Responsibility Starts At Choice

It's very easy to avoid responsibility. All you have to do is chase causal mechanisms beyond any choice you had. For example:

"I had bad parents"

"I had a bad society"

"I had bad genes"

Ultimately, every last influence of choice came from factors we didn't choose. So are any of us responsible for anything?

I dare say, yes!

I'm no fan of free will, but only if free will means your will is a caused factor, not if it means will doesn't exist. People make choices, it's just that their choices are ultimately and completely caused phenomenon. Some people are upset at us free will deniers because it admonishes everyone of responsibility. But this kind of thinking is wrong. Responsibility starts at choice just as it had before.

After all, the same problem still exists in the pro-free-will position. It's not like free-willers deny that bad parents, bad society, and bad genes influence our choices. If these factors don't combine to 100% influence over free will, then surely they combine to some significant amount. And do we make people less culpable based on however much these factors played into their choice? Nope. Again; responsibility begins at choice.

So when you kill someone, it's not the case that this murder wasn't ultimately and entirely caused by factors other than you. They were. But did those factors cause it through a causal chain that included choice? If not, then you're free of blame. If not, then it's your fault.