This thesis deals primarily with criminal responsibility, although some of my arguments also apply to responsibility for non-criminal acts,. It can roughly be divided into three parts: (l) a. defense of the practice of holding people responsible for their actions based upon the fact that people are morally responsible for their actions (2) a defense of the practice of holding people responsible for their acts based upon a series of arguments in which I try to show that a society which, retains the practice of holding people responsible for their actions is better than one which replaces this practice with something else; and (3) a defense of the doctrine of mens rea against strict liability and objective liability. In (1) I argue for a version of libertarianism and then I argue that moral responsibility is a sufficient reason for holding people responsible for their actions. This involves a discussion of punishment In (2) I first discuss the arguments of three people who believe that we should do away with the practice of holding people responsible for their actions and replace it with treatment designed to modify people's (especially criminals') behaviour, I argue that to abandon the practice of holding people responsible for their actions would be extremely unwise for a variety of reasons. Among these reasons are considerations of justice, human-rights dignity humane treatment of criminals, and the control of crimes In (3) I carefully compare a legal system which retains the doctrine of mens rea with legal systems which have adopted either strict or objective liability, I argue that considerations of justice and human rights make it imperative that we retain the doctrine of mens rea
