A2 ethics: 'humans do not have moral responsibility.'

'Humans do not have moral responsibility.' Discuss. (35)


This essay was done under timed conditions, and given 31/35. (Teacher's comments in red.)


The answer to whether humans have moral responsibility is reliant upon whether humans have free will. This is because if we have free will, as stated by libertarianism, we are free to choose our actions and therefore have complete moral responsibility, whereas determinism would argue the opposite - if all of our actions have been determined, then it would be unfair to hold us responsible for them. Clarence Darrow was an American lawyer who was able to show the strength of the determinism argument, saving the murderers of a 14-year-old boy from the death penalty. He argued that the murder was purely ingrained within the boys' nature, and therefore they had no control of their actions. This forms the basis of hard determinism, and provides a very strong, and empirically provable, case in support of the fact that we shouldn't be held morally responsible for our actions. "Great start."

Hard determinism states that everything we do is the result of a chain of cause and effect that goes back into infinite regress. Every decision we make has been caused by external factors, and we have no control over this. Spinoza stated there is "no absolute free will", and Darrow agreed, stating "we are in the hands of nature". The justification behind this argument fundamentally lies with physics - we see from Newtonian physics that everything in the universe is affected by cause and effect, so why should human behaviour be any different? We can see this is true of behaviour in animals from Pavlov and Skinner's psychological experiments, supporting behaviourism. The fact that Pavlov was able to show classical conditioning take place is clear empirical evidence that behaviour can ultimately be controlled by stimuli, and if we are able to manipulate the stimuli, we can control behaviour. John Watson developed this point in relation to humans, suggesting that if he was given a set of infants, he would be able to control their environment to the extent that he would be able to mold them into specialists/professions of his choosing. If we are to accept behaviourist theories when considering moral decision-making, it seems very logical to suggest that our decisions have been influenced by external factors, not only from conditioning and society, but Pinker also puts forward the concept of biological determinism, stating that our behaviour is influenced and even controlled by our genes. All of this evidence comes together to support the determinist viewpoint that there are so many factors that influence and control our behaviour that we really do not have any say in what we do. Therefore we cannot be held morally responsible. This argument is strong due to having so much empirical evidence in the form of psychological experiments and scientific laws, therefore is one commonly held. However, there is a question as to whether scientific evidence is really appropriate when considering an issue such as free will. If free will did exist, it would be metaphysical, and as with any other metaphysical concept, we would not be able to empirically prove it to be true. "Good AO2".

Libertarianism, on the other end of the spectrum, uses this to criticise hard determinism, and instead puts forward an argument for free will that is much more appealing to our intuitions. Libertarianism states that we do have free will, and therefore should be held completely morally responsible for our actions. Libertarians deny that causation should apply to human behaviour. Instead, we are completely free to choose what we want. While there is no empirical evidence for this, there is some support in the fact that we feel guilt and regret when we do something wrong. These feelings suggest that we had the option to do something else, but we didn't. The fact that we had that choice means that free will must be true to an extent. If this is true, then we should accept full mroal responsibility for our actions, as there is nothing to blame other than ourselves for the decisions that we make.

However, it is highly unlikely that we can ever make a decision that is completely free, with no external influences. For this reason, the position of soft determinism seems much more probable, stating that determinism and libertarianism are not only compatible, but also necessary aspects of one another in order to be comprehensible. Compatibilism recognises that determinism does not necessarily rule out free will, therefore it could be very possible that we have free will within choices that have already been constrained. As stated by Schopenhauer, "man does what he wills, but cannot will what he wills", suggesting that while our choices may have been determined, we still have the ability to make out own decision within these choices. For this reason, compatibilism states that we still have an element of free will, therefore can be held morally responsible, to an extent. Hume states that free will is the "absence of constraint", so we are free unless physically constrained. This then has the implication of us being morally responsible unless we are physically unable to choose. For example, an example used by Ayer explained that kleptomaniacs are compelled to steal, meaning even if they choose not to, their physical instincts would take over and they would steal anyway. A compatibilist would not say that the kleptomaniac should be held responsible, as though they had free will, they were not actually free to carry out their decision, just as someone who can't swim shouldn't be held responsible for not saving a drowning child.

While compatibilism is also difficult to prove empirically, Ayer took a different approach to justifying soft determinism. He believed that by definition, we must have free will due to the possibility of us having an option. He stated that while out actions may be determined, we are free "just in case if we wanted to do otherwise, we would have". For this reason, he stated that the statement "I have free will" is tautologous, and therefore just as analytically true as the statement "all bachelors are unmarried men". Compatibilism is also very strong in the way that it adopts both the strengths of hard determinism and libertarianism. It accepts the principle of causation and therefore the empirically-proven behaviourism, while also appealing to our intuitions of being able to freely make decisions. However, compatibilism is a very convenient middle ground between hard determinism and libertarianism. It aims to merge two very different positions, and it seems unlikely that they can both be true.

However on balance, I feel compatibilism is still the strongest position. It takes into account that humans are definitely determined by external factors, but recognise that we still have the ability to make decisions, as Searle stated, "there is a clear gap between having reason to do something and actually doing it." Therefore it can be said that we should be morally responsible for our actions, as long as we are physically free to have a choice, and not physically constrained.


Mark/comment:

AO1: 20/21, AO2: 11/14, so overall: 31/35 - A+

"Brilliant! Almost a model essay - the only weakness being that your line of argument is only apparent in the 2nd half of the essay. Otherwise, v. well done."