Abstract

Do we freely choose to do what we do? Or are we determined by what nature and history have made us? If we are so determined, then can we ever really be responsible for our actions? It is only by bad logic that metaphysics can deprive us of our freedom and our responsibility. But the contingencies of life are another matter. This paper argues that so many accidents of life create who we are and how we act that the responsibility for what we do must be dispersed. There is no place where the buck stops. We are therefore called upon to moderate our resentment and to give up punitive morality in favor of a morality of love and redemption