Текст книги "Журнал «Логос» №3/2025"

The Impossibility of Ultimate Moral Responsibility

Galen Strawson. University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), USA, gstrawson@mac.com.

Keywords: free will; “Basic Argument”; moral responsibility; ultimate responsibility; determinism; causa sui; indeterminism; randomness; choice; action; compatibilism; incompatibilism; libertarianism; punishment.

If we are to be ultimately morally responsible for what we do, we must be ultimately responsible for how we are, at least in certain mental respects. This is because we can only be ultimately morally responsible for what we do intentionally, and what we intentionally do is a function of how we are, mentally speaking. However, we cannot be ultimately responsible for how we are, either mentally speaking or in any other respect. Nothing can be the ultimate cause of itself in any respect. Even if God can be, we can’t be. Given the concept of moral responsibility that is culturally fundamental in the West, this argument may be used to show that ultimate moral responsibility is provably impossible.

DOI: 10.17323/0869-5377-2025-3-5-28

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