Response To Chisholm's Theory

     One objection I have is in regards to Chisholm’s immanent causation. I do not agree that an agent is able to perform an action without anything motivating or causing him to do so. In the example above an agent causes brain activity which ultimately leads to his hand moving a wand. There has to be some underlying cause that led the man to grip and move

In much the same way that a woman was not held responsible for acts of adultery,

A lack of personal responsibility can cause many problems. Not only for the person who is making the choice not to take personal responsibility but for the people around them. One such example related to law enforcement could be if an officer with a department vehicle doesn't get the

Suppose that every event or action has a sufficient cause, which brings that event about. Today, in our scientific age, this sounds like a reasonable assumption. After all, can you imagine someone seriously claiming that when it rains, or when a plane crashes, or when a business succeeds, there might be no cause for it? Surely, human behavior is caused. It doesn't just happen for no reason at all. The types of human behavior for which people are held morally accountable are usually said to be caused by the people who engaged in that behavior. People typically cause their own behavior by making choices; thus, this type of behavior might be thought to be caused by your own choice-makings. This freedom to make

Was not in control or himself when he committed the crime. He admitted to his

According to Downing, author of On Course, when it comes to personal responsibility, there are two ends of the spectrum: creator and victim. A creator is someone who believes they have the sole responsibility for the outcome of their life, they understand that their actions have been ineffective, and strive to change them to “create the best results they can” (21-22). Though he uses different language to explain, Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of

If you went out one day and out of nowhere you find yourself in a life-or-death situation would it be your fault? People in a life-or-death situation should be held accountable for their actions because most of the time people know that if they do something that can put them in a life-or-death situation then something bad will happen but they still do it willingly. Another person might not agree with this claim and say that people should not be held accountable for their actions. The reason he or she might think this is because if when a person does face a life-or-death situation it might not be entirely their fault. The following reasons are examples of why my claim is stronger.

Is it true that if you do something outside your free will, you should be held responsible? To clarify, doing something outside your free will means doing something you could not have done otherwise. To answer the question, I believe that yes, you should be held responsible. Ted Sider claims that you should not be held responsible, and uses the following example to support his claim: Suppose that you are kidnapped and then forced to commit a series of murders by the hand of the kidnapper. Sider’s example clearly shows that you should not be responsible for actions committed that you could not of otherwise, but I can provide an example where you can.

The idea of blame, defined as, “A particular kind of response (e.g. emotion), to a person, at fault, for a wrongful action,” plays a significant role in the study of crime, with respect to degrees of “fault.” In most modern societies, “criminal culpability,” or degrees of wrongdoing, makes a difference between the kinds of punishment one receives for his action(s). To be culpable for a crime, there must be a guilty act (Actus Rea), and a guilty mind (Mens Rea). Degrees of culpability often depends on the kind of mental state, (Mens Rea), one brings to the act in which he engaged. How much one is blameworthy for wrongful conduct depends in part on the state of mind in relation to the wrongful conduct. One’s mental state while engaging in wrongful conduct, which in a legal sense is determined by legislators, is characterized by the following terms: purposely, knowingly, recklessly and negligence.

The chain of causation may be broken if the victim’s acts are free, voluntary and informed. In our case, Larry was driving carelessly and was not wearing a helmet during the crash, believing that they are ‘only for girls’. As Larry’s intervention was voluntary, it could break the chain of causation and Willow may not be convicted for murder.

(PAP) a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise (829)

This suggests that Hard Determinism is right in saying that we are not morally responsible for our actions, because there are so many other external factors that affect what we

The incompatibilists argue that one is morally responsible for what she has done given that she could have done otherwise. Further, they think that if determinism is true then one could not have done otherwise, so if determinism is true, one is not morally responsible for things she has done. In debates surrounding the issue of free will, philosophers have focused on discussing whether determinism is true or false. Harry Frankfurt thinks even though the requirement of alternative possibilities in order to be held morally responsible for our actions seems intuitively plausible, it is a questionable premise in the argument provided by incompatibilists. Frankfurt calls the premise that “a person is morally responsible for what he has done only if he could have done otherwise” the principle of alternative possibilities or PAP (Frankfurt, 829). He argues that PAP is false and a person can be held morally responsible even if she could not have done otherwise.

Consequentialism thus necessitates negative responsibility, or as Williams puts it, “that if I am ever responsible for anything, then I must be just as much responsible for things that I allow or fail to prevent…” (95). In other words, consequentialism is committed to negative responsibility because it does not take

every action we do is of our own design, and therefore we are morally responsible for the result of those actions. Of course there are exceptions such as being held at gunpoint, being hypnotized or driven by some psychological disorder. No-one would hold you at fault for actions you were forced to commit, but we do hold you responsible for other actions, ones we feel they were free to make. We feel appalled when we see someone kill, or act in an amoral way. This feeling - Campbell thinks - is what shows we must have free will; because without free will we can’t be held responsible for our actions. Yet when you see someone do something you as “why did you do that?” or “what made you do that?”; we ask for the