We forgive behaviours related to brain tumours because we can understand that a person may not be reponsible for their actions; but what if there are people with other, more subtle, perhaps developmental, structural abnormalities that affect behaviour? Martin Luther, when he resisted church orthodoxy, said he could not do differently – the strength of his moral feeling made his behaviour deterministic. There is a paradox when it comes to determinacy: although it feels as if determinacy (the idea that we have no control ie choice over our actions, that our actions are the inevitable consequence of who we are and the way we think) somehow excuses us from moral obligation, indeterminacy (the idea that our actions are somehow free from any pre-existing thoughts/beliefs) does not really help. If we cannot explain how our moral choices are made, how can we said to be more or less responsible for our actions? If we are saying that our actions arise from an essentially random process, hardly a better way to attribute accountability.
Augustine felt no act of goodness could be performed without grace, ie no moral act can ever be said to be purely the responsibility of the individual.
Compatabilist argument – extreme fear can remove sense of any free will. So although in most senses we are morally free agents, there are limits to accountability.
Pessimism – 4 stage argument against compatabilism: for us to be responsible for what we do, we must be responsible for what we are. To be responsible for what we are, we must be able to control for all influences in our life. To be able to control all influences, we must already be responsible for the manner in which we would aim to control them. Hence infinite circle, so cannot be true!
But we attach moral responsibility to acts of omission (eg negligence), where there has not been an actual moral choice, so perhaps it is not so unreasonable to attach moral accountability to behaviours, even if not 100% responsible?
So in a way the argument about free will cannot ever be resolved, but the more meaningful argument is what are the limits to how we attribute moral responsibility for our existence in the world.