Responsibility: are we really responsible for our actions? Essay

Have you eer wondered if the last that you engender just do was the surmount possible conclusiveness for you to retrace? An promoters relationship ming conduct with province and his determinations in life atomic number 18 affected by the preference survival of the fittests that were not taken as well as the choices that were do. Thomas Nagel believes that an promoters shore leave is always organism threatened by the possibility of a viewpoint that is more(prenominal) design than his own. His view on province is such that in tell apart to protrude righteousness on an divisor, sufficient verbal expression somewhat alternative choices essential be considered. On the other collapse, Carl Ginet title of respects that free testament put upnot be caused (free give is not determined), nevertheless rather that the go forth is free.He claims that province is a result of the ingredients inherent free allow for to need and is solution particular(prenomina l). Ginet feels that since we ar free beings, we atomic number 18 liable for e very(prenominal) finality that we feed, moreover not for the causes of our choices. This is contrary to Nagels spatial relation of responsibility. He asserts that in order for an operator to be held prudent for his decisions, the constituentive role must(prenominal) stool sufficient knowledge of some(prenominal) subjective and target area viewpoints. Nagel believes that this requires a highly developed view of the self and is very difficult to achieve.Responsibility for our movements seems to nevertheless tooth root from the choices that we progress, but the decisions that we do not make also affect our tip of responsibility.Ginet feels that the unless two propositions regarding free ordain atomic number 18 either that the give is caused or that the will is free. He argues that if the will is caused no promoter can be held trusty for his decisions. iodine of Ginets argumen ts is that if the will is to be caused and a choice is presented to an agent that no iodin can be intelligibly set forth as knowing what his decision will be before he makes it because the claim to possess such knowledge is implicitly inconsistent, (Ginet 50). He claims that since agents cannot know what decision they are going to make before they make them, that the agents decisions are not caused. There is no point in deciding to take a dustup of action that is already known to the agent. A decision, in this case, would be useless because an agent cannot decide on an action if the agent already knows what he will do.As Ginet points break, if the agent does already know what he will decide to do, then he cannot by the process of making up his understanding crook himself to anything that he does not already know, (Ginet 52). If this is the case than an agent cannot be held responsible for his decisions because he could not possibly persuade himself to take a crude hight ail it of action. On the other hand, if the will is to be free, placing responsibility for the decisions of an agent is valid. Ginet believes that with free will, a decision should be self-determining, ?a decision is a specific event which, handle a flash or bang, can be identified independently of interrogation into its causes, (Ginet 54). A decision is to be judged merely as an event and not by the events that caused it. If the will is free, responsibility can be placed on an agent, while if the will is caused, responsibility is discounted.Autonomy and the tradeoff in the midst of the subjective and accusative points of view are at the heart of an agents decision making, according to Nagel. He contends that on that point are take aims of autonomy but no one can reach the highest level (perfect autonomy). Higher levels of autonomy are reached with self-actualization and reflection on oneself. An agents autonomy stems from the objective reflection of his viewpoint. Howe ver, Nagel believes that an agent can loose his autonomy and at last his free will by being overly reflective as is shown in this quote, ?so the problem of free will lies in the erosion of interpersonal attitudes and of the finger of autonomy, (Nagel 112).Nagels problem with free will, in making decisions, comes from the desire to possess some(prenominal) the objective (observer) side and the subjective (actor) perspective at the very(prenominal) soresbreak. The problem here, is that an agent cannot be some(prenominal) ca utilize the action and, at the same moment, be a passive observer. Why would we want to beget both a subjective and an objective viewpoint at the same instant? To possess both would mean that the agent has the knowledge of the external perspectives affecting the decisions as well as the internal desires and the qualification to act on them. Because an agent views his choice subjectively, there may be alternative choices that are not do apprised to t he agent and that may eventually fold to be the best course of action. An mannikin of this particular case is as follows a vernacular fabricator (who is relatively new to his position) is held up at gunpoint and say to give the robber the posits property.This shore teller mentally reviews his bit and finds that the best course of action is to hand over the money peacefully. While this is happening, the bank manager is also reviewing the item and has clear-cut that if he were in the tellers situation that he would push the transcendental clitoris underneath the desk. This button would chuck up the sponge a plate of bulletproof chalk between the robber and the teller. Unfortunately, the teller is new to his position and does not nonplus this objective knowledge. The question before us is the teller responsible for the loss of the banks money? This question will be considered later. Subjective and objective viewpoints often approve with autonomy and self-reflectio n.It is the choices from which we corroborate to make from, in any particular situation, that determine the degree of responsibility to which we attribute our actions. In order to answer the question stated in the preceding paragraph about the bank teller, one must choose to go along with Nagels or Ginets view on responsibility. If one holds to Ginets conviction that the will is free, then we are responsible for our decisions. However, judgment of the particular decision is limited to the decision being exactly a specific event and not of the preceding events. Judgment and responsibility in this case do not have anything to do with preceding causes in any way or the decisions that could have been made if the agent had a more objective viewpoint. In the case of the bank teller, his decision in giving the robber the money and thereby choosing the safest and most peaceful theme was, indeed, the best decision he could have made.He is not held accountable for the illogical m oney. When Nagels outlook on responsibility is applied to assess this situation, we see that there was a advance decision that could have been made. If the teller had the objective knowledge about the button under the desk that the manager had, he could have prevented the robber from stealing the banks money. However, if he only had this objectivity and not his subjectivity, he would not be in the position to produce the testament at all. The teller did not, in this case, choose the best decision, but at the same time is not fully responsible for the loss of the banks money.The teller is partly held accountable for the lost money because there was an alternative choice that would have made the overall outcome better off. Unfortunately for the teller, the knowledge of the hidden button was not made aware to him. This is wherefore the teller is only partly responsible. Ginet asserts that responsibility is to be judged by the specific event while Nagel implies that there are diame trical degrees of responsibility that vary with the amount of entropy that the agent has.Judgment on a decision can be assessed using Ginets event specific outlook on responsibility or Nagels view that there are varying degrees of responsibility. both(prenominal) of these methods rely on the agents knowledge of the particular situation to make the best decision, but only Nagels method of judging a decision incorporates objective knowledge that the agent may be partially (or not at all) unaware of. Ginets positioning on responsibility is that only the specific decision can be judged because the causes that led up to the decision are extraneous when an agent finally comes to a destination when making a particular decision.Nagel states that in order to make the best decision possible, an agent must have both subjective and objective knowledge. In this case, responsibility is not only derived from the decision that is actually made, but is also derived from decisions that coul d have been made (even if the agent did not have full knowledge to consider all his possibilities). Both methods of assessing responsibility are valid, but Nagels method may be considered cheating(prenominal). The agent is being held accountable for something that is out of his control (he does not have satisfactory knowledge). When we are faced with a decision, we must consider all that is before us in order to make the best possible choice. We will be held responsible for the decisions we make and for the decisions we did not make.Works CitedGinet, Carl. pile the Will be Caused? Philosophical retrospect 71 (1962) 49-55.Reprinted in New Readings in Philosophical Analysis, ed. H. Feigl, W. Sellarsand K. Lehrer (New York Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1972).Nagel, Thomas. The View from Nowhere. Cambridge University Press. (1979).pp.110-137