In Galen Strawson’s piece “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility”, he explores the idea of moral responsibility and provides his reasons for believing that moral responsibility does not exist. He makes the basic argument which states that one cannot be morally responsible for any of their actions because nothing can be the cause of itself, and to be morally responsible one would have to be the cause of their own actions. Essentially, he is arguing that humans are not responsible for their psychological makeup, and therefore cannot be held morally responsible for their actions. He then advances this basic argument to the following argument: (P1) For one to be held morally responsible, they must be responsible for their own personality. (P2) No one can be held responsible for who they are. (C) Therefore, no one can be held morally responsible for their actions because they lacked the choice of personality. I agree with Strawson’s argument to a moderate …show more content…
I argue that to some extent one can be responsible for how they are because their experiences shape them and their ideals change overtime. Strawson’s brings up the idea that we change because there was a quality within us already that made us change, which ultimately means that we had no choice in the way we evolve as a person. I disagree with this idea because there are other influences that can change oneself. Change in one’s personality can arise from a conscious decision. For example, one may learn that stealing things is wrong but beforehand they believed that it was morally acceptable. The person can then decide that they no longer want to steal which shows how they made the conscious decision to change their ideals. Therefore Strawson can not attribute all actions to one’s personality because to a certain extent, one has the authority to change their personality through conscious decision