How Contrastivism Helps to Solve the Problems of Mental Causation and Moral Responsibility

Although most discussions of moral responsibility focus on whether our choices are free, an equally serious issue concerns whether our choices are efficacious or impotent. We cannot be morally responsible for any act that requires physical movement unless our mental states or events (including desires and choices) can somehow cause physical events. How that works is a mystery. This talk will explain the challenge in terms of Kim’s exclusion problem, criticize previously proposed solutions, and show how contrastivist theories of causation can solve the problem of mental causation and thereby this challenge to moral responsibility.