Failure of the Manipulation Arguments and Disappearing Agent to the Problem of Free Will and Moral Responsibility

In the journal “Voprosy Filosofii” was published a collective article by the staff of the Center and St. Petersburg State University. This article summarizes the discussions on the problems of consciousness, free will and moral responsibility that took place a year ago within the International Summer School “Free Will and Consciousness” organized by the Center.

The article is devoted to the classical metaphysical problem of free will and its relation to the manipulation arguments and the arguments of luck and disappearing agent. The authors agree that these arguments are not decisive, and formulate their own objections to them. At the end of the article attempts to show how the problem of moral responsibility paves the way to a systematic philosophy.