Strawson's Argument Analysis

In this paper I am going to argue that Strawson’s argument, which says that people cannot be ultimately morally responsible for who they are, is wrong. I base my answer in the concept of free will, which I am going to explain once I have clearly established Strawson’s point of view. Strawson claims that we cannot be ultimately morally responsible for our actions whether or not determinism is true. Strawson’s claim is based in the Basic argument, which states the following: (1) nothing can be the cause of itself. (2) For one to be ultimately morally responsible for one's actions one would have to be the cause of itself, at least in certain vital mental respects. (3) Hence nothing can be ultimately morally responsible for its actions. In his
paper, The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility, Strawson restates the Basic Argument as a way of challenging others to contradict his argument, which he does in the following way.
Strawson says that: (1) initially, a person is the way that person is due to heredity and early experience, and it is certain that a person cannot be responsible in any way for these things. (2) A one cannot ever agree to true moral responsibility for the way one is by attempting to modify the way one already is as a consequence of hereditary and previous experience. (3) The way one already is as a result of heredity and previous experience will regulate the specific way in which one is motivated to attempt to change oneself, and the extent of success in one’s attempt at change. (4) In addition, the way one is as a result of hereditary and previous experience will also regulate any additional changes that one is able to accomplish after one has produced certain initial changes, which were determined by the way one is as a result of hereditary and previous experience, as well. Finally, (5) some changes in the way one is might have been influenced by indeterministic or random factors, which one cannot, in any way, be responsible for, and thus, it is senseless to assume that these changes could contribute to one being ultimately morally responsible for the way one is. This means that people cannot assume that they are able to change themselves in a way that would make them ultimately morally responsible for the way they are, as well as for their actions.
On the contrary, I do not agree with Strawson’s argument because I believe that every human being on this planet has free will and if we have free will, we are certainly morally responsible for who we are and what we do.
But what do I mean by free will? Free will is the ability that allows a person to perform a different action than the one actually taken. If we all have freedom of the will, then we all must be ultimately morally responsible for our actions. According to the deterministic view, all our actions are already predetermined by external factors, such as our background, environment, and the particular situations that we face at the moment of making a decision. Hence, this suggests that we are not free to decide what to do, which basically means that free will does not exist, and thus we could not possibly be responsible for any of our actions. However, even though our actions might be affected by external factors that will strongly influence us toward different directions. Yet, in the end, it is us who decide in which direction we move. As a consequent, we are indeed, ultimately morally responsible for who we are and what we
do.
All individuals have a specific character, personality, and motivational structure (abbreviated by Strawson as CPM), which is said to be what determines the way in which one behaves. When we are children, our parents are always telling us what to do and how to behave. These early experiences and our hereditary information influence us greatly, to the extent that from them, according to Strawson, we form our CPM. However, even though it is true that we are constantly being influenced by the way we are brought up, it is also true that we take in as our own whatever we want from these factors. Thus, in the end our CPM is whatever we decide our CPM to be, regardless of the hereditary information and early experiences that we have had. Strawson argues that for one to be ultimately morally responsible for who one is and the action one takes, one must be responsible for one’s CPM. As human beings, one has to constantly make decisions about every action we take. Whether it is something as simple as to what color shirt one wears or as complex as hurting another human being. These decisions and actions are what define who one is. Thus, once one is conscious of one’s behavior and actions, whether or not one has been influenced by external factors in the formation of one’s previous CPM, one is ultimately morally responsible for the actions one performs, and thus one is morally responsible for who one is.
However, some people might question this argument in the following way: so what happens when we are little babies, whom are completely dependents on our parents and are not able to make any decisions?
Do we not have free will in this case and thus are not morally responsible for who we are? I would say to whomever asks this question: it is a fact that when we are babies, we are at the mercy of our parents, but it is not true that we are not able to make any decisions. Yes, a lot of decisions are made for us when we are babies and we have to accept them, but that does not mean that inside that is what we really want, we just find ourselves in a position in which we are obligated to do it in order to survive, because survival is any baby’s principal drive. For instance, when a mother decides that she wants to give her baby only bottle milk, some babies will refuse to feed from the bottle until the mother sees herself obligated to feed the babies with the breast. However, some babies will give up and feed from the bottle because they feel their survival is being threatened. In both scenarios the babies are executing their free will, in different ways of course. They might not have the knowledge that older children and adults acquire as time passes by, but they make the decisions they make based on what they know and what they decide they want to take in from the external factors that may influence them. Thus, if little babies are able to make decisions this means that babies
can also be responsible for who they are, (at least partially).
As I pointed out previously, having free will makes us morally responsible for who we are and what we do because regardless of the external factors that might influence us, in the end, it us who decide what to do. This is why I cannot agree with Strawson's argument, even though the argument possesses certain strength, especially when he says that we are not responsible for who are because we cannot be responsible for our CPM. This is the most cogent premise that Strawson's argument possesses, and thus it could easily make us agree with it. However, as I explained before, we must be ultimately morally responsible for who are (even if it is partially), starting from the moment we are born due to the fact that we exercise our free will since that very moment