Determinism renders moral responsibility impossible

Recall that in my opening, I explained that whether our actions are, in fact, determined, and whether we are, in fact, morally responsible for our actions is irrelevant to this debate. The debate comes down to whether there is any contradiction between the proposition that we are determined and the proposition that we are morally responsible for our actions. The resolution that Pro must defend is that determinism, if it is true, renders moral responsibility impossible. Pro congratulations me on "successfully explaining my argument in a clearer way than I did," which I take to mean I interpreted the resolution accurately.But then Pro goes on through the rest of his post as if his original argument for determinism was relevant. He restates his argument like so:S1. All actions that are not free are not subject to moral responsibility .S2. All human actions are not free.S3. All human actions are not subject to moral responsibility.But notice that his conclusion does not resemble the resolution to this debate. This debate is no over whether human actions are subject to moral responsibility. The debate is over whether moral responsibility is consistent with determinism.I argued that whether determinism is consistent with moral responsibility depends on what is doing the determinism. I completely agree with Pro that if all our actions are determined merely by physical processes, that we cannot be morally responsible for our actions. But hard determinism is not the only kind of determinism there is. There's also soft determinism, which is what I explained. Under soft determinism, our actions are determined by our mental states, such as our desires, motives, preferences, etc. I showed that if our actions are determined by our mental states, that establishes our moral responsibility. It doesn't eliminate our moral responsibility.Pro did not dispute my claim that we could be morally responsible for our actions if our actions were determined by our mental states. Instead, he just denied that our actions are, in fact, determined by our mental states and argued instead that they are determined by mechanistic physical causes. But that is irrelevant to the resolution. What I showed was that determinism does NOT render moral responsibility impossible since it's possible to be morally responsible for our actions even if our actions are determined by mental states. It doesn't matter whether they actually are determined by mental states or not. We just want to know whether moral responsibility is possible given some form of determinism.In the last round, I explained what Con would need to do to establish the resolution. He would need to demonstrate an imlicit contradiction between these two claims:1. Our actions are determined.2. We are morally responsible for our actions.To demonstrate an implicit contradiction, he would need to give us a necessarily true proposition that when added to the set would render the set formally contradictory. In answer to this challenge, Pro gave us this proposition:3. No actions that are determined can engender moral responsibility.I grant that 1 and 3 entail the negation of 2, which renders the original set formally contradictory. The problem comes in demonstrating that 3 is necessarily true. I showed in the previous round that an action that is determined by a desire can engender moral responsibility. Pro did not deny that. He just denied that desires determine our actions, which is irrelevant. If it's true that an action which is determined by a desire can engender moral responsibility, then Pro's 3 is false.Concerning my demonstration that actions that are determined by desires can be subject to praise and blame, Pro didn't have much to say. He just nit picked a little about my weight lifting illustration. But let me just try to clarify what I meant because nothing he said is really relevant to my intention.If a person is capable of lifting 300 lbs, and if he is required to lift 299 lbs, then he can be held accountable for not lifting the 299 lbs. The reason is because he was physically capable of doing it, but he failed to do it. However, we would cut him more slack for failing to lift 299 lbs than we would if he were only asked to lift 20 lbs and failed to do it. The reason is because 20 lbs would've been easy for him, but 299 lbs would've been nearly impossible. To lift 299 lbs would've taken nearly all his strength. He'd be stressing himself nearly to the breaking point, and we probably would be somewhat understanding if he didn't push himself that far. I did not mean to imply in my illustration that his attempt to lift 299 lbs did not happen on his best day. My "best day" reference was merely to emphasize that 300 lbs was the maximum weight he was physically capable of lifting.The purpose of my illustration was to show that physical difficulty dminishes our moral responsibility. If a physical difficulty were such that we could not overcome it, then we would be fully excused. But if the physical difficulty went only half way toward being too difficult, then it would excuse us in part. So the more difficulty, the less blameworthy for failure.But it is exactly the opposite when it comes to desire. The stronger your desire to act in some way, the more difficult it is to resist acting that way and the closer that desire is to determining your action. If we treated influence from desire the same way we treat influence from physical states, it would follow that the greater hand love plays in your actions, the less praiseworthy those actions are, and the greater hand hatred played in your actions, the less blameworthy those actions would be. But that is exactly the opposite of our common notions about moral responsibility. We treat mental influence exactly the opposite way we treat physical influence. If we act completely apart from all influence from desire whatsoever, we consider that act to be an accident, and we don't hold the person responsible for it. But if a person acts out of a desire to harm, we blame them. If they act out of a desire to help, we praise them. And we praise them or blame them to the degree that the desire influenced their actions. The less hand their desires play in bringing about their actions, the more accidental those actions are, and the more hand their desires play in bringing about their actions, the more on purpose their actions are. It follows that their actions are most on purpose when their actions are determined by their desires. It follows that we are most responsible for our actions when our actions are determined by our desires.It follows that determinism does not render moral responsibility impossible.