Attitudes: Review 'Consciousness and Moral Responsibility' by Neil Levy. Oxford University Press, $117 hb, 176 pp, 978019870638

Abstract

Consider the following dilemma. If it is possible to identify the cause of a person's action and beliefs - causes that are outside the agent's own conscious reasoning - in what sense can we say that the person chooses what she does or she thinks? If the person did not consciously choose, then it is reasonable to ask whether she should be held morally responsible for any of the subsequent consequences of her actions. This is the general territory of the puzzle that Neil Levy's thoughtful and elegantly written new book addresses. He explores what scientific advances in the study of consciousness might tell us about our capacity for choice and, hence, our responsibility for those choices.