A Case Against Moral Responsibility
Let us workshop this essay, which argues that humans are never morally responsible (regardless of whether Determinism is true or not).
A Case Against Moral Responsibility
1. Introductory Remarks
In a previous post I presented a powerful case against moral responsibility: the case for Hard Determinism (HD). HD argues that humans are never morally responsible, never genuinely deserving of praise or blame, for anything in their lives: for their behaviors or feelings or thoughts or appearances or so on—yes, even for their most heinous actions (stomping an infant skull into liverwurst pulp, say) performed deliberately while sober as a neurotypical adult with a full grasp of moral concepts and a deep reflection on the consequence of those actions. No human is ever morally responsible, according to HD, because Determinism of at least some form is true and human moral freedom, the sort of freedom required for moral responsibility, is incompatible with the form of Determinism in question.
In the present post I will argue that the same conclusion, that no human is ever morally responsible, follows whether or not Determinism is true. The case against moral responsibility that I make below, although superfluous in light of the apparent truth of HD, has the advantage of appealing to determinists and indeterminists alike (on top of being rather accessible for laypersons).
2. The First Proof Against Moral Responsibility
The first proof is a bit more abstract than the second. It argues that humans lack moral freedom regardless as to whether Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true—these being two forms of Determinism that pose the greatest threat to human moral freedom (and which I defend here and here). Since moral freedom is the sort of freedom required for moral responsibility, the implication is that we are not morally responsible.
1. S does action A freely only if S himself is the self-caused source of A—by which it is meant: of at least some aspect of A.
Rationale.—A (or, again for the sake of the argument, at least some aspect of A) must have its buckstopping, that is, nonderivative, source in S if S does A freely. Otherwise we would be saying something absurd: that S does A freely even though A is entirely a function of factors not ultimately up to S. Now, a buckstopping source is either uncaused or self-caused. Otherwise (that is, were it other-caused) it would not be a buckstopping source. Now, what is uncaused—being not up to us—contributes nothing to secure human moral freedom: a mere droplet of not-up-to-me-ness, so to say, cannot change a not-up-to-me soup into an up-to-me soup. Even pushing aside the fact that nothing is uncaused (a claim I defend elsewhere), it follows that A must have its buckstopping but not-uncaused source in S if S does A freely. Understand what this means: either (a) S himself is the self-caused source of A if S does A freely or (b) some mere portion of S is the self-caused source of A if S does A freely. After all, since a not-uncaused source of action is a source of action that is caused either by itself or by something else, and since a buckstopping source of action is a source of action that is not caused by something else, a buckstopping but not-uncaused source of action is a self-caused source of action. Option-b, however, is out. For if merely some portion of S is the self-caused source of A, then how can S himself be doing A freely when A flows from something that caused itself to be in S and so is something that is completely not up to S? S himself is not doing A freely if A flows from something utterly alien to S any more than you are doing freely what someone else is doing to their child right now on in another galaxy. Therefore, S himself is the self-caused source of A if S does A freely.
2. It is not the case that S is the self-caused source of A.
Rationale.—That which is self-caused could refer only to that which exists by the necessity of its own nature (as opposed to the two absurd senses of causation I discuss elsewhere: (1) where a thing exists before it exists in order to cause itself to exist or (2) where a thing causes itself to exist at the very same moment it comes to exist in the first place). The problem is that humans, even insofar as they are eternal souls caused by God, are not self-caused in that sense. Since S himself was born from parents, or at least a divine parent, S is not self-caused.
Therefore, S does not do A—and, by implication, any action—freely in the sense required to be morally responsible (that is, to be genuinely deserving of judgments such as praise and blame for what they do).
This proof does not operate on the assumption that either Chronological Determinism or Absolute Necessitarianism are true. That is made explicit in the rationale for premise 1, where the possibility of uncaused events is allowed. Why such an allowance is relevant should be clear. An uncaused event, after all, is an event that is neither caused by the past (as everything in the future relative to some past is according to Chronological Determinism) nor necessitated by itself or something else (as everything is according to Absolute Necessitarianism).
3. The Second Proof Against Moral Responsibility
Here is a more direct attempt to show that humans lack moral responsibility regardless as to whether Chronological Determinism is true or Absolute Necessitarianism is true.
1. If you are morally responsible for action O, then you must have contributed to giving rise to O and you must be morally responsible for at least some portion—call it “Z”—of what you contributed.
2. If you are morally responsible for this Z, then you must have contributed to giving rise to Z and you must be morally responsible for at least some portion—call it “Y”—of what you contributed.
3. Since at no point are you self-caused, this chain will go on in an indefinite amount of steps until some point is reached, at best your fertilization, where you are clearly not morally responsible for the portion of what you contributed in question at that point.
Therefore, you are not morally responsible for O—O being a function of factors entirely beyond what is ultimately up to you.
The argument is as powerful as it is straightforward. All it demands is that the agent be morally responsible for an infinitesimally small factor contributing to the action. But even that extremely low standard cannot be met by beings like us, impotent to be self-caused. If the argument set the bar any lower, it would absurdly allow that an agent can be morally responsible for an action even when the agent fails to be morally responsible for any factor—even the merest insignificant sliver—contributing to the action; it would absurdly allow that people can be morally responsible for actions that are completely a function of factors not ultimately up to them.
That is all that needs to be said. But I want to stress two things. First, even if the agent is neurotypical and aware, even if he intends to perform his actions and reflects on their consequences beforehand, that does nothing to change the fact that his actions are ultimately the result of factors entirely beyond the agent’s control. Second, even if there are innumerable complex factors involved in the causal chain leading up to the action, even if there is indeterminacy and feedback loops in the causal process, the regress point still stands: at no point is the agent the buckstopping source of even the smallest factor contributing to the action.
This piece is unpublished
Photo: Another Korine film, Gummo, that was pivotal: filmicmag.files.wordpress.com/2016/01/gummo1.jpg?w=1200