Mike Tyson Research Paper

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There is no doubt that Mike Tyson has had his highs and lows in life. Kane is a libertarian and believes in “The power to be the ultimate creator and sustainer of some of one’s own ends or purposes” (FW 269). Therefore, he would say that if Tyson made a big moral decision at any point, then he is ultimately responsible for all of his actions that directly stem from it, because there was a time when he could have chosen a different path (FW 271). Kane refers to these times when we play a role in our fate as self-forming actions, SFA’s (FW 271). On the other hand behaviorists such as B. F. Skinner and John B. Watson, would say that all of Tyson’s actions can be explained by outside forces and trained behavior, making him not responsible at all…show more content…
He turned to the streets for the love, affection, education, and money he could not find elsewhere. A pivotal moment in his young life was his first fight. From Kane’s perspective, Tyson’s action of hitting the man who stole his pigeon was a very big moral decision. This can be considered an SFA because it was the first time he decided to fight which led him down the path of being a fighter and to all of his other fighting behaviors. Behaviorists would say that the hostile and violent environment, he was being raised in influenced his behavior. Having no source of love or acceptance from his family, along with his struggle for money and food, he turned to the next closest thing, the streets, which influenced his actions and caused him to be…show more content…
Looking at this from Kane’s point of view Tyson may not have had a choice to become an addict, and may not have had a choice when it came to relapse, but he made the choice to work towards getting clean (Fighting to Kick the Habit). His choice to get sober is an SFA, because he decided to break the chain of addiction and be a better person and father. This was a very big moral decision and he can take ultimate responsibility from all of the good that comes from this choice. On the other hand, we could say that his environment growing up never gave him the tools, education, or experience needed to be able to refuse drugs or escape addiction. Tyson stated, “Even though I possessed incredible discipline when it came to boxing, I didn’t have the tools to stop my slide into addiction.” (Fighting to Kick the Habit). This quote shows that the way he was raised completely revolved around boxing, so much so that he feels ill equipped for other important aspects in life. Behaviorists would also look at his childhood and how he grew up in a house with an addict mother and spent most of his time on the streets around drugs, which were most likely, a huge influence on the person he would become (My Life as a Young Thug). This shows that he definitely had no choice but to be an addict, it was in his genes and he had a lot of exposure to
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