Essay | Determining Sourcehood

An argument to consider our external reality as something which affects our will. Written for PHI 338: Metaethics with Professor Khoury at Arizona State University on February 27th, 2022.

Determining Sourcehood

By Samantha Robyn Norrah

It is easy to think one is higher than another if one maintains the belief that there is something higher than oneself. Ideas seem to innately possess the habit of perpetuating themselves to color our outer narrative with the palette provided within. It is here that we tend to mistake an impression of sourcehood. In metaethics, source is defined as how one’s actions are brought about and is oftentimes assumed to be harbored by some mindscape. The only trouble is that factors beyond ourselves predominantly cause who we are and become. If this is the case, it appears that our impression, impact, and identity are determined or fixed to a specific outcome. The sourcehood argument essentially states that if determinism is true, free will or the ability to control one’s actions can not exist. Galen Strawson takes this notion further, conveying how sourcehood is incompatible with moral responsibility, which is the measure of blame and praise. In this paper, I will argue against Strawson’s Basic Argument by revealing that it relies on the fallacy of begging the question. Furthermore, I will defend sourcehood compatibilism with moral responsibility and determinism by soliciting physicalist views. (Khoury, M5a).

Galen Strawson introduced the Basic Argument in his 1994 paper, The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility. He delved into considerations of sourcehood and causa sui as performing a free action for which one is truly and ultimately responsible. The extended version of the Basic Argument outlines how one’s actions are performed “for a reason.” (Strawson, 6). The argument effectively falls in on itself when the ‘reason’ results in a cause or deterministic factor, turning supposed actions into technical reactions. The argument forms an infinite regress, looping the concept with no apparent avail (Strawson, 7). He concludes that sourcehood must not exist, explaining that ultimate moral responsibility can not either as there is inevitably no true causa sui involved in our actions.

To exemplify the illusory aspects of ultimate moral responsibility, Strawson relates to Heaven and Hell responsibility. He indicates that such measures of extreme infinite belief could validate other false notions of moral responsibility, punishment, and reward. If an agent is not genuinely capable of moral responsibility but is otherwise assumed to believe they are due to such ideologies, it would appear that any actions taken against the individual for their happenstance are metaethically unjust. Objections assert that Strawson sets the bar for moral responsibility too high. John Martin Fischer notes that needing “total control” over one’s behavior is counter-intuitive to causal factors entirely beyond our being (Talbert, 77). Hence, could be wildly irrational to assume someone is blameworthy for causes that surpass the existence of humankind, like being blamed for the Big Bang. Further support for Strawson comes from Neil Levy, stressing that “relevant control” is what threatens moral responsibility (Talbert, 78). Given this argument, any application of moral responsibility beyond what is deemed ‘relevant’ would still prove entirely irrelevant as it is only relevant to the social constructs that apply or hold some idea of it. The issue is that even in a spectrum of relevance, it appears that moral responsibility is not intrinsically real. 

The paradoxes of Strawson’s argument stretch across his words and through his interlocutor’s reexaminations. Thoughts unfold and refold again, displaying a pattern of circular argumentation, begging the question that minds are separate from the physical world. Strawson’s extended Basic Argument first works to define the concept of causa sui as performing actions “for a reason.” But according to the Oxford Language Dictionary, a reason is defined as “a cause, explanation, or justification for an action or event.”Consequently, Strawson misconstrues his argument by predefining source as determined. There are two thoughts I pull from this error. Firstly, Strawson’s expression of source, much like many other dominant philosophers in the field of metaethics, is primarily concerned with the mental. It is assumes, as Strawson does, that factors beyond this are purely physical. A dualistic distinction bypasses the possibility that the mental is the physical. So moral responsibility might be false as it only emphasizes sourcehood on the mental aspects of the human mind and not anything outside it. Such perspective negates natural existence and its progression as we observe through science. This carries me to my second point: once the mental is acknowledged for its basis in the physical, the Basic Argument actually does prove that all things, as they exist, are in and of themselves causa sui. As it seems, what Strawson managed to demonstrate with his analysis is that causes are caused by causes. It is no surprise that notions to show how we are not our environment fail as we only exist on the premise that our external world does, both with us and as us. Understanding that we are causal to one another, beyond species or animation, enables us to be caused and cause. There is an exchange. Perhaps we are looking far too inward for moral responsibility and not allowing for more consideration of our causal impact on the physical world around us when considering its reach and significance. (Strawson, 6-7).

