Responsibility without Free Will

Free Will and Moral Responsibility in Islamic Philosophy

According to a common view among Muslim philosophers, a moral agent has free will if and only if she is able to do an action when she wants to and is able to avoid it when she wants otherwise. Implicit in this view is the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP). On the other hand, according to this view, free will is dependent on requirements such as conception, judgement, tendency, decisi...

Neuroscientific challenges to free will and responsibility.

Recent developments in neuroscience raise the worry that understanding how brains cause behavior will undermine our views about free will and, consequently, about moral responsibility. The potential ethical consequences of such a result are sweeping. I provide three reasons to think that these worries seemingly inspired by neuroscience are misplaced. First, problems for common-sense notions of ...

Advanced Review Free will and responsibility

Free will is a set of capacities for conscious choice and control of actions and is essential for moral responsibility. While determinism is traditionally discussed as the main potential challenge to free will and responsibility, other potential challenges exist and need to be considered by philosophers and scientists. The cognitive sciences are relevant to free will both to study how people un...

Ethics without Free Will

Moral theories typically rest upon the assumption that conscious deliberation plays a causal role in action; however, a growing body of scientific evidence supports a physicalist account of causation that leaves no causal role for mental activity. In response, I develop a moral theory (including moral truth, motivation, and meaning) that excludes considerations of conscious free will. I then co...

Human Biology and Criminal Responsibility: Free Will of Free Ride ?