Introduction

Abstract

Abstract The ideas of free will and moral responsibility play a deep and central role in the· way that we view ourselves. Because of this, almost all of the great figures in Western philosophy have addressed free will and moral responsibility, most of them attempting to vindicate these beliefs. In recent years, the importance of freedom and responsibility have been well documented. The belief that we often act freely and are at those times morally responsible for our behavior is an integral constituent of the Manifest Image of Man, the view of ourselves and the world that we hold before we entertain the postulation of theoretical entities that constitutes the Scientific Image (Sellars, 1963, Chapter 1). The belief that persons are capable of moral responsibility and deserve moral consideration comprises (along with the logically prior intentional stance) the pesonal stance that we take toward each other (Dennett, 1978, Chapter 12). This personal attitude is characterized by “reactive attitudes” such as gratitude and resentment, which stand in distinction to the “objective” attitude that we take toward beings that we believe are not endowed with free will (Strawson, 1962; Nagel, 1986). The capacity for free will has been alleged to be a criterion for distinguishing persons from non-persons (Frankfurt, 1971). And in law, besides the obvious issue of retributive justice, the ideas of free will and moral responsibility provide the moral rationale for legal responsibility.