Freedom and Responsibility

Abstract

Perhaps the hoariest old chestnut in the philosophy playbook is the question regarding the so-called “freedom of the will”. It is asked, Are human beings ever really responsible for their actions? Are human beings really fit subjects of praise and blame, resentment and gratitude, guilt and forgiveness and the other reactive attitudes? Or is it rather the case that there is only one action ever open to us, that alternatives are just an illusion, and, consequently, that entreaties, rewards, punishments and the like are entirely out of place? As in so many other cases, we find a good number of philosophers parting company with common sense on these issues. For while most of the educated classes are now familiar with the thesis that we are simply the products of our genes and socio-cultural environment, and while it is true that we often pay lip service to these ideas, in our pre-theoretical moments, we never so much as raise these questions. Nonetheless, it seems that philosophers are never short of reasons for suspecting that one of our most cherished beliefs — that we are indeed the authors of our own biographies and not automata or puppets on strings — might be an illusion.