Moral Responsibility

Just posted a paper on my site critiquing Galen Strawson's argument. He argues that moral responsibility is impossible. Here's an excerpt:

"In order to be responsible for the way you are, say at a given time T3, you had to at an earlier time, say T2, choose how you were going to be. However, at T2, the choice of how to be would be dependent on who you were. Your beliefs, desires, emotions, etc. would determine that choice. So, there would have to be an earlier time, T1, where you choose to have the character that you had at T2. But then, at T1, your character would cause you to make a certain choice. And so on.

You never get to a time where you chose how you would be that didn't depend on an earlier choosing of yours. If you do get to such a point, say when you were born, you cannot be held responsible for how you were at that point. You can only be held responsible for what you choose, and when you were born, you were "given" your desires. They weren't the result of any choice. So, since who we were initially caused us to choose our character again and again, it follows that to blame someone for their current character is equivalent to blaming someone for their initial character. However, since one isn't responsible for their initial character, one can't be responsible for their character at any other time, and hence cannot be held responsible for any act that they commit (given (1)).

...

I think the infinite regress can be stopped when we take into account the fact that praise, blame, reward, and punishment are to be used to change people's desires. These tools work just as well regardless of how those desires got there. It is also important to note that when we blame someone for their present desires, we are blaming them because they are, in part, their present desires. When one says, "You are responsible for your actions" I think it means no more than, "Your character, which can be changed, is the cause of your actions." The infinite regress fails because it attempts to make a distinction between a person and their character. Strawson does this when he says that a person, at a given time, must choose their character. I think there is no distinction to be made and a person is constituted by their character. A person having a bad character is equivalent to the person being bad.

For the paper, go here.