which still wouldn't be enough to make A true)
Yes, what our reason represents to be the case, we are default justified in believing to be the case. So, we are default justified in believing that we are morally responsible. That isn't the issue.
You keep insisting that I have denied that every effect has a cause. Where, precisely, have I done that? I agree that our reason says that every effect has a cause. You are simply conflating quite different claims. (The claim that some things exist uncaused is not equivalent to the claim that some effects lack causes). So it is simply untrue that I am arbitrarily dismissing some rational intuitions over others. Rather, I am saying one thing and you're thinking I've said another.
Quoting khaled
No they wouldn't. I'm a compatibilist myself!
Quoting khaled
Er, no. You're just confused. Look at what premise 2 says. It says that the only way in which it would be true that our decisions are not the product of external causes is if we create ourselves.
I am disputing that premise. I am saying that there is another way in which it would be true that our decisions are not the product of external causes, namely if we exist but have not been created.
Now how on earth would insisting that we have been created do anything whatever to challenge my claim? My claim is not about what we in fact are - that's what I 'conclude' , not what I assume - my claim is that there is a metaphysically possible way in which it can be true that our decisions are not wholly the product of external causes.
So you're simply confused about what you need to do to challenge my case.
Quoting khaled
No it isn't. What fallacy does this argument commit then:
1. If we appear to be morally responsible, and it is metaphysically possible for us to be morally responsible, then we are justified in believing that we are.
2. We appear to be morally responsible and it is metaphysically possible for us to be morally responsible
3. Therefore we are justified in believing that we are morally responsible.
Now, if we are justified in believing that we are morally responsible, and there is only one way in which it would be possible for us to be - and that's what I have argued - then we are justified in believing that such conditions obtain. That is, we are justified in believing that we are prime movers.
There's no fallacy committed there. None.
You just keep replacing what I've said and argued with quite different claims and arguments. Note, I have not said that if we are prime movers we are morally responsible. I have concluded that if we are morally responsible, then we are prime movers. You're the one committing a fallacy - the fallacy of affirming the consequent. My conclusion: if we are morally responsible, then we are prime movers. Your inference: if we are prime movers, then we are morally responsible. Fallacious - that's to go from 1. If P, then Q, to 2. Q, to 3. Therefore P.
Being a prime mover is a 'necessary' but not 'sufficient' condition on being morally responsible.
And as for that argument re antinatalism - well, though clumsily laid out, doesn't commit a fallacy. This argument is valid:
1. If antinatalism is false, it is ok to have kids
2. Antinatalism is false
3. therefore it is ok to have kids.
Again, that's valid - it's not fallacious!! It's not sound - premise 2 is false - but it is valid.
Correct. But first notice this form of the argument. It ends with "We are justified in believing that we are morally responsible". I already said:
Quoting khaled
You then responded with:
Quoting Bartricks
So which exactly are you arguing for? That we are morally responsible? Or that it is reasonable to believe that we are morally responsible? Because no one disagrees with the latter, and it is not what Strawson tries to argue against. The argument I quoted at the start of this reply argues for the latter well. Yet you claim you argue for the former.
Quoting Bartricks
You'll have to make your case clear first as per above.
Quoting Bartricks
How so? You want to claim that we exist uncaused. That is equivalent to claiming that our birth did not have causes no? Or else what exactly is the "We" that you claim exists uncaused if not our physical bodies.
Quoting Bartricks
Some other time.
If Strawson's argument - an argument you haven't said anything about - is a good one, then it will furnish those who understand it with an epistemic reason to believe that no one is morally responsible.
Anyway, this is all beside the point - which, by now, is clearly something you are not going to be able to recognise.
Quoting khaled
Er, that argument was valid by all the canons of logic. So if you think it is fallacious - and note, we've already established that you're rubbish at detecting fallacies, for you committed the fallacy of affirming the consequent - you're just underlining what's already clear: that you don't know how to reason well.
Quoting khaled
No, I don't 'claim' that we exist uncaused, I 'conclude' that we do. Big difference. And I don't 'want' to conclude it - I'm not expressing my desires - I am simply noticing that it follows. I don't 'want' to believe that there is a computer in front of me, but I conclude that there is becasue there appears to be.
So, I conclude that we exist uncaused. You think that this means I think that not all effects have causes. Quite how you got to that conclusion is your business, but it doesn't follow from anything I have said. I am a 'thing' - an object. I am not an 'effect'. An 'effect' is an event. Events have causes. But not all objects have causes. If they did, then we'd have an infinite regress of events. And that's not possible. Thus, though all events have causes, not all objects do.
So, what you have done is make a category error. You have confused events with objects. What is self-evident to reason is that all events have causes. It is also self evident to reason that no actual infinities exist. And from that we can conclude that some events must have objects that cause them rather than other events (for otherwise we will have to posit an actual infinity of events). Those objects - the objects that initiate causal chains - have not been 'caused'. They are not events.
Agreed. That's not what Strawson is doing though. He is arguing that we do not, in fact, have any moral responsibility. He is not arguing that we have no powerful reasons to believe that we have moral responsibility. He is providing powerful reasons to believe that we do not. Mainly, he assumes determinism and goes on to see that therefore we are not responsible for our actions.
Quoting Bartricks
You're right which is why I edited it out. How long have you been typing the reply lol. You must have not noticed that I removed it.
Quoting Bartricks
Your birth is an event. And your birth clearly had causes.
Quoting Bartricks
No objects have causes. That's the category error. It makes no sense to say "My chair was caused". Objects are created. And their creation is an event. With causes.
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
Ad homs and an aggressive tone say more about you than me.
Quoting Bartricks
When exactly?
Yes, Strawson is arguing that we have powerful epistemic reason to believe that we are not morally responsible. At what point did I deny that this is what he's arguing?
I am taking issue with his case and arguing that he has not provided us with epistemic reason to believe that we are not morally responsible.
Quoting khaled
Er, no he doesn't. It doesn't matter whether determinism is true or not - he thinks that's a red herring - for what one needs, he argues, is the ability to create oneself. That's not something that either determinism or indeterminism can give us. Hence why he concludes that moral responsibility is 'impossible'. So you demonstrably do not understand his case.
Quoting khaled
Er, yes. And where did I dispute those things? I am not an event, right? Events are events. Objects are objects. Big difference. All you're doing is pointing to events and pointing out that they have causes. Which is not something I dispute.
Quoting khaled
Not really, but who cares.
Quoting khaled
I explained. I argued that to be morally responsible you need to be a prime mover, right? You then asserted that my view was that if we are prime movers, we're morally responsible. That's not my view and the only way you could possibly have thought it was, beyond just randomly plucking views out of the ether and attributing them to me, is if you had committed the fallacy of affirming the consequent.
This view: 'if you are morally responsible, you are a prime mover' is not equivalent to this view 'if you are a prime mover you are morally responsible'.
