A comment on determinism, moral responsibility and legal sanctions of behaviour

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a specific point concerning the implications of psychological determinism for legal sanctions of behaviour. One hears it argued sometimes that, insofar as the concept of moral responsibility is predicated on the assumption of self‐determinism or voluntarism, determinism, in denying the coherence of the concept of moral responsibility, entails a nihilistic approach to legal sanctions of behaviour. It will be argued that whilst determinism indeed renders the concept of moral responsibility vacuous, determinism itself entails no policy on the punishment (or reward) of certain behaviours.