Friday, October 4, 2013

A simple account of agential moral responsibility

Distinguish between properly agential responsibility and effect responsibility. If I force you to do B, I am agentially responsible for forcing you, but only effect responsible for your doing B. If I deliberately take a drug that forces me to do B, I am agentially repsonsible for taking the drug, but only effect responsible for my doing B. One can put the distinction by distinguishing between responsibility for an action an responsibility for a state of affairs. If I take a drug that forces me to do B, then I am agentially responsible for taking the drug, but only effect responsible for the state of affairs of my doing B.

Simplify slightly by considering actions where there is only one alternative.

  1. x is agentially morally responsible for an action A if and only if there is an alternative B and subjective reason sets R for A and S for B such that x is agentially morally responsible for doing A for R rather than B for S.
  2. x is agentially morally responsible for doing A for R rather than B for S if and only if x did A out of a choice of A for R over B for S that x is agentially morally responsible for.
  3. x is agentially morally responsible for choosing A for R over B for S if and only if (a) x chose A for R over B for S and (b) the moral considerations in R and S are not exactly balanced.

No comments: