Determinism renders moral responsibility impossible

Pro has agreed in this final round that my "argument for soft determinism does work to support moral responsibility." He just doesn't accept soft deteminism because he believes that mental states are the same thing as physical states in the brain. He said that if I could show that mental states are independent of physical states that he would concede the debate.I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but I must remind the reader once more that for the purposes of this debate, it's irrelevant whether soft determinism is true, hard determinism is true, or moral responsibility is true. We only want to know whether it's possible for both moral responsibility and determinism to be true. If soft determinism, as I described it, is possible, and if moral responsibility "does work" under soft determinism, then the resolution is false since the resolution states that "Determinism renders moral responsibility impossible." I don't need to show that mental states are independent of physical states. If it's even possible (which it is under substance dualism), then the resolution is false, and Pro ought to have conceded the debate.Pro could have refuted my argument by proving that my version of soft determinism is impossible. He would have to have shown that it's impossible that a desire could exist independently of a physical state. If some form of substance dualism is true (or even if property dualism is true), that would undermine Pro's argument from physicalism. Pro seemed to recognize that, but he made no effort to argue that substance dualism (or property dualism) isn't possible. He said, "If Con had demonstrated that your conscious self existed independent of physical laws, then he might have had the foundation of an argument." But I don't need to demonstrate it. The mere possibility renders the resolution false.Pro claims that mental states and the physical states of the brain are the same thing, but his own statements imply otherwise. He said that mental states "are merely the product of neuron interactions and neurotransmitters in our brains." Well, if one thing is a product of another thing, then we are talking about two distinct things. So this statement is inconsistent with his claim that they are the same thing under different names.Besides that, there are good reasons to think mental states are not the same thing as physical states. Since this is the final round, and it's generally against debate ettiquette to bring up new arguments in the final round, I won't do so. But I should point out that it need only be possible to negate the resolution.Pro is under the impression that besides being in control of our actions, we also need to be in control of the desires that determine our actions. But that is not so. Recall in the earlier round, I explained what it means to be in control of your actions. We are in control of our actions to the degree that our actions are determined by our desires. Being in control of our actions is enough to establish our moral responsibility without our having to be in control of the desires that determine our actions. If I put a piece of cake in front of somebody, I can cause them to desire to eat the cake, but that does not diminish their responsibility for choosing to eat the cake. So no, we don't need to be able to have control over the desires we act on before we are morally responsiblle for acting on them.Con's claim that we must control our desires before we can be responsible for acting on them is inconsistent with his own claim that if our desires exist independently of our physical brain states, we would be morally responsible for acting on them. In his own claim, he doesn't even address the question of whether we'd need to be in control of those desires. He recognizes that it doesn't matter. It is enough that we act on them.Finally, i want to respond to this last argument by Pro:"What Con is effectively doing by putting forward soft determinism as an response is saying 'your actions aren't determined by X, which you couldn't control and therefore would not engender moral responsibility, but your actions are determined by Y (which is the same as X, except under a different name), which does engender moral responsibility'. The contradiction in this assertion should be evident."Pro only thinks there's a contradiction because he thinks X and Y are the same thing. But that's his position, not mine, so it's not a contradiction on my part. I demonstrated in the last two rounds that as far as moral responsibility is concerned, we all treat physical causes to action or inaction differently than we treat mental reasons for action or inaction. One elminates moral responsibility, and the other establishes moral responsibility. So there is no contradiction at all on my part.Thanks to Pro for a thoughtful debate, and thanks to the reader for giving us both a hearing.