Quoting Bartricks
First off, what exactly does it mean to you for an object to be "uncaused". You argue that:
Quoting Bartricks
I assumed this meant "uncaused" as in "nothing caused its creation". Something like God. But no apparently the creation of something can be caused by external factors, yet the thing can still be an "uncaused mover". So what the heck does "uncaused" mean here? What would be a "caused" mover be if even when the object's creation is due to factors that have nothing to do with it, it is still apparently an "uncaused mover"?
Stop being such a snowflake. You accused me - falsely - of committing fallacies while committing at least one yourself.
Quoting khaled
Yes, that's what it means. Some objects exist and have not been caused to exist. And some objects can cause events to occur without having been caused to do so. We can know this by rational reflection.
If we ourselves are objects of such a kind, then our decisions will not trace exclusively to external causes. And, as such, we would then be capable of being morally responsible.
Quoting khaled
I haven't the faintest idea how you have reached that conclusion. That's not my view. If an object has been created by something external to it, then even though that object may well be able to cause events to occur without being directly caused to do so, the simple fact is that its existence traces to external causes and so the condition on responsibility will not be satisfied if we are objects of that kind.
To satisfy the condition on moral responsibility we would need to be objects that have not been created. As it is metaphysically possible for us to be such objects - for such objects clearly exist as events could not occur without them, and what is actually the case is also possibly the case - then Strawson is wrong in thinking that it is impossible for anyone to be morally responsible.
But I didn’t attack you personally did I?
Quoting Bartricks
And aren’t you an object of that kind? Your parents, and whatever factors influenced their decision to have you are all external to you. So even though you will be able to cause events to occur without being directly caused to do so, the simple fact is that your existence traces to external causes and so the condition on responsibility will not be satisfied if you are an object of that kind.
Quoting Bartricks
But we are so too bad.
Quoting Bartricks
I have yet to see a human that was uncaused. So I don’t understand what you mean here. If a mind exists uncaused it’s definitely not a human mind.
Nor I you. If you accuse someone of committing fallacies when they are clearly not - which is, incidentally, to accuse someone of reasoning badly - then you should expect to be told that you are reasoning badly if you yourself are committing fallacies.
Quoting khaled
Again with the bad reasoning. The following argument is not fallacious:
1. If I am morally responsible, I am an uncreated thing
2. I am morally responsible
3. Therefore, I am an uncreated thing
I have provided an argument in support of 1. To be morally responsible - as Strawson agrees - it needs to be the case that one's decisions do not trace to exclusively external causes. The only way that condition can be satisfied is if I am an uncreated thing. So, 'if' I am morally responsible, then I am an uncreated thing.
I am morally responsible - or at least, I have epistemic reason to believe I am and none to believe I am not. So premise 2 is true beyond a reasonable doubt. The conclusion follows as a matter of logic.
So, by simply asserting that I am not an uncreated thing you are committing another fallacy - the fallacy of begging the question.
Quoting khaled
Yes, and I have not disputed that. But it is a conventional belief - and not a truth of reason - that we are our sensible bodies. That's just the view of the current age, not evidence that it is true. Philosophy is about figuring out what's true, it is not about just parroting what's conventionally believed.
So, my sensible body appears to be a created thing. i seem to have good evidence that it came into being at a certain time, and that before that time it was not around.
I also have evidence that I am an uncreated thing.
Therefore, the evidence that I am an uncreated thing is also evidence that I am not a sensible thing.
Thus, though my sensible body was created, I was not and thus I am not my sensible body.
Not a conventional view at the moment, but so what?
You're just not following the argument. Yes, human bodies - sensible bodies - seem to be created things. Not in dispute. We have empirical evidence that it is true.
Don't just assume that you are your sensible body. You don't have any evidence for that. You have evidence that you 'have' a sensible body. But that is not evidence that you 'are' a sensible body. I have a car. I am not a car. I have a house. I am not a house. And so on. I have a sensible body. Am I my sensible body?
It would seem not. I have prima facie evidence I am morally responsible, for my reason represents me to be and I shouldn't just ignore what my reason says arbitrarily. I have prima facie evidence that moral responsibility requires being an uncreated thing, for reasons already gone through at length above. I have prima facie evidence that this is a valid argument:
1. If I am morally responsible, I am an uncreated thing
2. I am morally responsible
3. Therefore, I am an uncreated thing
I therefore have good evidence that I am an uncreated thing.
I have good evidence my sensible body is a created thing.
I have good evidence that this is a valid argument:
1. If I am my sensible body, then I am a created thing
2. I am not a created thing
3. Therefore I am not my sensible body.
So, I have good evidence that I am an uncreated thing and, as such, not my sensible body.
That's not a conventional belief. So what?
Is question begging no? Not for the purposes of proving that we are uncreated or whatever, but for the purposes of proving that we are morally responsible. As I understand you use “We are uncaused movers” to show that we are morally responsible.
Quoting Bartricks
So your argument for:
Quoting Bartricks
Relies on the premise that:
Quoting Bartricks
?
Quoting Bartricks
Yes and I’ve asked a while ago what you mean by “uncaused” if not that your physical bodies are uncaused. You didn’t reply so I assumed that’s what you meant. Apparently not.
Quoting Bartricks
I never claimed you were. But was your creation not caused by the creation of your sensible body? I am not saying they are the same. I am saying the former is caused by the latter. If you wish to dispute this you’d have to show a “person” that doesn’t have a body. A tall order.
On the other hand we know when certain things happen to the body “You” no longer exist. So that provides evidence that “You” require your body to exist. Or do we disagree there too?
Quoting Bartricks
If something is "quite obvious", does that mean it is no longer possible for it to exist only as a judgement? It does mean something but not that. There is a biological basis for concepts such as "fairness" understood by many creatures less intelligent than us. Even a dog or a chimp will become irate if it believes it has been treated unfairly. However, that is based on their perspective, it is just their idea that they've been treated unfairly, we don't have to agree. Our uniformity, where we all agree that Jane has been treated unfairly can be explained in this alternative way, our shared biology. It is not evidence that moral responsibility exists as something more than a perspective.
I see moral responsibility as a judgement made by an intelligent being because it only exists as something asserted by an intelligent being. Where else can we see moral responsibility? If there is a circumstance where it's more than an idea then where can someone see it?
No. The opposite! We are morally responsible, therefore we are uncreated things.
I have argued that moral responsibility requires being an uncreated thing, right? That's the first leg. That's the important leg - it's the part where I disagree with, and hopefully refute Strawson.
That leg establishes the truth of this premise:
1. If I am morally responsible, then I am an uncreated thing
Am I morally responsible? Well, I now have every reason to think I am - for my reason represents me to be - and no reason to think I am not. If you think otherwise, you need to show some fault in the first leg.
