We’re told that each of us is a product of two factors:
genetic makeup and environmental conditioning, otherwise known as nature and
nurture. If that is the case, how can any of us be responsible for our actions?
If I have criminal tendencies, or am prone to doing other bad things, how can
you blame me? That’s how I’m made, isn’t it?
‘Ah,’ you might say, ‘but you have free will. You can see
that you’re wrong and make the effort to change.’
Can I? Let’s suppose – as is likely – I’m genetically or environmentally
conditioned to see nothing wrong in how I am. And even if I do recognise that I’m
a bad person, suppose the compulsion that drives me to bad deeds is so strongly
conditioned that I’m unable to overcome them. We’re back to the same question.
I sense that each of us must be held accountable for our
actions, but is that rational? Is being held accountable the same as being
deemed responsible? What’s the answer to this, and who holds it? The psychologists?
The philosophers? The religionists?
As I said, this is troubling me a lot lately.
No comments:
Post a Comment