The aim of my thesis is to fill a gap in virtue ethics. I present an account of moral responsibility that is consistent with the core assumption of virtue ethics, that character and not action is the primary locus of ethical appraisal. Virtue ethics typically does not include a notion of moral responsibility. The reason for this omission is that traditionally attributions of moral responsibility are determined by the causal aetiology of our actions. Because virtue ethics is primarily concerned with our characters and not our actions, virtue ethicists typically assume that causal aetiology is irrelevant to ethics. So, in order to fill the gap in virtue ethics I need to show how the core assumption of virtue ethics does not require virtue ethicists to hold that causal aetiology is irrelevant to ethics. The project of filling this gap in virtue ethics is important because virtue ethics is a popular modern ethical theory and in order to fulfil this ·function it must say something about moral responsibility. It is a deficit of virtue ethics that it provides us with no basis for judgements about moral responsibility. It restricts the scope of ethics to simply grounding moral assessments of our characters. An ethical theory needs to provide a basis for making practical decisions in legal and political matters. My thesis is that by shifting the locus of moral responsibility from the notion of action to that of character, virtue ethics can include a notion of moral responsibility. I present an account of the notion of moral responsibility for character. It operates as an amendment to virtue ethics and is intended to demonstrate how differences in the causal aetiologies of our characters determine the extent to which we can be attributed moral responsibility for them. In contrast to, for example, Classical Utilitarianism ii which holds that being morally responsible is an all-or-nothing affair, my account explains how the differences among the causal aetiologies of our characters create a spectrum along which moral responsibility can be assigned to varying degrees. By focusing on the formation of character and not of action as the basis for attributions of moral responsibility we can make use of the notion of a causal aetiology without being forced to abandon the core assumption of virtue ethics. My method is a standard philosophical method of critical analysis and synthesis of philosophical literature. My account consists of two conditions that are both necessary and together sufficient for making attributions of moral responsibility for character. The first condition, which derives from Harry Frankfurt's theory of moral responsibility, is that we 'identify' with our characters. The second condition, which incorporates Daniel Dennett' s notion of a 'narrative self', is that we are to a significant extent 'morally responsible selves'. My conclusion is that we are morally responsible for our characters only if (1) we are to a significant extent morally responsible selves and (2) we identify with our characters. The extent of the attribution of moral responsibility is determined by the extent to which we identify with our characters.

No description available.

Moral responsibility is an issue at the heart of the free-will debate. The question of how we can have moral responsibility in a deterministic world is an interesting and puzzling one. Compatibilists arguments have left open the possibility that the ability to do otherwise is not required for moral responsibility. The challenge, then, is to come up with what our attributions of moral responsibility are tracking. To do this, criteria which can adequately differentiate cases in which the agent is responsible from cases in which the agent is not responsible are required. I argue that an agent is responsible for the consequences of an action if they stem, in an appropriate way, from the agent's deep values and desires. These deep values and desires make up the Deep Self. Parts of the Deep Self, first, tend to be enduring; second, desires within it tend to be general (as opposed to directed towards specific things); third, they tend to be reflectively endorsed by the agent; fourth, these traits are often central to the agent's self-conception; and fifth, they are not generally in extreme conflict with other deep traits. Empirical work is drawn upon to help develop a suitable account of what deserves to be called a part of the Deep Self. I also strengthen and extend this view by considering issues of poor judgement and weakness of will, and when and how we can be considered responsible for them.

Recently a number of philosophers have begun to promote what are broadly referred to as attributionist or real self views of moral responsibility. According these views a person is responsible for a thing just in case it is indicative or expressive of her judgments, values, or "world-directed" attitudes. These philosophers have focused a great deal of attention on dissolving the apparent tension between our commonsense intuitions concerning the connection between control and responsibility, on the one hand, and our lack of voluntary control over our values, beliefs and attitudes on the other. In attempting to relieve this tension, many of them have introduced various forms of non-voluntary control or agency we are said to exercise with respect to things such as our values, beliefs and attitudes. I argue that these supposed forms of non-voluntary agency are untenable because they typically rest on a failure to adequately distinguish between two ways in which we make up our minds; in short, they rest on a failure to adequately distinguish theoretical from practical reasoning. Once certain fundamental differences between theoretical and practical reasoning are brought back to the fore of the discussion, it becomes much harder to sustain some sort of unique species of agency that can be said to apply to beliefs and certain other world-directed attitudes. Without such forms of non-voluntary agency, however, proponents of attributionists accounts of moral responsibility seem to face a dilemma; they must either: sneak volition in through the backdoor or commit to holding people responsible for things with respect to which they are passive. The thesis falls into four main sections. In the first section, I introduce the problem by describing an ongoing debate between defenders of attributionist accounts of moral responsibility and defenders of what have been termed volitionist accounts of moral responsibility. In the second section, I explicate Pamela Hieronymi's construal of the form of non-voluntary agency she calls "evaluative control." In section three, I critique Hieronymi's account of evaluative control by pointing to two predominant points of divergence between theoretical and practical reasoning. In the fourth section, I examine the upshots of the absence of non-voluntary for attributionist accounts of moral responsibility; I do so by examining each horn of the dilemma mentioned above.

