Why No One is Morally Responsible (Dummy Version)

Let's workshop this argument for why humans, failing to be self-caused, can never be morally responsible for what they do or think or feel

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Why No One is Morally Responsible (For Idiots)

Consider the following argument for why no human could ever be morally responsible. Consider, in other words, an argument for why no human could ever be genuinely deserving of praise or blame, where by “genuinely deserving” here I mean (a) deserving as a matter of justice rather than (b) deserving merely for a pragmatic reason (such as to promote some behaviors and outlooks and attitudes while discouraging others).

Let O, by the way, represent an action, a thought, a feeling—any candidate thing or process for which one might be said to be morally responsible. O might represent, for example, a desire for another beer or the thought look at that fine ass. O might represent pissing on a crack whore from a roof top (say, for some semblance of control in a godforsaken land of blight where everything seems out of control). O might represent punching a hidden push dagger into the heart of some unfortunate man who, after having heard you quote the word “nigga” in your spoken-word performance, thought he could manhandle you off the stage easily given your nerdy look. For whatever it might be worth, O for me is shoving a broomstick up the rectum of one of those slouchy-beanie university students who crumble into tantrum tears when their professor assigns a textbook containing a photo of a Basquiat-like mural with the painted phrase “faggot, retard, nigger-cunt”—doing this instead of forcing “zim” to look at the mural while tied up in your basement since that would be a victory for “zim” (as it would mean that you really believe “zis” tantrum tears are genuine rather than mere social-capital-craving virtue signaling).

1. If you are morally responsible for O, then you must have contributed to O’s emergence 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 Z, then you must have contributed to Z’s emergence and you must be morally responsible for at least some portion—call it “Y”—of what you contributed.

3. This chain of contributions will continue back indefinitely until some point is reached, at best your fertilization, where you are clearly not morally responsible for the specific portion of what you contributed at that point (since you are not the cause of your own existence).

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 the most minuscule factor contributing to the action or feeling or whatever. But even this extremely low standard cannot be met by beings like us, beings incapable of bringing ourselves into existence from a moment when we did not exist. Lowering the bar any further would absurdly allow that an agent can be morally responsible for something even when the agent fails to be morally responsible for any contributing factor, no matter how slight or insignificant. It would absurdly allow, in other words, that people can be morally responsible for behaviors or thoughts or feelings resulting completely from factors in no way 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 self-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 shaped by factors entirely beyond his control. Second, even if there are innumerable complex factors entwined in the causal chain leading up to whatever he is said to be morally responsible for, even if there are chaotic indeterminacies and intricate feedback loops in the causal process, the regress point still stands: at no point is the agent the buckstopping source of even the smallest contributing factor.

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This piece is unpublished

Photo: etsy.com/listing/1104239103/cashmere-slouchy-hat-lightweight-mens