LAW, LANGUAGE AND FREEDOM (ON DETERMINISM, CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTIES AND CRIMINAL LAW)

Abstract

From a critical status quaestionis, this essay once again analyses the old problem of free will and freedom and its consequences for moral and legal responsibility.
The author fi rst rejects modern neurophysiological determinism —a strong or hard determinism— as non-sense, and soft determinism as an inconsistent language game. He then concludes by asserting that partial determinism is not in fact determinism and, consequently by adopting a non-metaphysical libertarianism which is, in his view, the only position compatible with common sense and ordinary language and, at the same time, with rational grounds for responsibility, guilt, punishment and constitutional rights.