This project is primarily exegetical in nature and aims to provide a rational reconstruction of the concept of moral responsibility in the work of Immanuel Kant, specifically in his Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (GR), and Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR). It consists of three chapters – the first chapter interprets the concept of freedom that follows from the resolution to the Third Antinomy in the CPR. It argues that Kant is best understood here to be providing an unusual but cogent, compatibilist account of freedom that the author terms meta-compatibilism. The second chapter examines the GR and CPrR to interpret the theory of practical reason and moral agency that Kant develops in these works. This chapter concludes by evaluating what has been established about Kant’s ideas of freedom and moral agency at that point in the project, identifying some problems and objections in addition to providing some suggestions for how Kantian ethics might be adapted within a consequentialist framework. The third chapter argues that, for Kant, there are two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions (in addition to a compatibilist definition of freedom) that must obtain for an individual to qualify as responsible for her actions.

My central aim in the dissertation is to defend an account of the epistemic condition of moral responsibility that distinguishes culpable ignorance from non-culpable ignorance. The view that I defend is that ignorance is culpable just when an agent flouts or ignores moral reasons that underlie her epistemic norms or obligations. This view is a quality-of-will theory of moral responsibility that emphasizes the agent’s reasons-responsiveness. It holds that only relevant epistemic obligations are those that require acts of investigation or reflection. In the dissertation, I examine extant theories of culpable ignorance and suggest that they all fall short in some important respect. Then, I propose and defend an account in which epistemic norms play a leading role. I analyze the nature of epistemic norms and their normativity, and I argue that agents who ignore or flout actional investigative norms and then act on subsequent false beliefs are connected to the wrongness of their action in a way that establishes their blameworthiness. I also argue that epistemic norms that require agents to hold certain beliefs or make certain inferences are not relevant to culpable ignorance. Finally, I explore the implications of my view for certain interesting cases of moral ignorance. I discuss ignorance that results from an agent’s social or historical circumstances, ignorance that stems from pure moral deference, and ignorance that is explained by epistemic difficulty of getting certain moral facts right. There are two striking outcomes of my research. The first is that reflection on the epistemic condition shows that one cannot think deeply about moral responsibility without also engaging issues in epistemology relating to the nature and normativity of belief, and issues in normative ethics relating to what our moral obligations actually are. The second striking outcome is that bringing these rather disparate topics together, as I attempted to do, reveals that much of our ignorance is actually non-culpable, and that many of our beliefs about the blameworthiness of ignorant agents are unwarranted.

In this paper I consider a recent objection to compatibilism—the manipulation argument. This argument relies on two plausible principles: a manipulation principle that holds that manipulation precludes free will and moral responsibility, and a ‘no difference principle’ that holds that manipulation is relevantly similar to determinism. To respond to this argument, the compatibilist must reject either the manipulation principle or the ‘no difference principle.’ I argue that rejecting the manipulation principle offers the compatibilist the most compelling response to the manipulation argument. Incompatibilists claim that this strategy is implausible because it requires that some victims of manipulation are free and responsible. I aim to show that this consequence is not as implausible as it might initially appear.

Galen Strawson’s Basic Argument is an attempt to prove that no agent can meet the demands for true moral responsibility. The Basic Argument proceeds on the assumption that, in order for an agent to be truly morally responsible for her actions, she must be truly responsible for her reasons for performing those actions, which Strawson contends is impossible since it requires an infinite regress of truly responsible decisions to have the reasons one has. In my thesis, I take issue with the Basic Argument. I argue that, contrary to Strawson’s claims, the Basic Argument is not persuasive to those who reject that one’s reasons cause one’s actions. For those who are willing to overlook this shortcoming, I then argue that it is possible for an agent to evade the threat of infinite regress, particularly in situations where two simultaneous choices (at least partially) explain each other.

This thesis explores the merits and limits of John Hawthorne’s contextualist analysis of free will. First, I argue that contextualism does better at capturing the ordinary understanding of ‘free will’ than competing views because it best accounts for the way in which our willingness to attribute free will ordinarily varies with context. Then I consider whether this is enough to conclude that the contextualist has won the free will debate. I argue that this would be hasty, because the contextualist, unlike her competitors, cannot tell us whether any particular agent is definitively free, and therefore cannot inform any practices that are premised on whether a particular agent is morally responsible. As such, I argue that whether the contextualist “wins the free will debate” depends on whether it is more important to capture the ordinary understanding of ‘free will’ or more important to inform our practices of ascribing moral responsibility.