So, this premise is now one I have every reason to think is true, and none to think is false:
2. I am morally responsible.
From which it follows
3. I am an uncreated thing.
This isn't hard. If Strawson was right, then we had excellent reason to think that we are not morally responsible. For if it is not possible to be morally responsible, then we're obviously not morally responsible and that our reason says otherwise would have to be deemed an occasion where our reason lets us down.
But Strawson is not right - or so I have argued - and thus we do now have excellent reason to think that we are morally responsible, for a) our reason represents us to be and b) it is possible for us to be.
Quoting khaled
Are you being obtuse or is English not your first language? I can't take seriously that you are failing to understand this. I did reply - I said that my sensible body appears to have been caused to exist.
I have not been caused to exist.
My sensible body has.
I have not.
My sensible body has.
Am I a created thing? No.
Is my sensible body? Yes.
Clear enough for you?
Quoting khaled
Er, no. I will try and express it in a way you can understand. "I is uncreated thing. Body is created thing. I not be created. Body created. I not be. Body is be. I not be body be."
Quoting khaled
No. Just no.
Quoting khaled
Christ.
If strawberries taste nice, does that mean I own a mercedes?
Quoting Judaka
So? I don't think any premise of my argument mentioned irate chimps or dogs. All it does is suggest that dogs and chimps recognise that they deserve things - that is, that dogs and chimps have a rudimentary faculty of reason and recognise that others are morally responsible for their behaviour and owe them certain kinds of respect and so on. It doesn't address anything in my argument or Strawson's.
Quoting Judaka
And I think that's confused nonsense.
You're confusing beliefs with their objects. I believe I am sat on a chair. that doesn't mean that chairs are beliefs, right?
I believe I am morally responsible.
That doesn't mean moral responsibility is a belief.
Note, this thread is not about what moral responsibility 'is'. That's a topic in metaethics. (Your view is thoroughly confused - and you've arrived at it via fallaciously - but that's beside the point). This thread is about what's needed to be morally responsible. Strawson thinks you need to be a self-creator. I think you just need to be uncreated.
Quoting Judaka
Where can you 'see' moral responsibility? In the cabinet between love and numbers.
Quoting Judaka
The keyword here is only, does a chair only exist as a belief? No, a chair is a physical object that can be touched and seen. When we are dealing with metrics like these, the way we prove the existence of chairs is simple. I gave the examples of dogs and chimps to hypothesise that the uniformity in our moral judgements is likely due to our shared biology. It is not because Jane is factually lacking in moral responsibility and everyone can just see the truth.
You would likely not agree with the ideas about what people should accept moral responsibility for which existed hundreds or thousands of years ago. Based on that trend, people will not agree with how you see moral responsibility in a hundred or hundreds of years in the future. Even when your obvious goes against the beliefs of other cultures and people, where does your confidence come from? If we took ten people who had views identical about the objectivity of morality, from different places around the world, at different times, you'd all disagree with each other. Do you even deny that?
So... all you argue is that we are uncreated things? You don’t actually argue about whether or not we are morally responsible? That’s just a given?
Why mention strawson at all then?
Quoting Bartricks
Well you’ve argued that being an uncreated being is sufficient for moral responsibility as far as I can tell. But that’s a technicality since the alternative is impossible.
Quoting Bartricks
Or you somehow created yourself but that makes no sense.
Quoting Bartricks
You just assume this. And you do so to reach the conclusion that we are uncreated things (whatever that means). Again, why mention strawson at all if you’re not even going to argue that we are morally responsible, just that we are uncreated.
Quoting Bartricks
What you have argued is really only premise 1. That is, one of the ways to be morally responsible is to be an uncaused mover. I don’t think anyone would disagree with this. The other way is to somehow cause yourself but that is impossible (because it makes no sense). And then you use this to say that we are uncaused movers based on the assumption that we are morally responsible.
You have not argued that people have a moral responsibility. You’ve assumed it. When you title your post “Strawson and the impossibility of moral responsibility” and you conclude he’s wrong I assumed that you meant he is wrong about us not being morally responsible. But that’s not what you show. All you show is that we are uncaused movers based on the assumption that we are morally responsible. You do not justify or argue for this assumption. You just deem it obvious.
Quoting Bartricks
“It is possible and it seems to be the case so it must be the case” Is a weak argument. Sure we shouldn’t dismiss our intuitions, but saying that X is the case because it is possible for X to be the case and X seems to be the case is not very convincing in a debate about whether or not X is the case.
This also applies to having children being correct. Possible, metaphysically. Also what our reason represents to us (at least, demonstrably what most people’s reason represents to them). Does that make it the case? Or are you going to say that our reason does not represent to us that having children is ok?
Quoting Bartricks
Ok so you are not a created thing. “You” also seem to be unaffected by what happens to your body (since when I suggest that “you” cease to exist upon death or blackout you don’t like that)
So what the heck is this “You” exactly? A ghost? It is completely unaffected by the body, and uncaused by it. Yet it somehow affects it.
What happens to “You” after you die do you think?
And what are the physical implications of “You”. It is a mover yes? So it can exert some force on the physical world? (Otherwise it would just be obsolete and not a mover). So how do you explain that in the context of our understanding of physics? Are you going to propose that within a human body it is possible to detect spontaneous, uncaused forces or current that are caused by “You”?
See the OP.
Quoting khaled
No, my arguments imply that it is 'necessary' not that it is sufficient. It is your poor reasoning skills - your tendency to commit the fallacy of affirming the consequent - that convinces you otherwise.
The rest, I shall charitably assume, is you being obtuse for the purpose of some kind of sadistic amusement.
Quoting Bartricks
What you did was show that it is sufficient. But then since the only other alternative is impossible it becomes necessary.
As I said:
Quoting khaled
Quoting Bartricks
Charitably? Sadistic? Amusement??????
None of those applies.
Quoting khaled
Quoting khaled
Quoting khaled
No. I said that if we are prime movers then we have what is 'in principle' needed to be morally responsible. That doesn't mean that it is 'sufficient' for moral responsibility. Once more: saying 'this is needed for moral responsibility' is not equivalent to saying 'this is sufficient for moral responsibility'. (Strawson isn't talking about what's sufficient either).
Quoting khaled
Me.
I understand.
Quoting Bartricks
Ok. How do you then get premise 2? Because
Quoting khaled
And it also applies to having children.
First leg, and something I think anyone can agree on:
1- If we need not concern ourselves with the well-being of people who are not born yet, having children is ok.
Is having children ok? Well, I now have every reason to think it is - for my reason represents it to be ok - and no reason to think it is not ok. If you think otherwise, you need to show some fault in the first leg.
2- Having children is ok.
3- We need not concern ourselves with the well-being of people who are not born yet.
See the problem? It is in deriving premise 2. It just doesn’t follow that “it is possible and it seems to be the case so it must be the case”. Which then leads to a conclusion that is probably false.
