Is Ultimate Moral Responsibility Metaphysically Impossible? A Bergsonian Critique of Galen Strawson's Argument

Philosophy 92 (4):519-538 (2017)
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Abstract

What I want to do in this essay is examine a notorious argument put forward by Galen Strawson. He advocates what he describes as an a priori argument against the possibility of ultimate (moral) responsibility. There have been many attempts at answering Strawson, but whether they have been successful is debatable. I attempt to employ Henri Bergson's approach to the free will debate and assess whether what he says has any purchase in terms of criticism of Strawson's position. I conclude that Bergson's views offer a serious alternative in debates about free will.

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Mark Ian Thomas Robson
Durham University (PhD)

References found in this work

The Problems of Philosophy.Bertrand Russell - 1912 - Mind 21 (84):556-564.
The Bounds of freedom.Galen Strawson - 2001 - In Robert Kane (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Free Will. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 441-460.
Matter and Memory.Henri Bergson, Nancy Margaret Paul & W. Scott Palmer - 1911 - International Journal of Ethics 22 (1):101-107.
On an argument for the impossibility of moral responsibility.Randolph Clarke - 2005 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 29 (1):13-24.

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