Rethinking Moral Responsibility: (Philosophy)

Should we blame our neighbour for forgetting to water our plants? To what extent are people responsible for the consequences of their actions? When is it fair to condemn a wrongdoer? Practical philosophy has a long-standing interest in the mechanisms that drive responsibility ascriptions (how and why should we hold people responsible?), and in the conditions that make those ascriptions legitimate (when is it fair to do so?). By default, healthy adults whose behaviour is interpretable by reference to their psychological makeup are held responsible for their actions. However, in the last few decades in particular, the scope and meaning of the notion of responsibility have been targeted by growing scepticism. In its first part, this volume explores and discusses the most promising accounts of responsibility emerging in the philosophical debate on the topic. In the second part, the book outlines a novel proposal about the enabling conditions, the meaning and the intersubjective role of responsibility ascriptions.

Table of Contents:
1. QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS 1.1 The Notion of Moral Responsibility 1.2 Forms of Responsibility 1.3 The Desiderata of a Theory of Moral Responsibility 1.4 The Enabling Conditions of Moral Responsibility 1.4.1 Metaphysical Views The Threat of Determinism Compatibilist and Incompatibilist Views Causal Models 1.4.2 Normative Views 1.5 Attributability, Accountability, Answerability 2. FRANKFURT’SCHALLENGE TO THE PRINCIPLE OF ALTERNATE POSSIBILITIES 2.1 Alternative Possibilities and Sourcehood 2.2 Counterexamples to the Principle of Alternate Possibilities 2.3 Objections to Frankfurt’s Counterexamples 2.3.1 Residual Alternative Possibilities 2.3.2 Dilemma Defence 2.4 Blockage and Buffer Cases 2.5 The Moral of Frankfurt’s Counterexamples 2.6 Ought-Implies-Can 3. ACTUAL-SEQUENCE ACCOUNTSOF MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 3.1 Autonomy and Control 3.1.1 Agential Capacities 3.2 Internalism 3.2.1 Desiderative States 3.2.2 Values 3.2.3 Two Problems for Internalist Accounts Weakness of Will Manipulation 3.3 Externalism 3.3.1 Reasons-Responsiveness 3.3.2 Mental Sanity 4. THE SCEPTICAL CHALLENGE TO MORAL RESPONSIBILITY 4.1 Forms of Scepticism 4.2 Moral Luck 4.2.1 Taxonomies of Luck 4.2.2 Resultant Luck 4.2.3 Constitutive Luck 4.3 Sceptical and Eliminativist Arguments 4.3.1 The Basic Argument 4.3.2 The Four-Case Argument Hard and Soft-Line Replies 4.4 The Ultimacy Condition 5. MORAL RESPONSIBILITY REVISITED 5.1 The Concepts at Stake 5.2 Revisiting the Enabling Conditions for Responsibility 5.2.1 Internalist Criteria 5.2.2 Externalist Criteria 5.3 Revisiting Moral Appraisal 5.3.1 Forward-Looking and Backward-Looking Views 5.3.2 The Notion of Desert 5.3.3 Alternative Backward-Looking Views Accountability without Basic-Desert Blame without Desert Desert without Accountability 5.3.4 Practical Implications 5.3.5 Alternative Revisionary Accounts of Responsibility

About the Author :
Sofia Bonicalzi (Ph.D., Philosophy, University of Pavia) is a researcher in philosophy at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU). She specialised in moral philosophy, moral psychology, and philosophy of cognitive science. Before joining the LMU, she worked as a researcher at the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience (University College London) and at the School of Advanced Study (University of London).