Abstract
Galen Strawson defends his pessimist position with his famous “Basic Argument”. He attempts to prove that no agent can meet the demands for the ultimate moral responsibility. I argue that the Basic Argument is not impressive because it commits to a linear justification framework under which not only the notion of free will and moral responsibility but every notion would inevitably involve a vicious infinite regress. Surprisingly, this point has not been significantly addressed in the literature of Strawson’s Basic Argument. I scaffold my argument against “Basic Argument” by critically reviewing and comparing Frankfurt, Christman and Ekstrom’s approach to autonomy. I show that any approach, which commits to a linear justification framework, would inevitably involve an infinite regress problem. To make his argument more impressive, Strawson will have to show why he commits to a hierarchical justification framework in the Basic Argument in the first place.
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Notes
Note that principle (1) is not a sufficient condition, rather it is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. Subordinate principle (1.a) express the very essence of free will that the central loci of our moral responsibility are our choices and decisions. An agent cannot be morally responsible for any state of fair P if P is completely due to the luck or external constraints.
Roughly speaking, a difference between an infinite recursion and an infinite regress is that an infinite recursion must always have base cases, cases that satisfy the definition without being defined in terms of the definition itself. An infinite regress results from a self-recursion.
I take the notion of freedom and autonomy as equivalent in this paper, despite the fact that sometimes they might be used differently in varied contexts. For instance, freedom sometimes might be understood in relation to constraints (i.e.a “negative liberty”). Sometimes, freedom might also be understood in terms of autonomy (i.e. a “positive liberty”).
In Analects, 7.19, The Duck of She asked Confucius, “In my land, there are Righteous men, if a father steals a sheep the son will testify against him.” Confucius said, “The Righteous men in my land are different from this. The father conceals the wrongs of his son, and the son conceals the wrongs of his father. This is righteousness!”
Condition 4) is necessary, since it links the theory of preference to the idea of autonomy in terms of self-direction, self-command, etc.
I have noted that the notion of moral responsibility is closely in relation to freedom in the sense that freedom is the necessary condition for moral responsibility.
There are three problems of coherentism that have been widely discussed in the current literature: 1) problems related to the non-linear character of coherentism, 2) the input problem, and 3) the problem of the truth connection. See, Jonathan 2011.
Ekstrom takes the self to be a collection of preferences, plus the power of fashioning and re-fashioning ones character. See, Ekstrom 2005, 149.
References
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Song, F. Why Strawson’s Basic Argument Is Not Impressive: an Answer from Frankfurt, Christman and Ekstrom. Philosophia 48, 1595–1607 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00169-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00169-7