Can we be ultimately morally responsible for what we choose

Abstract

The starting point of this essay is Galen Strawson's pessimist position of free will, which is an attempt to prove that no agent can meet the demands for ultimate moral responsibility. Strawson defends the pessimist position with his famous 'Basic Argument” in which he proves that neither can we be the origin of our choices nor can we consciously and explicitly have the reasons for our choices. The Basic argument simply relies on two assumptions: 1) Free will requires a notion of selfdetermination. (I refer to it as the 'Self-determination Assumption'); 2) To be truly or ultimately morally responsible for what you do, you must have consciously and explicitly chosen to be the way you are, at least in certain crucial mental respects （I refer to it as the “Choice Assumption”). Firstly, I address the ultimate origin problem by introducing a “hierarchical account of free will” as an alternative to Strawson’s assumption whose main idea is that an agent acts freely when she acts on reasons that she reflectively desires to be effective, and whether the reason is ultimately selfdetermined or not is irrelevant to the notion of free will. Secondly, I argue against the linear justification that Strawson unfairly employed in his Basic Argument. For, within the framework of linear justification, not only the notion of free will but also every notion that cannot be justified by itself or in itself may inevitably involve an infinite regress. A coherentism justification, however, can successfully avoid the infinite regress.