Responsibility, Excusing Conditions, and Neuroscience Two Essays:How Responsibility is Preserved in a Mechanistic World Through Perceived Freedom and Current Neuroscience Cannot Be the Primary Method to Determine an Excusing Condition, and It Will Be Difficult to Do So in the Future

Abstract

If external physical causes determine our actions, it seems we cannot be free and morally responsible. I argue we can be free and responsible because we have perceived freedom, barring the presence of certain conditions that excuse from legal responsibility. In addition, I argue that neuroscience cannot be the primary way to determine if one has these excusing conditions, because excusing conditions are behaviorally defined.