An Evaluation of the Argument by Ishtiyaque Haji on the Incompatibility of Moral Obligations and Causal Determinism

Emphasizing an already unattended part of the free will question and in the past two decades, Ishtiyaque Haji has argued that causal determinism challenges not only moral responsibility but also moral obligations. To this end, he tries to defend the incompatibility of moral obligations with causal determinism by proving that moral obligations have alternative possibilities and then showing its conflict with causal determinism. The article at hand examines his viewpoint to proving the possibility of strong alternatives for moral obligations – as an important factor for the preservation of the validity of his argument – and tries to show that his claim about the moral obligations’ lack of need to ultimate origination is an incorrect or at least unreasonable factor. It is noteworthy that this criticism only questions his argument method; therefore, it not only does not pose a problem for his main claim about the incompatibility of moral obligations and causal determinism, but also strengthens it.