Quoting Bartricks
Any other properties? Is it physical? What happens to it after its body dies? Etc
Moral Responsibility
Quoting Bartricks
Every voluntary action that a person takes (so excluding breathing, sleeping, etc) has some measurable impact on the physical world - however minimal. Are there other categories of responsibility that are non-retributive in nature?
Do you agree with Strawson and myself that if one is in no way morally responsible for A, and in no way morally responsible for B, and A and B are wholly causally responsible for C, then one is in no way morally responsible for C?
Hmm....
Quoting khaled
It's not a weak argument at all. You really don't seem to understand the dialectic here. The best evidence one can ever have for anything is powerful epistemic reason to think that it is the case and none to think that it isn't. Right?
Okay. Now, we have extremely powerful epistemic reason to think we're morally responsible. Billions - I mean, literally billions - of people have rational intuitions that represent themselves and others to be morally responsible. There's about as much evidence that we're morally responsible as there is that there are trees.
Strawson's argument - if it worked - would have been a source of countervailing epistemic reasons. So, Strawson's argument - if it worked - would have raised a reasonable doubt about whether we really are morally responsible.
It doesn't work. So now the way is clear - we have powerful epistemic reason to believe we are morally responsible and no epistemic reason to think otherwise.
I don't know why you keep drawing a parallel with antinatalism. Nobody - including prominent antinatalists - denies that the antinatalist conclusion is counter-intuitive on its face. Antinatalists accept that they have the burden of proof and then they seek to discharge it.
Quoting khaled
It's not 'it'. It's 'me'.
No,I don't appear to be a physical thing - I, the morally responsible thing, appear not to be my sensible body. And if you believe sensible bodies are physical bodies, then I appear not to be a physical body. Physical bodies - if any exist - are the kinds of thing that come into being. That is, they don't seem to exist uncreated. So, given that I appear to exist uncreated, I appear not to be a physical thing.
I don't know what will happen to me after my sensible body dies. But it seems likely something very bad awaits us after our sensible bodies die, for our reason tells us to do pretty much all we can to avoid sensible death unless we are in absolute agony. So, that suggests - but doesn't entail - that what awaits us after our sensible demise is worse than here, but not absolute agony.
Then there's 'moral responsibility' in the 'desert' or 'retributivist' sense used by Strawson and most others working on the issue of free will. Here is denotes the idea that we can, in principle, be deserving of benefit or harm depending on how we have behaved. That's why it is associated with free will.
It is entirely possible for someone to defend the idea that we are morally responsible in the first sense, yet deny that we are morally responsible in the second. There are some moral theories that actually entail this, such as utilitarianism. This is because the desert-based notion of moral responsibility is essentially deontological. If you deserve to come to harm, then it is good if you come to harm even if no benefit accrues from the harm being visited on you. So, what one deserves in terms of retribution is a function of what one has done, rather than a function of the consequences of giving it to you.
But there is plenty to think it isn’t.
Quoting Bartricks
And Strawson accepts that he has burden of proof and seeks to discharge it. He does this (in the same way antinatalists do) by relying on our other intuitions. One such intuition is that we are not responsible for something if its cause traces entirely outside of ourselves. So in order to be responsible you would have to somehow cause your own creation. Or, as you noted, you would have to be an uncaused mover.
Problem is, you don’t actually specify in any way what this “uncaused mover” does or how it works. If it existed, then we would expect spontaneous, uncaused current or force within the body that we can then attribute to the “uncaused mover” aka “you”. Since this is not the case, we can conclude that we are not uncaused movers. That there is no “you” that is uncaused by your birth. As, again, if you want to propose the existence of a non sensible (or non physical) thing that can actually cause some movement, you would be flying in the face of empirical observations.
Conservation of energy and momentum still hold even inside the human body. There is no “non physical causer”. Once one is detected then we can conclude that the necessary conditions for moral responsibility have been met. But until then, you cannot assume that the necessary conditions have been met.
So given that, and given you cannot have created yourself, we have good reason to believe people are not morally responsible, since all your actions trace to external causes. It is a good reason because it is derived from other rational intuitions, in the same way ANs try to derive their argument.
Again, if you have issue with this you would need to find some action A, and trace its causes backwards until you find an “uncaused movement” that can be attributed to yourself. Until this is actually done, you cannot assume it is possible. And if such a thing exists, I think scientists would have noticed by now that conservation of energy and momentum for some reason seem to not hold in the human body. So we have good empirical data (rather lack thereof) suggesting there is no such thing.
Quoting Bartricks
Not really suggestive. Thinking in terms of evolution, the only creatures that survive would be those that seek to avoid dying. So the fact that you are here right now implies you’re such a creature. In this sense, our reason is biased. Creatures whose reason told them that dying isn’t so bad just aren’t around anymore. Due to the bias there is not enough evidence to conclude that our reason tells us that dying is bad because it is actually bad. It doesn’t mean it is actually bad, only that it had been evolutionarily useful to think it is bad.
It could be the case that heaven is real and everyone goes there with no downsides and people would still think dying is bad. Because they have no way of confirming the afterlife, and only the ones that avoid it (by thinking death is bad) will survive (obviously)
Quoting Bartricks
Again, not suggestive for the same reasons as above. A rational intuition that we are morally responsible is useful. Societies and people who didn’t have it died out. So of course everyone today would have it. That doesn’t mean it is true, only that it is evolutionarily useful to have. So we do not have powerful epistemic reason to believe we are morally responsible due to this bias.
This is precisely why “It seems to be the case and it could be the case therefore it is the case” is a terrible argument. It could just be that it seems to be the case because it had been evolutionarily useful to assume it to be the case, not because it is actually the case. I gave the heaven example above.
I have some slight suspicion that your congratulations are not sincere, and yet - I accept your congratulations sincerely because I am a philosopher, and as such can only respond in my own terms, in reference to my tradition.
If you demand I respond directly to the OP - I can, but only to point out that there you said Strawson is wrong, and now you say:
Quoting Bartricks
If insincere congratulations are the order of the day: bravo!
This is all interesting, but not what I asked. Perhaps I was not clear.
I'm questioning why the word moral needs to be in here. Is there such a concept as immoral responsibility? I doubt it.
But perhaps there are other categories of responsibility that are conceptually distinct from "moral responsibility"? If not, then the word "moral" seems redundant.
They weren't remotely sincere. And no philosopher would sayQuoting counterpunch.
So you're not scoring too highly on the sincerity scale.
Quoting counterpunch
Well if you were a philosopher - or, indeed, just a careful reasoner - you'd realize that my disagreement with Strawson is not over the truth of that principle, but rather over whether it is metaphysically possible for us to make decisions to which it would not apply. He thinks not - hence he concludes that moral responsibility is impossible - whereas I am arguing otherwise. So, kudos for seeing inconsistency where it isn't. Quite an achievement.
Quoting Bartricks
If Strawson is wrong, and you agree with him, that would make you wrong.
So, no - I don't agree with you!
lol.
