ABSTRACT
When Joseph first reveals himself to his brothers, he urges them not to reproach themselves for having sold him into Egypt on the grounds that it was not they who sent him there, but God. The readers may nonetheless be inclined to think poorly of Joseph’s brothers for what they did to him. Now, on an intuitive libertarian notion of moral responsibility, if you are caused to do something you are not morally responsible for having done it. We may also assume that you are not responsible for what you do if you could not have done otherwise even if you were not caused to do it. While God does not cause any of the brothers to act in a particular way, I argue that the story of the sale of Joseph strongly suggests that his brothers’ selling him was inevitable. I enlist Harry Frankfurt’s account of moral responsibility to allow for Joseph’s brothers being morally responsible for selling him into Egypt even though they could not have done otherwise. On this view, if a person has done what he wanted to do because he really wanted to do it, he may be morally responsible for what he did even though he could not have done otherwise.
