The Moral Responsibility Delusion

Book excerpt: Belief in moral responsibility enjoys widespread support, both among philosophers and in popular culture. Moral responsibility for our characters and our acts is often regarded as beyond doubt or question, and, although the belief seems to be a cultural universal, it is particularly powerful in the USA and the UK. This book explores the deep psychological factors at the source of the profound commitment to belief in moral responsibility. Philosophers have developed legions of arguments in support of moral responsibility, but even philosophical champions of those arguments acknowledge that they are not conclusive and certainly not strong enough to account for the powerful belief in moral responsibility; and because those philosophical arguments are not widely known, they cannot be the source of the popular belief in moral responsibility. Belief in moral responsibility is rooted in forces that run much deeper than justifications favored by both philosophers and the layperson. This book is a quest to uncover those deeper sources, showing that the roots of the common belief in moral responsibility run deep, and they include powerful factors that rarely rise to consciousness.