ABSTRACT
The pragmatic defense of libertarianism which the author, John Lemos, defends has been subject to a significant criticism-the problem of hardheartedness. Richard Double has provided the best-developed defense of this view, and his point has been developed or endorsed as well by Derk Pereboom, Tammler Sommers, Manuel Vargas, and Bruce Waller. The argument is that libertarians who believe we lack sufficient epistemic justification for belief in libertarian free will and who think this is essential to ground just desert responsibility should not engage in practices of blame and punishment, as it is to irresponsibly bring harm upon those who may not deserve it. This chapter develops a response to this line of argument along roughly Kantian lines.