Beyond examining causa sui through a more inclusive and physicalist perspective, I insist on a review of sourcehood that acknowledges the state of freedom and responsibility to one of a semi-necessary illusion adapted as a likely result of evolution. As unmistakable in Strawson’s appeal to Heaven and Hell responsibility, he is highly influenced by Westernized culture and religions. In his paper, he proposes that ideas of morality and freedom are simple ‘beliefs’ that are not pertinent to human capacity. He writes, “Even if such causal ‘aseity’ is allowed to belong unintelligibly to God, it cannot plausibly be supposed to be possessed by ordinary finite beings.” (Strawson, 15). He then questions why humans may have adapted such belief systems without considering much beyond his inquiry. I offer that an answer to his query is in his own logic. Strawson defined ‘reasons’ as opposed to a “reflex.” It is here I find it may be that the thoughts that consume us are, as he extends, “mindlessly habitual actions.” (Strawson, 6). Belief in such concepts could be a trait we acquired through experience, time, observation, and evolution. The foundations of these beliefs could hint that they are critical methods of survival, preservation, and sanity. Indicating that freedom and responsibility are embedded in nature as a semi-necessary illusion, still brought about through deterministic causes.

Objectors may point out that certain beliefs of the world and one’s life may be considered harmful in some respect, and this may appear to conflict with my stance that such mechanisms in and of themselves warp to sustain life. My response to this is in two parts; (1) It is what it is, and (2) it is not what it is not. As it may be, beliefs could sway and bend with time as they evolve and decay endlessly and all at once. There is no indisputable right or wrong. However, thoughts are not the only things that drive action. Holding certain beliefs does not indicate that one suddenly is released from the nature of other things. All agents are always tied to their environment in such a way that realizes a semi-necessary or relevant moral responsibility to aspects of sourcehood and determinism.

Galen Strawson’s Basic Argument leads the metaethical debate of sourcehood from a problem for determinism to a problem for moral responsibility by uncovering infinite regress. But the true problem within his argument begged more than reactions; it begged the question. I addressed Strawson’s fallacy while using his argument to propose a version of sourcehood, which is naturally causa sui and incorporates physical existence in its entirety. Inspired by Strawson’s reflections, I juxtaposed a brief compatibilist version of sourcehood, freedom, moral responsibility, and determinism; weighing the importance of matter as mind. I found that all things simultaneously cause and are caused, and that this concept can open up a breath of new considerations in the field of metaethics. I imagine my thoughts will empower introspection on concepts of the self in relation to others, both human and not. Ideally pivoting the beliefs of our kind towards one that is more inclusive and respectful to our planet and ourselves. 

Work Cited

“Reason.” Oxford English Dictionary. Accessed February 27, 2022. https://www.oed.com/.

Khoury, Andrew. “Lecture M5a.” PHI 338, Metaethics. Lecture presented at Arizona State University online, February 27, 2022. 

Morrow, David R., and Anthony Weston. A Workbook for Arguments: A Complete Course in Critical Thinking. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 2019. 

Strawson, Galen. “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility.” Philosophical Studies 75, no. 1-2 (1994): 5–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00989879. 

Talbert, Matthew. “3.2 Ultimate Responsibility.” Essay. In Moral Responsibility, 75–85. Cambridge (UK): Polity Press, 2016. 

Talbert, Matthew. “Determinism,” “Fallacies,” and “Free Will.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University. Accessed February 27, 2022. https://plato.stanford.edu/.