ABSTRACT
It is often claimed that belief in moral responsibility provides essential protection for human dignity and human rights as well as for respect for the innocent; and that if moral responsibility is abandoned, basic human dignity and human rights will be threatened. The widespread belief that denial of moral responsibility threatens human dignity and human rights is based in a fundamental misunderstanding of the grounds for the denial or moral responsibility. Moral responsibility is not rejected on the basis of an “excuse-extensionism” that would count everyone as profoundly flawed; rather, the claim is that moral responsibility system is ultimately based on beliefs that are in fundamental conflict with our contemporary scientific understanding of human behavior, and the moral responsibility system impedes deeper understanding of the causes of behavior and of the best means for improving behavior.
