INTRODUCTION

In a deterministic world in which the future is not a garden of forking paths, no acts are right, wrong, or obligatory. I have argued that determinism undermines deontic anchors precisely because it rules out alternative possibilities that such anchors require. If this is so, it seems reasonable to suppose that if some of our actions are not causally determined and we have genuine alternative options, then there will be sufficient leeway to secure deontic morality.

A hallmark of libertarianism is that free actions (if any) that we perform are not causally determined. Libertarian views have been and are generally conceived as views about the sort of freedom or control required for responsibility. However, to explore whether libertarian-like views can accommodate deontic morality, we can exploit the component of such views that allows for agents being able to do otherwise (on various occasions of choice). This is the topic of the second part of this book.

Introducing some terminology will facilitate the discussion. An indeterministic theory specifies the species of control or freedom required for moral responsibility or deontic morality, and it entails that the sort of freedom required for either is incompatible with determinism. Traditional libertarian theories, for instance, all qualify as indeterministic theories. An R-libertarian view is the view that the kind of freedom necessary for moral responsibility is incompatible with determinism and that human beings can sometimes be or are morally responsible for what they do.