Paul Russell argues that the interpretation of Hume as a classical compatibilist is misguided. Russell defends a naturalistic reading of Humean freedom and moral responsibility. On this account, Hume holds two theses: that moral responsibility is a product of our moral sentiments, and that our concept of moral freedom is derived from our considerations of moral responsibility. Russell claims that Hume’s theory of the passions is non-cognitivist, and thus that his account of moral judgment fails to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary actions or qualities of mind. He concludes that Hume’s account of moral responsibility is inadequate. I argue that Hume has a cognitivist account of the passions. For Hume, our character is judged to be a proper object of praise or censure on account of our ability to partake in a moral community with our fellows. I conclude that Hume does not naturalize freedom and moral responsibility, but socializes it.

The Chinese parent-child relationship is remarkably close throughout the lifespan. Parents get involved in planning their child’s career, social activities, and even marriage. For their point, when adult children attain financial stabilities, they support aging parents in various ways. This report reviews this strong bond as a moral responsibility between parents and children that parents sacrifice for their children unconditionally. In return, children pay back their moral debts to parents by fulfilling filial piety, including doing well in school, respecting family members and supporting parents. However, the traditional parent-child relationship may have changed after the one-child policy due to the shift in family structure, and new roles of only children in the family. Thus, moral responsibilities continue to capture the attention of experts interested in family structure in general and Chinese society in past. / text

This project is primarily exegetical in nature and aims to provide a rational reconstruction of the concept of moral responsibility in the work of Immanuel Kant, specifically in his Critique of Pure Reason (CPR), Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (GR), and Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR). It consists of three chapters – the first chapter interprets the concept of freedom that follows from the resolution to the Third Antinomy in the CPR. It argues that Kant is best understood here to be providing an unusual but cogent, compatibilist account of freedom that the author terms meta-compatibilism. The second chapter examines the GR and CPrR to interpret the theory of practical reason and moral agency that Kant develops in these works. This chapter concludes by evaluating what has been established about Kant’s ideas of freedom and moral agency at that point in the project, identifying some problems and objections in addition to providing some suggestions for how Kantian ethics might be adapted within a consequentialist framework. The third chapter argues that, for Kant, there are two necessary and jointly sufficient conditions (in addition to a compatibilist definition of freedom) that must obtain for an individual to qualify as responsible for her actions.

This thesis aims to provide a coherent account of free will and practical grounds to prefer it. Its goal is to develop a pragmatic understanding of agency by which to hold individuals morally accountable. The paper begins with a critique of P.F. Strawson, whose seminal paper “Freedom and Resentment” bypasses the question of free will altogether in its claims about morality. Subsequently, it proceeds to a defense of incompatibilism that traces an argument through the existing literature. From this position, it claims that neither Strawson nor traditional compatibilists can provide an account of morality that is reliable or well enough defined to play the role required of it. Instead of being left with hard determinism, however, Kant opens the door to a metaphysics that exists outside of our epistemological limits. Rather then derive an account based on this metaphysics, the necessary characteristics of a free will are derived from an account of morality and proven to be possible using Kantian epistemology. The paper concludes by positing three distinct reasons to prefer a free will framework to a deterministic framework, provided our inability to answer the question empirically. These draw on Pascal’s Wager, William James’ “The Will to Believe,” and inference to the best explanation.

abstract: This dissertation puts forth an account of moral responsibility. The central claim defended is that an agent's responsibility supervenes on the agent's mental states at the time of the action. I call the mental states that determine responsibility the agent's quality of will (QOW). QOW is taken to concern the agent's action, understood from an internal perspective, along with the agent's motivations, her actual beliefs about the action, and the beliefs she ought to have had about the action. This approach to responsibility has a number of surprising implications. First, blameworthiness can come apart from wrongness, and praiseworthiness from rightness. This is because responsibility is an internal notion and rightness and wrongness are external notions. Furthermore, agents can only be responsible for their QOW. It follows that agents cannot be responsible for the consequences of their actions. I further argue that one's QOW is determined by what one cares about. And the fact that we react to the QOW of others with morally reactive emotions, such as resentment and gratitude, shows that we care about QOW. The reactive attitudes can therefore be understood as ways in which we care about what others care about. Responsibility can be assessed by comparing one's actual QOW to the QOW one ought to have had. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Philosophy 2011