Article: RICHARD DOUBLE: THE MORAL HARDNESS OF LIBERTARIANISM , by Richard Double, Introduction by Ted Honderich

Honderich: "It is sometimes supposed that philosophers are independent thinkers, even pioneers or revolutionaries . They think their own thoughts, each in his own ivory tower, sometimes hers. The reality is wonderfully different. Philosophers exist in herds, blind movements, mutual- admiration societies, troupes of bright and dim graduates of the more select universities, circles of natural affinity, mobs and other groups. Richard Double is among philosophers who are a little different. If you read his book The Non-Reality of Free Will, you will not be reading the same old stuff. You may not agree with it, but you won't be dozing off. If you read his new piece here, you will also be getting outside the orthodoxies of the determinism and freedom debate. It begins with his own clear abstract or summary."

ABSTRACT The following is a criticism designed to apply to most libertarian free will theorists. I argue that most libertarians hold three beliefs that jointly show them to be unsympathetic or hard-hearted to persons whom they hold morally responsible: that persons are morally responsible only because they make libertarian choices, that we should hold persons responsible, and that we lack epistemic justification for thinking persons make such choices. Softhearted persons who held these three beliefs would espouse hard determinism, which exonerates all persons of moral responsibility, or, at least, would not espouse libertarianism. I do not address the view held by some libertarians that we do have epistemic justification for thinking that persons make libertarian choices, a minority position that I believe cannot be sustained.

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