And I don't have to. It is sufficient for the argument to go through that it is metaphysically possible for there to be such things. If it is metaphysically possible for there to be such things, then we no longer have any epistemic reason to doubt we are morally responsible and also have reason to conclude that we are such things - that we are uncaused causers.
One can have excellent evidence that X is the case, without having to know 'how' it is the case. For instance, I have excellent evidence my computer is working - it is working - yet if you ask me 'how' it is working, I haven't a clue. By your logic, of course, the fact I haven't a clue how it is working would constitute evidence that it isn't working!
It gets worse for you. Not only have you reasoned fallaciously once more - fallaciously thinking that if one can't explain how something works, then one has evidence it isn't working - you also demonstrate conceptual incompetence. For what do you mean by 'how does it work?' if not 'explain the causes of the uncaused causer's causings?' Which is, of course, conceptually confused.
The rest of what you say is once more flagrantly question begging. Rather than following the argument to its logical conclusion - which we've already established you have great trouble doing - you are just appealing to the conventional assumption that we are physical bodies. Oh, and you commit further fallacies - you think that as there is no empirical evidence that we are uncaused causers (how could there be?), that means there is empirical evidence that we are 'not' uncaused causers. Which is fallacious. Are you being sponsored? I mean, it's actually quite impressive to commit that many fallacies in such a small space. It's almost like you think fallaciously exclusively.
He thinks that if the causes of your decision trace to external events, then you are not morally responsible for that decision.
I agree with that. That's 'A' above.
He also thinks that it is impossible for it to be the case that the causes of our decisions will not trace to external events.
I disagree with that. That's B.
Presumably you are very puzzled by doors that have 'push' written on one side and 'pull' on the other. I pulled it to get in, so manifestly I must pull it to get out. That's you reasoning about opening the door.
Quoting Bartricks
I also think more than one thing. Given that I had already expressed a view that we are morally responsible, when you asked me:
Quoting Bartricks
You must have assumed I would disagree, but the crude arithmetic of these propositions is sound - if one accepts the propositions; and so you were inviting me to make as ass of myself. Alternatively, the more difficult route, would be that I agree with the crude arithmetic, and you attack me with the metaphysical implications. Neither seemed particularly attractive, and so instead, I decided to stick with what I wrote, and mock your clumsy attempts at boxing me in.
But we have empirical reasons to doubt them.
If an argument relies on unicorns existing you can’t say “It is metaphysically possible for unicorns to exist therefore this argument goes through”. If we have never seen a unicorn, DESPITE looking for unicorns, then we have very good reason to think that that argument is mistaken, for it relies on something that (it is reasonable to believe) doesn’t exist to exist.
In the same way that if we have never detected the effects of “uncaused causers” (as detecting them themselves is impossible by definition) despite looking, we have very good reason to think the argument is mistaken no?
Quoting Bartricks
Not a good comparison. Because your computer working does not fly in the face of empirical observations. Moreover, your computer working can be confirmed empirically. I can try to turn it on and if it does then it is working.
However the existence of uncaused causers does fly in the face of empirical observations. And is not itself an empirical observation.
On the one hand you have a confirmable event that you cannot explain. On the other you have a hypothesis that flies in the face of empirical data not just that you cannot explain (though that too). Again, not a good comparison.
Quoting Bartricks
That would be fallacious indeed.
However what I actually said was that we already have evidence that goes against your hypothesis of the existence of uncaused causers. Or, at least, we have no evidence supporting it despite looking (which makes it reasonable to believe it doesn’t exist). Therefore uncaused causers don’t exist (at least we aren’t those). Until you can detect their effects you cannot assume they exist.
Quoting Bartricks
“How does it fit into our understanding of physics”. It doesn’t, it contradicts it (conservation of energy and momentum would be thrown out the window). So it’s wrong in the absence of empirical evidence confirming the effects of these uncaused causers. And if you can find such evidence no doubt you would win at least a Nobel prize and would result in a new era for physics. A total overhaul.
Quoting Bartricks
It’s conventional because no other “we” had been detected. It isn’t question begging. It’s you who assumes uncaused causers exist despite a complete lack of evidence.
And the way you arrive at the conclusion relies on premise 2 which I will get to.
Quoting Bartricks
Where did I say this? I never said we have evidence uncaused causers don’t exist. I said we don’t have evidence they do. And such evidence is required for your argument, if you want it to be any more than idle conjecture.
More importantly you haven’t addressed one of the more important points. That this:
Quoting Bartricks
Is not actually the case when it comes to evolutionarily useful beliefs. As I have explained and gave an example for. When something is evolutionarily advantageous to believe then we CANNOT say that simply because it seems to be the case and it is possible that it is the case. Because if it evolutionarily advantageous it will seem the case REGARDLESS of what is actually the case.
As an example, if what follows death is heaven OR hell (not saying those are the 2 options, just a hypothetical), people will still think death is bad. Because the people that survive are only those that think death is bad REGARDLESS of which is actually the case.
Similarly, the people that survive will think they are morally responsible REGARDLESS of which is actually the case (because if they didn’t they would be dead by now).
So your premise 2 remains unjustified. The premise you use to say that we are uncaused causers.
So your conclusion, that we are uncaused causers, uses an unjustified premise (that we are morally responsible) AND flies in the face of empirical observations or at least is completely unsupported empirically despite people looking for support for it.
Really? Who's a good boy!? You are. Yes you are.
Quoting counterpunch
You didn't wait for me to invite you.
Quoting counterpunch
I can't box fog.
Quoting Bartricks
You expressed no agreement with Strawson in the OP. You expressed strong disagreement; and then asked me if I agree with you and Strawson. Either you're an idiot or a snake. Your choice!
The only point of note was your appeal to the possibility of an evolutionary discrediting account of our rational intuition that we are morally responsible.
The problem is that if evolutionary accounts of how we have acquired our rational intuitions discredit those intuitions, then all of our rational intuitions are going to end up being discredited. And that's self-defeating (because our evidence that there is a sensible world in which evolution operates itself involves appealing to rational intuitions).
So, it is not in general the case that rational intuitions are discredited by having evolutionary explanations. Rather, one must distinguish between when such an account discredits the intuitions and when it does not.
What's your account? When does an evolutionary account of our rational intuitions discredit them, and when does it not?
So, once more - and I have to be honest, I think a five year old could understand this - Strawson thinks more than one thing. I disagree with one of the things he thinks. But I agree with another thing he thinks.
One thing I disagree with. One thing. Not all things.
Opening line:
Quoting Bartricks
Closing line:
Quoting Bartricks
Nothing in-between indicates any agreement with, or acceptance of any part of his argument.
Quoting Bartricks
Question begging is assuming the conclusion in your premises. Which conclusion have I assumed in which premise?
