Freedom and Agency: Two Critiques to Hard Determinism

Abstract

Moral responsibility is the very foundation of all moral actions and social practices. Hard determinism, however, becomes a serious threat to morality by raising the impossibility of moral responsibility. This paper evaluates two criteria under which moral responsibility can be justified, reconstructs Strawson's basic argument of hard determinism, and provides two solutions (one libertarian, one soft deterministic) to the challenge raised by hard determinism. Finally, this paper points out that moral responsibility does not necessarily require freewill as its precondition.