Abstract
It is evident that the concept of ‘moral responsibility’ is profoundly important in discussions of human freedom. It is also evident that there is a wide variety of senses in which one can attribute responsibility for something to someone. A short list of the senses likely to be relevant in any investigation of moral responsibility would include causing something to happen, being answerable for it, being liable to certain favourable or unfavourable responses from others for it, being blameworthy or praiseworthy for it and being guilty of, but not necessarily blameworthy for, something.
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Notes
The most perceptive recent work on responsibility has been produced by writers who have been concerned with questions both of moral responsibility and legal responsibility. It is almost superfluous to add that such writers have studiously avoided the trap I have been discussing. Cf. H. L. A. Hart, Punishment and Responsibility (Oxford, 1968);
J. Feinberg, Doing and Deserving (Princeton, N.J., 1970);
J. Glover, Responsibility (London, 1970).
Cf. A. Kaufman, ‘Moral Responsibility and the Use of “Could Have”’, Philosophical Quarterly, 1962, pp. 120–8
A. Kaufman, ‘Responsibility, Moral and Legal’ in P. Edwards (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York, 1967), vol. 7;
R. J. Richman, ‘Responsibility and the Causation of Actions’, American Philosophical Quarterly, 1969, pp. 186–97;
David Blumenfeld and Gerald Dworkin, ‘Necessity, Contingency, and Punishment’, Philosophical Studies, 1965, pp. 91–4, try to reveal what they consider is a basic confusion in the theory which makes it possible to generate counter-examples like these.
P. F. Strawson’s ‘Freedom and Resentment’, Proceedings of the British Academy, 1962, pp. 187–211, makes some interesting points of relevance here.
Alvin Goldman, A Theory of Human Action (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1970) pp. 208ff.
In addition William Frankena’s ‘Obligation and Ability’ in M. Black (ed.), Philosophical Analysis (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963)
J. Margolis, ‘One Last Time: “Ought” Implies “Can”’, The Personalist, 1967, pp. 33–41, are also worth consulting.
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© 1975 Robert Young
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Young, R. (1975). Moral Responsibility. In: Freedom, Responsibility and God. Library of Philosophy and Religion. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-02190-1_2
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