I want to establish is that we have good reason to believe that there are no uncaused causers. The same reason we give for believing there are no unicorns or Yetis. We’ve looked and haven’t found any or even the effects of any. Moreover, for uncaused causers, we have found a massive volumes of contradictory evidence (conservation of energy and momentum) which is not even the case for the unicorn or yeti. What’s wrong with that as an argument?
Quoting Bartricks
When a difference between what is actually the case and what we think is the case cannot be afforded for the purposes of survival.
For example: mathematical laws. If we thought 2+2=5 we would not be able to survive. If every time we put two and two things together we are bewildered at a missing thing we would’ve died out long ago. So we have good reason to believe our belief is the truth.
But an objective moral responsibility is not such a thing. Whether or not we actually ARE morally responsible has little to do with our survival. What matters is whether or not we think we are morally responsible.
In other words, we could FALSELY believe that we are morally responsible and the belief would evolve. We could also TRUTHFULLY believe that we are morally responsible and the belief would evolve.
However if our understanding of basic arithmetic is false we would’ve died out long ago. And definitely wouldn’t have been able to manipulate nature to the extent that we have.
This is why I used AN btw. Our intuition about having children being ok can be dismissed on these grounds. Because even if it is the case that having children is wrong, our belief that having them is right would evolve anyways. So having the belief is not indicative of what is actually the case.
It's question begging, that's what.
Quoting khaled
That's going to be self-defeating. The reason why is, frankly, above your intellectual pay grade, but I'll explain anyway because I'm phenomenally nice.
The actual existence of epistemic reasons would make no difference to our chances of survival. All that's needed to survive, is to 'believe' that we have epistemic reason to believe some things - such as that 2 = 2 = 4 - and not others - such as that 2 + 2 = 89. There does not need to be any actual epistemic reason to believe those things in reality.
Thus, you would end up having to conclude that epistemic reasons do not exist - that is, that we do not in reality have any reason to believe anything.
And that's self-defeating, because you'd think there's reason to think that.
In which premise is the conclusion assumed?
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
Now you’re applying epistemology to itself. “When can you reasonably believe that you can reasonably believe X?”.
That just seems confused. You can keep adding layers here. “When can you reasonably believe that you can reasonably believe that you can reasonably believe that....... that you can reasonably believe X?”
At some point you have to stop asking “when can you reasonably believe that”. Epistemology is about asking what we can know. If you start asking what we can know about epistemology, we’ll never get anywhere!
Quoting Bartricks
But even if the above makes sense this doesn’t follow. Just as “All that’s needed to survive is to believe that we are morally responsible thus we are not morally responsible” doesn’t follow.
All that would follow is that there need not actually be epistemic reasons to believe anything for us to survive. Not that there factually aren’t. It doesn’t follow from A not being needed that A doesn’t nevertheless exist.
Quoting Bartricks
You have failed to defend your thesis. And ironically, done so by failing to act in a morally responsible manner. You have acted, as I would have expected you to act - because that's who you are! Your disingenuous style of argumentation is inherent to your character, and so perhaps there is something to Strawson's claims after all. I'm would add, perhaps, that it takes someone who is blisteringly lacking in self-awareness to play out their script - so consistently, to ill effect, without revision.
Tomkins, Silvan. "Script Theory". The Emergence of Personality. New York: Springer Publishing Company, 1987.
You assume my view is false for the purposes of refuting it. That's begging the question.
There's no empirical evidence that nothing that exists exists uncaused. There's empirical evidence that sensible objects are caused to exist. So, insofar as you've thought at all about your position, you have simply assumed that all objects that exist are sensible objects. That's not a truth of reason, it is just a conventional belief of the age we live in and it is contradicted by the conclusion of my argument - an argument you've done nothing to challenge any premise of.
Quoting khaled
What? No, I am showing you where the logic of 'your' position leads. If you think that an evolutionary account of a rational intuition serves always and everywhere to undermine that rational intuition's credibility, then you would have to conclude that we have no evidence of any reason to believe anything, and as you would 'conclude' that, you would at the same time be assuming that there are reasons to believe things. That's confused - but of course, people who are poor at reasoning will not recognise the confusion inherent in the view and thus will feel no pressure to revise it.
What you need to do is provide a principled account of when an evolutionary explanation does undermine a rational intuition's credibility and when it doesn't. And that principle had better not be one that, when applied consistently, would undermine the credibility of our rational intuition that we have reason to believe things.
Shall I do it for you? I mean, it'll just speed things up.
Here's what I'd say. If we have a rational intuition that seems - intuitively - to be inconsistent with the rest, and if we can in addition see that this particular rational intuition is one that seems highly adaptive, then we have some reason to suppose that that alone is why we are subject to it. That intuition can then be reasonably discounted.
That approach - which is independently motivated - would give us grounds for discounting the rational intuition that procreation is permissible. For if the antinatalists are right, that rational intuition does indeed conflict with a whole load of others and furthermore it is clearly adaptive.
But that approach would not give us grounds for discounting the rational intuitions that represent us to be morally responsible.
There is no empirical evidence that unicorns don’t exist either. But that’s not what I’m arguing. I’m arguing which is more reasonable to believe. An argument made over the internet about the existence of unicorns, or centuries of us failing to find them. I think the latter, wouldn’t you?
Uncaused movers are worse than unicorns because not only have we utterly failed to find them, finding them would mean that our entire understanding of physics is false.
Quoting Bartricks
I’ve been challenging premise 2 haven’t I?
Quoting Bartricks
I’ve assumed that all objects capable of moving things are sensible objects. And for good reason. Because if this was not the case the laws of conservation of energy and momentum would go in the garbage bin. If there were uncaused movers there would be uncaused energy, and uncaused momentum.
So I’m pitting the conclusion of your argument against centuries of confirmed science. Conservation of energy and momentum haven’t failed yet as far as I’m aware. Which is more reasonable to believe?
Quoting Bartricks
I laid out when it does and when it doesn’t didn’t I?
In the case of epistemology, if we think we have good reason for believing something when in reality it is not a good reason, we would not survive would we?
So we have good reason to believe our reasons for believing things are accurate, as any mistake in them would result in our demise. If, for example, we thought we should believe things based on the time of day we heard them, and that was not the case, we would have all died out. Because we would end up falsely believing many things. Which is not conducive to survival.
Quoting Bartricks
It doesn’t undermine it. Because a mistake in our epistemological reason to believe things would kill us. And since we’re not dead, we can assume no mistake.
Quoting Bartricks
What about when the intuition is inconsistent with centuries of confirmed science? I would think that if a scientific principle hasn’t failed for centuries despite us constantly looking for places it might fail, they puts it above any intuition wouldn’t you? If said intuition had implications that contradict it.
A good example: We gave a very strong rational intuition that the earth is flat. All of us are surprised when first hearing it is round. Yet we do not go favoring the intuition do we? Even though that intuition is not particularly contradictory with any others.
Erm, yes there is. Quoting khaled
What. On. Earth. Are. You. On. About?
