Alden Farrar Philosophical Thinking 101-002 12:00 The Importance of Moral Responsibility to Free Will Whats the point

of talking about all of this philosophical jabber? It means nothing in the real world. I encounter many statements such as this when trying to discuss deep philosophical issues with people. Philosophy is notorious for its lack of relevance in everyday life. For this reason, the issue of free will is relatively meaningless in philosophical discussion if it is not purposefully and directly linked to the debate of human moral responsibility. Moral responsibility is the most effective way to connect the deep ideas and questions of free will to daily life and societal function. Therefore it is one of the most important aspects in the debate over free will. Furthermore, I am confident that although humans may have forces that influence our actions, there is ultimately still freedom of will and choice. If this is true, then the individual should be held morally responsible for his or her actions. Galen Strawson maintains that if you are to be morally responsible for what you do, you must be morally responsible for how you think. Obviously it is very difficult, if not impossible, to be in control and responsible for your thoughts; therefore, Strawson draws the conclusion that humans cannot be held morally responsible for how they act. On the surface this seems quite plausible, even with its obvious negative implications to society if embraced. However, after some examination, the first premise seems to be somewhat false, rendering his conclusion false as well. To put it simply, it is not a necessity to act on ones thoughts. There are countless examples where people have negative thoughts such as, I cannot believe this was done to me I am going kill that

person! This is seen often in cases of betrayal or infidelity. In most cases, these people do not act on these thoughts and commit a murder. The question of why the chose not to act on their thoughts is irrelevant in this case because they still made the conscious choice using free will not to act. Furthermore, Strawson would argue that you must be morally responsible for what causes an action to be morally responsible for the action itself. This assertion is flawed as well however. Is the kind, warm-hearted, loving husband responsible for his wifes infidelity assuming it was unprovoked? I think not. Let us assume for a second that in this case, he did end up murdering his wife. Is he not morally responsible for this murder simply because he is not responsible for the infidelity? Of course he is. He made the conscious decision to murder. He could have simply left his wife and gotten on with his life, but he did not. Regardless of the causes of his action, he is still morally responsible and possessed the free will to act differently had he chosen to do so. To build off of Taylors Agency Theory, agents and the situation at hand heavily influence human action, but in the end, we are still free beings capable of controlling our future through choice. By this reasoning, we are also morally responsible for those choices no matter how heavily influenced they are. This effectively demonstrates the importance of including moral responsibility in the debate over free will. Because of this pairing, Libertarianism seems to be the view most heavily correlated to how human society actually functions. It supports the natural human belief that we possess control and free will while also providing validity to our societal system of crime, punishment, and moral responsibility for our actions. Humans are not robots or computers that have been hardwired to complete their tasks and cannot be held accountable for a malfunction. Humans are free spirited, conscious, beings that

effectively control their own destinies. We act how we want to act and be who we want to be while accepting responsibility for all that goes along with that choice.