Abstract

This paper answers the question ‘what does Buddhism say about free will?’ I begin by investigating Charles Goodman’s influential answer, according to which Buddhists reject getting angry at wrongdoers because they believe that people are not morally responsible. Despite putative evidence to the contrary, Goodman’s interpretation of Buddhism is problematic on three counts: Buddhist texts do not actually support rejection of moral responsibility; Goodman’s argument has the unwanted upshot of undermining positive attitudes like compassion, which Buddhism unambiguously endorses; and his argument overlooks crucial developments in current literature on moral responsibility. I propose instead to understand Buddhism as implicating a quality of will theory, on which agents can be morally responsible and their underlying motivation determines whether they are praiseworthy or blameworthy.