Quoting khaled
Yes, like I say, you're just begging the question. And it doesn't seem to you that you are because a) you're an inept reasoner and b) you're too conventional and thus you think that if a conclusion is unconventional that itself is evidence that it is false. I mean, can you seriously not see how that assumption is question begging? Seriously?
Quoting khaled
Not that I can see.
Premise 2 says that if I am morally responsible, then not everything I do traces to external causes, yes?
Where have you challenged that? Present a deductively valid argument that has the negation of that premise as a conclusion.
Which is?
It makes no sense to say you have empirical evidence something doesn’t exist. You can only have a lack of evidence that something exists.
Quoting Bartricks
If someone concludes that unicorns exist, despite us searching for them for centuries and not finding them, and yet is unable to provide an example of a unicorn existing, would it be reasonable to believe them? Especially when he ascribes them powers that contradict our physical theories?
Now replace “unicorn” with “uncaused causers”
Quoting Bartricks
No. Premise 2 is that you are morally responsible.
I’m challenging this:
Quoting Bartricks
I am challenging it by showing that the intuition that we are morally responsible can be dismissed. Because it is one of the intuitions that would have evolved anyways regardless of what is actually the case.
This is not the case with mathematical intuitions or epistemology. If we are wrong about either of those we die. If we are wrong about what we morally ought to do, we just survive as sinners not knowing they are sinners.
In other words, we do NOT have every reason to think it is true, as it would have seemed true regardless of its actual truth value in reality (because it is what is evolutionarily advantageous)
Quoting Bartricks
Let's establish a few things, shall we.
First off, do you recognize that if something contradicts the laws of conservation of energy and momentum that we have pretty good reason to disbelieve it?
And secondly, do you recognize that “uncaused causers” contradict those laws?
I am not using “convention” (I would say physical theory is a bit more than convention) to conclusively say that uncaused causers don’t exist. I am saying that it is more reasonable to assume they don’t exist than that they do. Since we have centuries of searching for such things and not finding any.
On the other hand, the only reason (you provided) to believe they exist would be your argument which relies on premise 2 where you use a dismissible intuition to argue that something is factually the case.
Question begging would be assuming the conclusion in the premises. But I’m not assuming anything unreasonably here. Or do you think the laws of conservation are in question?
Yes it does. Christ.
Quoting khaled
No parallel at all. Jesus.
Quoting khaled
And you haven't shown that. You've just ineptly dismissed all rational intuitions, which is kinda silly given that all arguments for anything presuppose that at least some rational intuitions are accurate. Good job!
The rest was just you question beggingly expressing your conventional views.
Present valid arguments that have the negation of my premises - whichever one you want to challenge - as conclusions.
Well, if it's cod psychology, I thought we could just cut straight to the argument about the argument. Isn't that what every one of your discussions devolves to? Why is that, do you think?
Well, my theory about that would be because I'm debating with people who can't recognize an argument from their elbow. The main argument I made in the OP - the one that's interesting and novel - is one that no-one yet seems even to have noticed or said anything about.
Then we have as good evidence as we will ever have that uncaused causers don’t exist.
If looking for something and not finding it is evidence then uncaused causers are probably the most sought after and not found thing humanity has ever seen.
Quoting Bartricks
Let’s see about that.
Did you conclude that uncaused causers exist despite us searching for them for centuries and not finding them? Yes.
Did you give an example of one existing (or even its effects)? No.
Did you ascribe them powers that contradict our physical theories? Yes.
So I don’t see how there is no parallel.
Quoting Bartricks
I told you why I didn’t. You didn’t address it.
You wanted to make the case that epistemological intuitions would fall under the list of things that would have evolved anyways regardless of their truth value. However that is not the case. They’re in the same boat about mathematical intuitions. If we’re wrong about them we perish.
Quoting Bartricks
If you seriously consider the laws of conservation are under doubt that would put you in the same boat as flat earthers. A staunch refusal to consider scientific evidence as anything more than “convention”. Completely dismissing the effort and rigor by which these theories were confirmed time and time again. All in favor of wanting to assert that what seems to be the case is in fact the case.
Even worse than flat earthers. Because the thing you want to assert is the case due to it seeming the case can be shown to be dismissible. Since it would seem the case regardless of what the case actually is due to its evolutionary advantages.
Quoting Bartricks
I did. The premise that we are morally responsible can be dismissed.
Question begging. Refute my argument.
Quoting khaled
You didn't.
Do it.
Deductively valid argument (you're going to have trouble there as your arguments have so far been fallacious, almost without exception).
Premises that are self-evident to reason.
Do it.
Well have a good one. You got me good.
Quoting Bartricks
False.
Quoting Bartricks
I can and I have. Your inability or unwillingness to recognize it is not my issue.
I’ll go over it again one last time.
Your premise 2 is fallacious. You cannot say that we are morally responsible simply because we seem to be and that it is metaphysically possible. As it would have seemed to us that we are morally responsible regardless of whether or not we actually are.
You tried to refute this by bringing up epistemology. But epistemology is not in the same boat as moral intuitions. Epistemological intuitions, if wrong, would get is killed. So we have good reason to think they’re correct.
Pssst, premises can't be fallacious. Fallaciousness is a property of arguments, not premises.
1- If a difference between an intuition and reality cannot be afforded we have good reason to believe the intuition is correct. On the other hand, if a difference can be afforded we do not have such a reason.
2- A difference between our moral intuitions and what is actually moral can be afforded.
3- therefore we cannot conclude that our moral intuitions indicate reality.
4- Therefore your second premise is unjustified.
Just express it in this form
1. If P, then Q
2. P
3. Therefore Q
or
1. If P, then Q
2. Not Q
3. therefore not P.
I have explained it before. Can be afforded for the purposes of survival.
Quoting Bartricks
Why do you make it sound like that's the only form an argument can be expressed?
Put your second premise in that form. Try. Try to deduce that we are morally responsible.
Let me put it another way:
If A -> C and B -> C and C is true, we cannot conclude A or B definitively correct? (We can conclude "A or B" but we cannot conclude "A" or conclude "B", not enough evidence as either could have led to C)
Now replace A with "We are morally responsible", B with "We are not morally responsible" and C with "We believe we are morally responsible"
You use C to conclude A definitively. Which is fallacious.
Anyway, stop stalling and just present an argument. And try making the premises comprehensible and not gibberish.
Quoting Bartricks
You are contradicting yourself. The first passage says that reason tells us we are morally responsible, but that we might not be. This means that we don't know whether we are morally responsible or not, we only know that reason tells us that we are. The second passage contradicts this by saying that we can, by reason alone, know that we are morally responsible.
Have a good one.
No I'm not. The views expressed in both of those passages are consistent. Having prima facie evidence that a proposition is true is consistent with that proposition being true. And if it is in fact true that I am morally responsible, and I have prima facie evidence that I am morally responsible and form the belief that I am morally responsible on that basis, then other things being equal I 'know' that I am morally responsible.
