R. Jay Wallace advances a powerful and sustained argument against the common view that accountability requires freedom of will. Instead, he maintains, the fairness of holding people responsible depends on their rational competence: the power to grasp moral reasons and to control their behavior accordingly. He shows how these forms of rational competence are compatible with determinism. At the same time, giving serious consideration to incompatibilist concerns, Wallace develops a compelling diagnosis of the common assumption that freedom is necessary for responsibility.

Moral Sentiments and Material Interests presents an innovative synthesis of research in different disciplines to argue that cooperation stems not from the stereotypical selfish agent acting out of disguised self-interest but from the presence of "strong reciprocators" in a social group. Presenting an overview of research in economics, anthropology, evolutionary and human biology, social psychology, and sociology, the book deals with both the theoretical foundations and the policy implications of this explanation for cooperation. Chapter authors in the remaining parts of the book discuss the behavioral ecology of cooperation in humans and nonhuman primates, modeling and testing strong reciprocity in economic scenarios, and reciprocity and social policy. The evidence for strong reciprocity in the book includes experiments using the famous Ultimatum Game (in which two players must agree on how to split a certain amount of money or they both get nothing.)

David Shoemaker develops a novel pluralistic theory of responsibility, motivated by our ambivalence to cases of marginal agency--such as those caused by clinical depression or autism, for instance. He identifies three distinct types of responsibility, each with its own set of required capacities: attributability, answerability, and accountability.

"This book lays out the major arguments for scepticism about moral responsibility and subjects them to sustained and penetrating critical analysis. Moral Responsibility lays out the intricate dialectic involved in these issues in a helpful and accessible way. The book goes on to suggest a way in which scepticism can be avoided, arguing that an excessive pre-eminence given to the will might lie at the root of scepticism of moral responsibility. Carlos Moya offers an alternative to scepticism, showing how a cognitive approach to moral responsibility which stresses the importance of belief would rescue our natural and centrally important faith in the reality of moral responsibility."--Jacket.

Normativity and the Will collects fourteen important _ papers on moral psychology and practical reason by R. Jay _ Wallace, one of the leading philosophers currently working_ in these areas. The papers explore the interpenetration of normative and _ psychological issues in a series of debates that lie at the heart of moral philosophy. Part I, Reason, Desire, and the_ Will, discusses the nexus linking normativity to motivation, including the relations between desire and reasons, the role of normative considerations in explanations of action, and_ the normative commitments involved in willing an end (such_ as the requirement to adopt the necessary means). Part II,_ Responsibility, Identification, and Emotion, looks at _ questions about the rational capacities presupposed by _ accountable agency and the psychic factors that both inhibit and enable identification with what we do. It includes an interpretation of the Nietzschean claim that ressentiment is among the sources of modern moral consciousness. Part III,_ Morality and Other Normative Domains, addresses the _ structure of moral reasons and moral motivation, and the _ relations between moral demands and other normative domains (including especially the requirements of living a _ meaningful human life). _ _ Wallace's treatments of these topics are at once _ sophisticated and engaging. Taken together, they constitute an advertisement for a distinctive way of pursuing issues in moral psychology and the theory of practical reason. The _ book articulates and defends a unified framework for _ thinking about those issues, while offering sustained _ critical discussions of other influential approaches (by _ philosophers such as Korsgaard, McDowell, Nietzsche, Raz, Scanlon, and Williams). It should be of interest to every _ serious student of moral philosophy. _

In this book, Russell examines Hume's notion of free will and moral responsibility. It is widely held that Hume presents us with a classic statement of the "compatibilist" position--that freedom and responsibility can be reconciled with causation and, indeed, actually require it. Russell argues that this is a distortion of Hume's view, because it overlooks the crucial role of moral sentiment in Hume's picture of human nature. Hume was concerned to describe the regular mechanisms which generate moral sentiments such as responsibility, and Russell argues that his conception of free will must be interpreted within this naturalistic framework. He goes on to discuss Hume's views about the nature and character of moral sentiment; the extent to which we have control over our moral character; and the justification of punishment. Throughout, Russell argues that the naturalistic avenue of interpretation of Hume's thought, far from draining it of its contemporary interest and significance, reveals it to be of great relevance to the ongoing contemporary debate.

R. Jay Wallace advances a powerful and sustained argument against the common view that accountability requires freedom of will. Instead, he maintains, the fairness of holding people responsible depends on their rational competence: the power to grasp moral reasons and to control their behavior accordingly. He shows how these forms of rational competence are compatible with determinism. At the same time, giving serious consideration to incompatibilist concerns, Wallace develops a compelling diagnosis of the common assumption that freedom is necessary for responsibility.