Ethical Studies

The Vulgar Notion of Responsibility in connection with the Theories of Free-Will and Necessity.

WHAT is not the scope of this essay? We must begin with that, for round the phrases which appear in our title there exist ‘perverse associations,’ which may lead our readers to expect, some this, and others that. And, because we think that some of these expectations will be disappointed, we will start with saying what it is that we do not propose to treat of.

The scope of this essay might have been the solution of one, or both, of two difficult problems. We might have asked what responsibility at bottom is; whether it implies necessity or freedom, and what these mean; and then we should have come to questions of abstract metaphysic. Or again, our task might have been the limitation of our accountability with reference to legal imputation, and here we should have had a juridical enquiry. But our object is not the solution of either one or the other of these questions.