Orwellian Responsibility

On a popular interpretation of him, George Orwell was profoundly disinterested in philosophy if not outright hostile to it. Yet Orwell had surprisingly much to say about philosophy, especially about free will and moral responsibility. I argue that Orwell is well understood as endorsing Frankfurt-style compatibilism about moral responsibility: like Frankfurt Orwell attacks the Principle of Alternative Possibilities (PAP), albeit implicitly, insofar as he repeatedly exercises the reactive attitudes even as he denies, sometimes explicitly, that they could have done otherwise. Orwell’s nuanced thought about moral responsibility, having been noted, is a powerful reason to think the popular interpretation fatally flawed but also invites philosophers to reconsider the relationship between free will and moral responsibility.