Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: An agent’s actions or omissions will bear a causal/explanatory relation to the outcomes for which the agent is morally responsible. I rely on this observation in assisting John Martin Fischer in his response to an argument from Philip Swenson. Fischer’s response depends on the claim that responsibility for omissions requires the ability to do otherwise while responsibility for actions does not. I offer support for this claim of Fischer’s. After this, I consider some observations of Fischer’s that I construe as suggesting an important distinction between blameworthiness and responsibility for outcomes. I develop these observations into the claim that resolving the questions about responsibility discussed in the first half of this paper is a matter of surprisingly little moral urgency. This last point is supported by my argument that the connections between agent and outcome necessary for establishing moral responsibility for an outcome are irrelevant for assessing an agent’s blameworthiness.
Source: Midwest Studies in Philosophy
DOI: 10.5840/msp202532658
Author: Matthew Talbert
Language: English
Topic: Free Will and Agency
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4408998969