According to the classical Doctrine of Double Effect, there is a morally significant difference between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm. Versions of DDE have been defended in a variety of creative ways, but there is one difficulty, the so-called “closeness problem”, that continues to bedevil all of them. The problem is that an agent's intention can always be identified in such a fine-grained way as to eliminate an intention to harm from almost any situation, including those that have been (...) taken to be paradigmatic instances in which DDE applies to intended harm. In this paper, we consider and reject a number of recent attempts to solve the closeness problem. We argue that the failure of these proposals strongly suggests that the closeness problem is intractable, and that the distinction between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm is not morally significant. Further, we argue that there may be a deeper reason why such attempts must fail: the rationale that makes the best fit with DDE, namely, an imperative not to aim at evil, is itself irredeemably flawed. While we believe that these observations should lead us to abandon further attempts to solve the closeness problem for DDE, we also conclude by showing how a related principle that is supported by a distinct rationale and avoids facing the closeness problem altogether nevertheless shares with DDE its most important features, including an intuitive explanation of a number of cases and a commitment to the relevance of intentions. (shrink)

Recently in Porter v. McCollum, the United States Supreme Court, citing “a long tradition of according leniency to veterans in recognition of their service,” held that a defense lawyer’s failure to present his client’s military service record as mitigating evidence during his sentencing for two murders amounted to ineffective assistance of counsel. The purpose of this Article is to assess, from the just deserts perspective, the grounds to believe that veterans who commit crimes are to be blamed less by the (...) State than offenders without such backgrounds. Two rationales for a differential treatment of military veterans who commit crimes are typically set forth. The Porter Court raised each, stating that we should treat veterans differently “in recognition of” both “their service” and “the intense stress and mental and emotional toll” of combat. The former factor suggests there being a “social contributions” or gratitude-based discount, whereas the latter factor points towards a “mental disturbance” discount. This Article analyzes the two accounts and raises some doubts about both. This Article then argues that a military veteran who commits a crime should not be blamed to the full extent of his blameworthiness, not necessarily because of his mental capacity nor because of his social contribution, but because the State’s hand in producing his criminality undermines its standing to blame him. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Should companies’ human rights responsibilities arise, in part, from their “leverage”—their ability to influence others’ actions through their relationships? Special Representative John Ruggie rejected this proposition in the United Nations Framework for business and human rights. I argue that leverage is a source of responsibility where there is a morally significant connection between the company and a rights-holder or rights-violator, the company is able to make a contribution to ameliorating the situation, it can do so at modest cost, and the (...) threat to human rights is substantial. In such circumstances companies have a responsibility to exercise leverage even though they did nothing to contribute to the situation. Such responsibility is qualified, not categorical; graduated, not binary; context-specific; practicable; consistent with the social role of business; and not merely a negative responsibility to avoid harm but a positive responsibility to do good. (shrink)

Doug Husak suggests that sometimes an actor should be deemed reckless, and not merely negligent, with respect to the risks that she knowingly created but has forgotten at the moment of action. The validity of this conclusion, he points out, depends crucially on what it means to be aware of a risk. Husak’s neutral prompt and counterfactual actual belief criteria are problematic, however. More persuasive is his suggestion that we understand belief, in this moral and criminal law context, as a (...) concept whose meaning is determined by its function as a culpability standard. Husak concludes that inadvertent actors are often less culpable than knowing-but-later-forgetful actors; this is plausible, but there are also numerous counterexamples. Holly Smith focuses on negligence cases in which an agent’s failure to notice a risk stems, not from a prior culpable choice, but from an objectionable attitude or set of attitudes. She is right to emphasize that genuine moral culpability does not depend on conscious choice. However, Smith also asserts that decisions that flow from an actor’s objectionable attitudes are only rarely culpable, because they often do not arise from a reasonably full configuration of the actor’s motives. This last requirement is, I fear, an unrealistic and unnecessarily demanding criterion of culpability. Even when many of the actor’s evaluative attitudes are inactive in Smith’s sense, the actor might deserve blame for not bringing them to bear on his decision. Michael Moore and Heidi Hurd thoroughly explore, and find deficient, H.L.A. Hart’s unexercised capacity theory of negligence. They are correct that that theory requires a further judgment: an actor’s inadvertence is culpable only if he had the capacity to have adverted if X where X is the source of the actor’s moral desert. They overstate, however, in suggesting that the capacity issue falls out of the picture once we identify that underlying desert basis. The authors also worry that if desert is grounded on an underlying vice, we lack a reliable way of ranking the different vices that might explain the actor’s inadvertence; this is not a fatal objection, however, because negligence determinations are quite feasible even in the absence of clear rankings. Moore and Hurd conclude by identifying eight distinct categories in which criminal liability for negligence is justifiable. Negligence is indeed a surprisingly complex and pluralist concept. The three articles in this symposium brightly illuminate some of the most fundamental conceptual and normative issues in the debate over whether it is just to blame and punish the negligently inadvertent. (shrink)

This paper addresses three doctrinal phenomena of which it finds evidence in English law: the quiet extension of the criminal law so as to criminalise that which is by no means an obvious offence; the creation of offences the goal of which is not to guide potential offenders away from crime; and the existence of offending behaviour which is not itself thought to justify arrest or prosecution. While such phenomena have already been criticised by other criminal law theorists, this paper (...) offers a critique to which little attention has yet been paid. It argues that the existence of these phenomena has been concealed from public view: that the organs of state have encouraged the belief that they are no part of English law. The paper then argues that it is high time the state came clean. The state owes its people answers for the imposition of the criminal law: it must account for the creation and enforcement of any given criminal offence. When the state misleads its people about the criminal law’s scope, goals and enforcement, it refuses to provide those people with the answers they are owed. (shrink)

