Luck Swallows Everything Analysis

In “Luck Swallows Everything” and “Sanity and the Metaphysics of Responsibility” Galen Strawson and Susan Wolf’s explain the concept of responsibility in both a compatibilist and determinist view. Strawson argued that change was not possible at all when it comes to responsibility due to an individual’s mental nature, while Wolf argues that change is possible for an individual when it comes to responsibility. This essay will be focusing on the criticism of Wolf’s work.

“Are we free agents? Can we be responsible for what we do” (Strawson 225) This is the issue that Strawson brings to light in his essay. He begins to explain the notion of free will and responsibility in a compatibilist’s view. They believe that free will and determinism are compatible

It is a problem due to the assumptions that we already know the conditions presented to us in any given situation. The trend she focuses on is known as the Deep Self View. The idea of the deep self view stems from three writers, Harry Frankfurt, Gary Watson and Charles Taylor. Frankfurt believes that there is a difference between freedom of action and freedom of the will. Freedom of action is the idea that someone can do whatever they want. Freedom of the will is if someone has the will to do whatever they want. To explain it better he introduces the concept of first order desires and second order desires. First- order desires are the desires to have or do many things, second order desires are desires about what we want and the desires to put them in action. Philosopher Gary Watson’s, view is like Frankfurt’s but in his terms “an agent is responsible for an action if the desires expressed by that action are of a particular kind.” (Wolf 247) Watson introduces the differences between free action and unfree action, is that these actions must be analyzed through its sources. Taylor on the other-hand claims that responsibility depends on how we criticize, reflect and revise our selves. Their views relate in which they all agree “…that the key to responsibility lies in the fact that responsible agents are those for whom it is not just the case that their actions are within the control of their wills, but also the case that their wills are within the control of their selves in some deeper sense.” (Wolf 248). This conclusion leads her into the discussion of the deep-self view. The deep-self view explains who we are inside based on our desires, the deep-self is influenced by what we choose to desire and what we desire. This influences our thoughts and decisions which leads into our moral responsibility. She later goes on to explain the inefficiencies to the deep-self