Is Galen Strawson right to conclude that moral responsibility is impossible? A response to “The Impossibility Of Moral Responsibility” by Galen Strawson (500 words – no references permitted) My understanding of the essay indicates Strawson is claiming that...
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Is Galen Strawson right to conclude that moral responsibility is impossible? A response to “The Impossibility Of Moral Responsibility” by Galen Strawson (500 words – no references permitted) My understanding of the essay indicates Strawson is claiming that because the method by which moral responsibility could be said to become applicable to one, would at its origin involve the absence of everything that can be said to make one one, we cannot apply moral responsibility to an individual. Strawson uses the infinite regression of our principles of choice to argue our lack of moral responsibility. I agree, in what you might call the “ultimate” sense, that the application to oneself of one’s traits, characteristics and mental makeup could not be said to have been facilitated by oneself given that the creator of oneself would only subsequently possess that which made the creator one. When placed in a theoretical “ultimate” context I agree that we cannot apply to ourselves "ultimate" morals.
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