Can neuroscience, and the other sciences of the mind, shed light on one of the oldest and most difficult of all philosophical problems, the problem of free will and moral responsibility? Some scientists believe it can. In their popular writings, these scientists often express the opinion that the sciences of the mind have shown that free will – and therefore moral responsibility – is an illusion. They argue, roughly, as follows: the sciences of the mind demonstrate that our thoughts, intentions, and (therefore) our actions are the product of deterministic processes, in the following sense: given the initial conditions (say, our genetic endowment at birth and the environment into which we were born), we had to act as we did. But if we were determined to act as we did, then we were not free, or morally responsible. Richard Dawkins, the great evolutionary biologist, has recently compared our practices of praising, blaming and punishing to Basil Fawlty's behavior in flogging his car for breaking down, in the TV series Fawlty Towers: