It is useful to compare the idea of moral agency with the legal doctrine of "mens rea", which means guilty mind, and states that a person is legally responsible for what he does as long as he "should" know what he is doing, and his choices are deliberate. Some theorists discard any attempts to evaluate mental states and, instead, adopt the doctrine of "strict liability", whereby one is liable under the law without regard to capacity, and that the only thing is to determine the degree of punishment, if any. Moral determinists would most likely adopt a similar point of view.