Why No One Is Morally Responsible (For Dummies)

Let's workshop this piece about why--however much praising and blaming is important for encouraging and discouraging certain behaviors--no one ever, as a matter of justice, deserves praise or blame

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Why No One Is Morally Responsible (For Dummies)

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).

Since this argument does not presuppose a background in philosophy, there is really only one more clarification that needs to be made. You will notice that I open the argument talking about “O.” O is a variable. Let O represent an action, a thought, a feeling—any candidate thing or process for which one might be said to be morally responsible. Here are some examples.

O might represent a desire for another beer.

O might represent the thought look at that fine ass.

O might represent fantasizing about blending in with all the other shirtless gays in their fetish-leather harnesses at the bar Manhandlers so that, in the confusion of bodies, you could prick with a cyanide syringe the Dean who fired you from your academic post for writing poetry that “vulnerable groups might find offensive.”

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 tartan-scarf 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.” The broomstick route is way better than forcing “zim” to look at the mural while tied up in my basement. Think about it. That only would be a victory for “zim.” For it would mean that I have bought into “zis” lie, that I really believe “zis” tantrum tears are genuine rather than mere emotional bullying and social-capital-craving virtue signaling all in one.

Here now is the simple argument. Do not overthink it.

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. (a) It is clearly valid (meaning it is impossible for the conclusion to be false if the premises are true). (b) Its premises are even less dubitable than that you have hands (since for all you know you might be some handless creature hooked up to a supercomputer stimulating your brain, Matrix-style, in such a way to give you the delusion of having hands).

At risk of belaboring the obvious, let me put the point in more conversational language. All the argument demands is that the agent be morally responsible for the most minuscule factor (whether an intention, a belief, an attitude, a desire, a muscle twitch, or whatever you may like to insert)—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 more—when it is already too low as it is—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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