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Galen Strawson's Argument Analysis

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According to Galen Strawson, moral responsibility to punish some of us with eternal torment (hell) and rewards others with eternal bliss (heaven). I am going to argue that we cannot be morally responsible for our actions which is also Strawson’s argument. He has a basic argument that claims you perform the action that you perform because of the way you are, in particular mental respects. To be truly morally responsible for your action, you must be truly morally responsible for your character, personality, and motivational structure or in other words, who you are. We are born with determined predispositions that we are not responsible for and we are exposed to certain influences that we are not responsible for. Ultimately, these things shape …show more content…

I agree that nobody can have true moral responsibility for what they do as well because if that were the case, I would also have to be responsible for my character, personality, and motivational structure which I cannot be. An automatic rebuttal to this claim would be; What if I change my attitude or change my character, wouldn’t I then be responsible or who I am? The answer is no because even if you change the way you are, it would have been caused by or lead from the way you were which is a way that you are not responsible for. So you cannot be responsible for the “new person” that you are now, which ultimately solidifies Strawson’s argument. For clarity, responsibility has different meanings legally and morally. If you are responsible for something, according to the law, you can be punished with imprisonment or praised with rewards; however moral responsibility, according to Strawson, is being punished by eternal torment or eternal bliss. The major difference between the two is the link between who you are and what you do is solid for morality but by law you can do something and be held responsible for it while not being responsible for who you are initially. For example, if Amy was raised with crime all around her and ended up murdering someone when she grew up, she would be responsible by law and most likely put in prison but is she morally responsible? Amy is not truly morally responsible …show more content…

I do agree with Strawson and I think that he is right. I do not believe that someone can be truly morally responsible for anything that they do; however, it would be appropriate and well deserving is moral responsibility held a standard. If someone does something that creates a great change in the world, they should definitely have true moral responsibility for it. Ultimately, I know that that is also impossible because making a great change in the world come from the way we are, and we are not truly morally responsible for

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