The Possibility of Moral Responsibility
- DOI
- 10.2991/assehr.k.201215.501How to use a DOI?
- Keywords
- Moral responsibility, Agent, Galen Strawson
- Abstract
In “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility,” Galen Strawson presents his view that moral responsibility is impossible if determinism is true. On the other hand, Roderick Chisholm strongly defend a libertarian view in his paper, “Human Freedom and the Self.” Chisholm believes that an agent has the ultimate freedom to decide, and deterministic causes are not enough to cause an action. In this paper, I will briefly present the structure of Strawson’s argument that moral responsibility is impossible because of his so-called “Basic Argument.” For Strawson, agents cannot be responsible because their actions are determined by prior causal chains, and agents definitely are not responsible for those causal chains. Then, I argue that moral responsibility is possible because deterministic causes are not enough to cause an action. Third, I will challenge Strawson’s position by arguing that his core argument can be rejected. Finally, I deal with one plausible challenge.
- Copyright
- © 2020, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.
- Open Access
- This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).
Cite this article
TY - CONF AU - Nelson Zhang PY - 2020 DA - 2020/12/17 TI - The Possibility of Moral Responsibility BT - Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Literature, Art and Human Development (ICLAHD 2020) PB - Atlantis Press SP - 579 EP - 582 SN - 2352-5398 UR - https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201215.501 DO - 10.2991/assehr.k.201215.501 ID - Zhang2020 ER -