Moral responsibility is an issue at the heart of the free-will debate. The question of how we can have moral responsibility in a deterministic world is an interesting and puzzling one. Compatibilists arguments have left open the possibility that the ability to do otherwise is not required for moral responsibility. The challenge, then, is to come up with what our attributions of moral responsibility are tracking. To do this, criteria which can adequately differentiate cases in which the agent is responsible from cases in which the agent is not responsible are required. I argue that an agent is responsible for the consequences of an action if they stem, in an appropriate way, from the agent's deep values and desires. These deep values and desires make up the Deep Self. Parts of the Deep Self, first, tend to be enduring; second, desires within it tend to be general (as opposed to directed towards specific things); third, they tend to be reflectively endorsed by the agent; fourth, these traits are often central to the agent's self-conception; and fifth, they are not generally in extreme conflict with other deep traits. Empirical work is drawn upon to help develop a suitable account of what deserves to be called a part of the Deep Self. I also strengthen and extend this view by considering issues of poor judgement and weakness of will, and when and how we can be considered responsible for them.

Thesis advisor: M. Cathleen Kaveny / Thesis advisor: Daniel J. Daly / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

<p>In this thesis, I will assess the question of what it means to be responsible for an action, and attempt to unify the various concepts around the conception of answerability. Focusing on that notion, I argue, will gives a better understanding of the other proposed conceptions of responsibility: that of attributability and that of accountability. I will come up with three connected definitions corresponding to these notions, and show that once we refine our concept of responsibility, it is possible for an agent to be responsible in one way, and not another. I demonstrate this contention on the test case of the psychopath.</p><p>Keywords: moral responsibility, answerability, psychopathy</p> / Dissertation

archives@tulane.edu / This dissertation examines the relationship between ignorance and responsibility. Ignorance is often treated as an excuse, but there are times when ignorance does not excuse. Ignorance that does not excuse is usually known as culpable ignorance. Since ignorance is largely an epistemological concept, the difference between culpable and exculpating ignorance suggests a connection between epistemology and theories of responsibility that has gone relatively unexplored. The following work explores this connection and argues that incorporating epistemological theories will help provide a robust account of both the ignorance excuse and culpable ignorance. The project begins by pointing out that some highly intuitive accounts of culpable ignorance seem remarkably like theories of epistemic justification. As such, epistemic justification seems like the best candidate for an epistemological concept that might share a connection with the culpable ignorance literature in moral philosophy. I argue that there is a theory of epistemic justification that captures our intuitions regarding culpable ignorance. Its close connection to our practices gives us good reason to think that, if this theory of justification is right, then the following is true: one’s ignorance exculpates only if it is justified, and one’s ignorance is culpable only if it is not justified. I call this the Justification Thesis. Once I establish the Justification Thesis, I defend it against various possible objections. First, the Justification Thesis is a derivative account of culpable ignorance, and it is often thought that derivative accounts are forced into responsibility skepticism. I argue that this is not true. Second, it is often thought derivative accounts like the Justification Thesis are open to a large class of counterexamples. I examine a few common alleged counterexamples and argue that they trade on ambiguities that, I suggest, are shared by every purported counterexample. When disambiguated it turns out they are not counterexamples after all. Third, some question whether ignorance with moral content exculpates. I argue that the Justification Thesis captures our intuitions regarding moral ignorance. Finally, I address a challenge to the initial assumption that culpable ignorance does not excuse and argue that this challenge is mistaken. / 1 / Nathan W. Biebel

In this essay I will investigate some different opinions about how or whether we should change our views concerning moral responsibility if neuroscience shows that contra-causal free will is implausible and also argue that holding people morally responsible is not the best method of making people act morally. A common approach is to argue that we can hold people responsible in a non-absolute sense and many argue that this has practical benefits (i.e. that people would act more morally). I evaluate different alternatives and conclude that there are different beliefs and opinions that cause disagreement in this question. I argue that moral responsibility is implausible without the existence of contra-causal free will (because it is then just a question of luck what actions you will perform) and that it is more practical to shift our focus to other ways of changing people and not blaming them.

This thesis began (in thought) as a response to the killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and that of Mike Brown not too long after, and the many victims who succumbed to some form of racial profiling of another before these deaths, in-between, and after. Desmond Cole wrote an article in 2015 that further precipitated the thought into action and the desire to address racial profiling in writing form. In the thesis I take a philosophical approach to racial profiling, and although in the first two chapters I address the ordinary discussions surrounding racial profiling, in the latter two I tackle the problem of moral responsibility which I take to be central. In the first part of the thesis I defend the policy in the case of illegal weapons possession based on Henry Shue’s principle of basic rights, but in the latter part I question this assertion. Even if blacks were shown to commit more of certain crimes or even violent crimes, that does not address the fact that crime arises out of context and in the case of “black crime” out of a racialized context. In the latter part of the thesis I work through the problem of collective and personal moral responsibility, eventually maintaining that not only is reparations just, but for racial profiling to be justified investment must be made into racialized communities with high rates of poverty. This is because collective responsibility must be taken for the societal oppression and discrimination that has partly resulted in high rates of racialized crime. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)