Ultimate Moral Responsibility

Ultimate Moral Responsibility

            The debate about the existence and nature of the free will have existed in the philosophical world for many years. One side of the philosophers, the compatibilist, argue that having free will means that people have the ability to do whatever pleases them according to their beliefs and desires. The other side of the philosophers, the libertarians, argue that free will is having the ability to make choices that are different from specific choices that people end up making. The way the libertarians define free will is the only way that individuals can be ultimately responsible for their actions. Philosopher Galen Strawson combines the insights of compatibilists and libertarians into a single position, the pessimist position, where he concludes that it is not possible for individuals to have ultimate moral responsibility.

Galen Strawson argues that individuals are rational agents who make choices according to their desires and beliefs. The argument by Galen Strawson agrees with the compatibilist definition of free will that their personal desires entirely guide the actions people do (Vyse, 2018). However, this kind of free will is not sufficient enough to make people ultimately responsible for what they do. Galen argues that the only kind of free will that can make people be ultimately responsible for their actions is that of the libertarians. The kind of free will endorsed by the libertarians gives individuals the ability to do actions that are opposite to their desires.

The libertarians free will can make agents ultimately responsible for their actions, however, this kind of free will does not exist because it requires that individual do what is not in accordance to their desires, which is not possible. Galen concludes that it is not possible for individuals to have libertarians free will, hence it is impossible for agents to have ultimate moral responsibility. Galen Strawson argues that people cannot change the way they are to act against their desires and beliefs as required by ultimate moral responsibility. “It is undeniable that one is the way one is, initially, as a result of hereditary and early experience, and it is undeniable that these are things for which one cannot be held to be in any way responsible” (Thomas, 2017). According to Galen Strawson, agents cannot do actions that are against their desires; therefore, it is impossible for individuals to have ultimate moral responsibility.

Ultimate moral responsibility is a kind of responsibility that can render an individual genuinely worthy of praise or blame. Ultimate responsibility requires that individuals act against their beliefs and desires, which is not possible. People act according to their desires, whereby they cannot blame themselves. Hence ultimate moral responsibility cannot be achieved. If a person goes to steal from another person, people may have different arguments towards the case. For instance, the person may have stolen because he/she needed food for the family. According to this person, his/ her desire was not just to steal but to feed the family. If we apply ultimate moral responsibility, the person will praise the act of the theft because he/she satisfies the needs of the family, but the desire was not to steal. Therefore, Galen Strawson argument that the ultimate moral responsibility cannot be achieved is right because peoples’ actions are always guided by their desires and beliefs.

From Galen Strawson, we lack ultimate moral responsibility. Strawson argues that free will and ultimate moral responsibility are two incoherent concepts. To be free in the line of ultimate moral responsibility requires that we be “cause of oneself” which is totally impossible. According to Strawson, there is nothing that can be the cause of itself as required by the concept of ultimate moral responsibility. People perform actions that are guided by their desires. In today’s world, actions of the people are mostly as a result of their past experience. For instance, if a person decides to get married, he/she does so because of the desire to marry. Marriage cannot just come by itself, but agents causes it to happen. To be ultimately morally responsible for our actions, our actions should be the cause of themselves, which is impossible, hence there is no one who can be ultimately morally responsible.

In conclusion, a debate exists among the philosophers about the existence and true nature of free will. Compatibilists argue that free will allows individuals to have the ability to do actions in accordance with their desires. On the other side, libertarians argue that free will enables individuals to do actions that are against their desires. Ultimate moral responsibility is a type of responsibility that can render an individual genuinely worthy of judgement. Galen Strawson argues that the only type of the free will that can allow agents to be ultimate responsibility for their actions is the libertarians kind of free will, but this kind of free will does not exist because people cannot change who really they are. Therefore, Galen argument about the impossibility of ultimate moral responsibility is true because there is no any type of free will that allows for ultimate moral responsibility.