And I have done so enough that I can sleep easily knowing that I have done all I could. And either you are simply incapable of understanding it or unwilling to. I cannot help in either case.
At the risk of confusing the OP for my elbow, I'm going to have to ask you to be more specific about what you consider interesting and novel - because my reading of the OP, is a poor presentation of the ideas put up for discussion, buried in a mess of wild logic chopping.
And therein lies at least one answer to the question I asked earlier. Your threads descend into arguments about the argument because it's not Strawson's views being debated. Have you thought maybe, about removing yourself from the picture - and debating the philosophy?
You have allowed that we might not be morally responsible, and since it is impossible to know that something false is true, the possible falsity of the proposition that we are morally responsible rules out the possibility that we can be certain of knowing it.
Add to that the further problem that you have not explained what the difference between holding ourselves to be, or being held to be, morally responsible and actually being morally responsible, could be, and your position just looks confused.
follows.
(1) Interested in free action, we are particularly interested in
actions that are performed for a reason (as opposed to 'reflex'
actions or mindlessly habitual actions).
(2) When one acts for a reason, what one does is a function of
how one is, mentally speaking. (It is also a function of one's
height, one's strength, one's place and time, and so on. But
the mental factors are crucial when moral responsibility isin
question.)
(3) So if one is to be truly responsible for how one acts, one must
be truly responsible for how one is, mentally speaking -at
least in certain respects.
(4) But to be truly responsible for how one is, mentally speaking,
in certain respects, one must have brought it about that one is
the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects. And it
is not merely that one must have caused oneself to be the way
one is, mentally speaking. One must have consciously and
explicitly chosen to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in
certain respects, and one must have succeeded in bringing it
about that one is that way.
(5) But one cannot really be said to choose, in a conscious,
reasoned, fashion, to be the way one is mentally speaking,
in any respect at all, unless one already exists, mentally
speaking, already equipped with some principles of choice,
'P1' - preferences, values, pro-attitudes, ideals - in the light
of which one chooses how to be.
(6) But then to be truly responsible, on account of having chosen
to be the way one is, mentally speaking, in certain respects,
one must be truly responsible for one's having the principles
of choice P1 in the light of which one chose how to be.
(7) But for this to be so one must have chosen P1, in a reasoned,
conscious, intentional fashion.
(8) But for this, i.e. (7), to be so one must already have had some
principles of choice P2, in the light of which one chose P1.
(9) And so on. Here we are setting out on a regress that we
cannot stop. True self-determination is impossible because it
requires the actual completion of an infinite series of choices
of principles of choice.
(10) So true moral responsibility is impossible, because it requires
true self-determination, as noted in (3).
https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/The%20Impossibility%20of%20Moral%20Responsibility%20-%20Galen%20Strawson.pdf
(5) But one cannot really be said to choose, in a conscious,
reasoned, fashion, to be the way one is mentally speaking,
in any respect at all, unless one already exists, mentally
speaking, already equipped with some principles of choice,
'P1' - preferences, values, pro-attitudes, ideals - in the light
of which one chooses how to be.
As the assertion is that moral responsibility is impossible, given Strawson's argument here, it would have to be Robinson Crusoe - cast away on a desert island, far removed from any real world moral expectations of him, in regard to which he may or may not be morally responsible, and reliant solely upon his own resources, for this condition to hold. And arguably, a man alone cannot be moral or immoral. This raises a suspicion that, the sterile conditions of Strawson's basic argument create the conditions in which moral responsibility becomes impossible.
I don't know what you mean. The two claims of mine that you quoted were perfectly compatible with one another.
Strawson thinks it is metaphysically impossible to be morally responsible, because he believes that moral responsibility requires the ability to create oneself from scratch. I am disputing that this is necessary. I am pointing out that the only reason to think one would need the ability to create oneself from scratch to be morally responsible is because if one did this - if one created oneself from scratch - then one's subsequent decisions would not trace to external causes. Yet that would also be the case if one was an uncreated thing. And thus contrary to what Strawson has argued, it is metaphysically possible to be morally responsible.
It does not follow from something being metaphysically possible that it is actual. But that's a silly point to keep making. Nobody disputes it. I don't. Strawson doesn't. No one does. The point, though, is that if we have powerful prima facie evidence that a proposition is true, and no reason to doubt the truth of that proposition, then we have the best possible grounds for believing the proposition is true. And if the proposition is indeed true, and we have come to believe in its truth in the right way (one way would involve recognizing that there is overwhelming reason to think it is true and none to think it is false and believing in it accordingly), then we 'know' that it is true.
Quoting counterpunch
It's complete gobbledygook. Strawson's point is the one I expressed in the OP. Namely, that one's decisions are a product of one's character, but to be morally responsible for those decisions one would need to be morally responsible for one's character. But our characters are a product of external cause - heredity and environment - neither of which are things for which we bear any moral responsiblity.
So, what's the more basic underlying principle at work here? It is this one: that if one is not morally responsible for A, and one is not morally responsible for B, and A and B are causally responsible for C, then one is not morally responsible for C.
As such, even if one's decisions are the conscious product of a reason-responsive process, one will not be morally responsible for them if one is not morally responsible for their causal precursors.
That's Strawson's assumption. I think it is correct.
But Strawson thinks that the 'only' way that this condition can be satisfied is if we create ourselves from scratch (which is, of course, impossible).
He's wrong though. If we are uncreated things then the condition would be satisfied.
Thus, Strawson is incorrect. Moral responsibility is not impossible, it just requires that we be something that flies in the face of conventional beliefs about what we are.
This is the point at which you find something out about yourself: are you a true follower of reason or do you let convention restrict where she can lead you? That is, do you put reason above convention, or vice versa?
(Note, Strawson is conventional at a crucial juncture - for he says "It is undeniable that one is the way one is, initially, a a result of heredity and early experience". No, Strawson, that is deniable.)
Quoting Bartricks
I'm unable to help you with your incomprehension. They are English words, plainly spoken.
Quoting Bartricks
Where is this from? You attribute it to Strawson, but I did not find it among his writings.
And what you said was not written in plain English. It was gobbledygook. It had nothing to do with what Strawson argued.
Quoting Bartricks
End of debate. Nothing to see here!
You're not though. It's like I said earlier:
Quoting counterpunch
I posted Strawson's Basic Argument and commented on it. You have ignored Strawson's argument, and dismissed the comment as gobbledygook, and have insisted on your restatement of his argument.
If not A, and
If not B, and if
A+B=C
Not C!
Your restatement is not debateable, because you have removed all the debateable questions about how moral responsibility is formed and operates.
What you've done is create another: "God is omnipotent. He can do anything! Anything means anything!" You then adopt this non-debateable position as your own, because your purpose is to win. You're not doing philosophy. You're doing rhetoric. And in rhetorical terms, you just got your ass handed to you!