Harris: Guilty Or Irresponsible?

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Is Harris guilty, it’s a question that has torn my mind. Yes, he is guilty. Yes, he should be punished. Yet, was he morally responsible for the crime? Upon reading the article and learning about his life and how it was always headed in a downward motion. While I want to believe that he had free will and was able to stop the killing if he wanted too. He didn’t have to kill those people, yet causal determinism would argue this. Causal determinism states that every action, belief, and desire is a function of causes that are out of our control. This would mean that Harris is not morally responsible for his crime that are out of our control. This would mean that Harris is not morally responsible for his crime because he can’t control what happens …show more content…
What happened with Harris was his own undoing. How could everything be predetermined? Sure, my past actions have put me into the position i'm in today. Yet, even if the situation comes up where I can rob a bank, I wouldn’t. My personal moral won’t let me. Harris made up his decision to rob a bank and to kill. Nothing in his past determine morals, that was his own moral decision and nothing can change that. He had the decision, pull the trigger or don’t. Both easy actions, when put out of context, but in that moment not pulling the trigger seems to be the obvious …show more content…
They would agree with Holback that free will is an illusion. That our ideas come to us involuntarily, thus causing us to think we are making our own decisions while really just being controlled. If the actions of a man are never free and are always being controlled, a man's beliefs and opinions are just a factor of the ideas and opinions in our heads. Thinking like this would lean towards Harris not being morally guilty for killing and robbing the bank. If everything he does is not in his control how can he be morally guilty? There is no actual underlying proof that a free will exists. Yet, the most common people in society today believe in a free will. Kierkegaard had the idea that each individual must give meaning to his or her own life, that we make decisions on subjective meaning. It really comes down to what you choose to believe, causal determinism or existentialism? Causal determinism and existentialism both have very believable logic behind them. Yet, to believe that no person on this earth has any choice in their life seems to take the meaning away. I agree with Kierkegaard, each individual must give meaning to their own life. If everything was being determined for us, I don’t believe there would be a meaning of our existence. Thus, propelling the idea of existentialism ahead of causal determinism and accusing Harris of being morally responsible for his

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