Responsibility, Control, and Expression.

The philosophical tradition has assumed the existence of a close relationship between moral responsibility and freedom. Freedom can be understood as a capacity of control over our decisions and actions. On this traditional perspective, freedom (control) is necessary for moral responsibility. However, the question of moral responsibility has recently acquired an increasing independence from the problem of freedom. Some important steps in this direction have been taken by Peter Strawson and Robert Adams. The development of this alternative point of view has given rise to what is sometimes called "attributionism", according to which one can be morally responsible for actions, and even for attitudes, without having control over them. What makes someone responsible for such things is not that they are had or performed freely, but rather that they are expressions of certain mental features of the agent. On this approach, the truth or falsity of determinism becomes almost irrelevant to moral responsibility. In this paper, I present these two views of moral responsibility as well as a way of reconciling them in a unitary conception that retains advantages of both approaches while hopefully avoiding their main difficulties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]