Against Moral Responsibility

Chapter 7. Responsibility for the Self You Make

7 Chapter 6 rejected taking responsibility as grounds for moral responsibility: taking responsibility is generally good and psychologically healthy, but the responsibility taken is not moral responsibility, and even strong identification with one’s own authentic character cannot support claims of blame and just deserts. But some moral responsibility advocates have gone further, arguing that you don’t just take moral responsibility for the character you happen to have; rather, you gain moral responsibility for yourself because you make yourself. The notion that we are morally responsible because we make ourselves has long been appealing. As noted in chapter 2, Pico della Mirandola’s famous Renaissance oration on “The Dignity of Man” suggests that God grants humans the special power of unlimited and unconstrained selfmaking ; Pico della Mirandola has God address “his last and favorite creation ” thus: The nature of all other beings is limited and constrained within the bounds of laws prescribed by Us. Thou, constrained by no limits, in accordance with thine own free will, in whose hand We have placed thee, shalt ordain for thyself the limits of thy nature. We have set thee at the world’s center that thou mayest from thence more easily observe whatever is in the world. We have made thee neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with honor, as though the maker and molder of thyself, thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer. Thou shalt have the power to degenerate into the lower forms of life, which are brutish. Thou shalt have the power, out of thy soul’s judgment, to be reborn into the higher forms, which are divine. (1496/1948, 225) In a more contemporary vein—and equally miraculous, though without recourse to God—Jean Paul Sartre (1946/1989) insists that our existence precedes our essence and that we humans are self-conscious self-creating “being-for-itself” with the free power—indeed, the necessity—to make Responsibility for the Self You Make 116 Chapter 7 ourselves; we are different in kind from entities with their own given natures, the unfree “being-in-itself.” The echoes of Pico della Mirandola are not coincidence. All other creatures are “limited and constrained within the bounds of laws prescribed by Us,” constrained by natural causes, but humans are uniquely self-creating “being-for-itself,” and we make ourselves , unconstrained by natural causes or natural processes. So moral responsibility based on special self-making powers has a long and dramatic history, but naturalists, eschewing such miracle-working resources, have been reluctant to embrace self-making as grounds for moral responsibility. After all, the notion of “making myself” is a bit tricky: exactly who is doing the making? If it’s a miraculous process (as in Pico della Mirandola), or if it defies natural understanding (as in Sartre), then fine, but then it’s clearly not something we can fit into a naturalistic system of thought. Recently, however, some committed naturalists have taken the leap and offered self-making as grounds for moral responsibility. Dennett is at the forefront of that effort: I take responsibility for any thing I make and then inflict upon the general public; if my soup causes food poisoning, or my automobile causes air pollution, or my robot runs amok and kills someone, I, the manufacturer, am to blame. And although I may manage to get my suppliers and subcontractors to share the liability somewhat , I am held responsible for releasing the product to the public with whatever flaws it has. Common wisdom has it that much the same rationale grounds personal responsibility; I have created and unleashed an agent who is myself; if its acts produce harm, the manufacturer is held responsible. I think this common wisdom is indeed wisdom. (1984, 85) But for a naturalist, problems with self-making as grounds for moral responsibility soon emerge. Pico della Mirandola may suppose we make ourselves with miraculous powers granted by God, and Sartre may insist that as “being-for-itself” we are not confined to natural powers, but naturalists have no such recourse. And the problem is that even though there is a perfectly legitimate sense in which we do make ourselves—the hardpracticing basketball player makes herself into a better shooter, the hardworking student makes himself into a better writer, the diligent hobbyist makes herself a better woodworker—it is clear that the basketball player and the student and the...