When laws or legal principles mention mental states such as intentions to form a contract, knowledge of risk, or purposely causing a death, what parts of the brain are they speaking about? We argue here that these principles are tacitly directed at our prefrontal executive processes. Our current best theories of consciousness portray it as a workspace in which executive processes operate, but what is important to the law is what is done with the workspace content rather than the content (...) itself. This makes executive processes more important to the law than consciousness, since they are responsible for channeling conscious decision-making into intentions and actions, or inhibiting action.We provide a summary of the current state of our knowledge about executive processes, which consists primarily of information about which portions of the prefrontal lobes perform which executive processes. Then we describe several examples in which legal principles can be understood as tacitly singling out executive processes, including principles regarding defendants’ intentions or plans to commit crimes and their awareness that certain facts are the case, as well as excusatory principles which result in lesser responsibility for those who are juveniles, mentally ill, sleepwalking, hypnotized, or who suffer from psychopathy. (shrink)

Justificatory defenses apply to actions that are generally wrong and illegal—mainly since they harm people—when they are justified—usually since they prevent harm to others. A strict conception of justification limits justificatory defenses to actions that reflect all pertinent principles in the optimal manner. A more relaxed conception of justification applies to actions that do not reflect all pertinent principles optimally due to mistake but are not too far from this optimum. In the paper, I consider whether justificatory defenses should reflect (...) the strict conception of justification or a more relaxed conception of justification. This question is important since often the relevant actions are not strictly justified, while the alternative of an excuse is frequently irrelevant or does not provide an appropriate solution. Reflection on this question raises the following dilemma: On the one hand, the strict interpretation seems too harsh, especially with regard to legal liability. On the other hand, it is difficult to explain the basis for a more relaxed conception of justification. I conclude, first, that justification—and accordingly wrongfulness—is a matter of degree and that the strictly justified action is merely the peak of a continuum, and, second, that a practical reaction is in place only with regard to actions whose wrongness is above a minimal threshold. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Most American engineers believe that they have a responsibility for the safety and well‐being of society, but whence does this responsibility arise? What does it entail? After describing engineering practice in America as compared with the practice of other professions, this paper examines two standard types of accounts of the social responsibilities of professionals. While neither provides a satisfactory account of the social responsibilities of American engineers, several lessons are learned by uncovering their weaknesses. Identifying the framework in which (...) professional rights and responsibilities are justified, I argue that an end or primary good is the starting place for conceptualizing a profession, and justifying its existence and shape. Too little attention has been paid to the end(s) of engineering. The social responsibilities of American engineers as defined in the present system of engineering are ambiguous and weak. I indicate how the case for assigning American engineers stronger social responsibilities must be made by starting with the end(s) of engineering. I argue that, at present, American engineers do not have social responsibilities as engineers, though they do have social responsibilities as persons. (shrink)

Moral responsibility invariantism is the view that there is a single set of conditions for being morally responsible for an action (or omission or consequence of an act or omission) that applies in all cases. I defend this view against some recent arguments by Joshua Knobe and John Doris.

Desert plays a central role in most contemporary theories of retributive justice, but little or no role in most contemporary theories of distributive justice. This asymmetric treatment of desert is prima facie strange. I consider several popular arguments against the use of desert in distributive justice, and argue that none of them can be used to justify the asymmetry.

There has been much debate whether computers can be responsible. This question is usually discussed in terms of personhood and personal characteristics, which a computer may or may not possess. If a computer fulfils the conditions required for agency or personhood, then it can be responsible; otherwise not. This paper suggests a different approach. An analysis of the concept of responsibility shows that it is a social construct of ascription which is only viable in certain social contexts and which serves (...) particular social aims. If this is the main aspect of responsibility then the question whether computers can be responsible no longer hinges on the difficult problem of agency but on the possibly simpler question whether responsibility ascriptions to computers can fulfil social goals. The suggested solution to the question whether computers can be subjects of responsibility is the introduction of a new concept, called “quasi-responsibility” which will emphasise the social aim of responsibility ascription and which can be applied to computers. (shrink)

This study examines the participation and interaction of relevant individuals in the process of developing an accounting standard for South Korea’s emission trading scheme (ETS). Despite the enormous accounting implications of such schemes, there is a paucity of research on the development and application of ETS accounting. Ulrich Beck’s and Anthony Giddens’s risk society framework is utilised to scrutinise the process of setting accounting standards—from the agenda-setting stage all the way to the final publication of the standard. In this case (...) study, we take an interpretive approach in analysing the rich data collected through face-to-face interviews with prominent standard-setters, accounting experts and representatives of industry and government. Participant observation and relevant documents were also considered. The findings highlight the political nature of accounting standard-setting and identify the risks and responsibilities of the key agents in the process along with the means of sub-political action taken to influence decisions. We reveal that the agents involved in standard-setting attempted to balance their anthropocentric priorities with ecocentric responsibilities and prioritised the production of a standard with minimal impact on economic, reputational, and operational risk. Having authority as a standard-setter, referring frequently to precedents and, perhaps most importantly, engaging actively with the stakeholders throughout the process seem to have contributed to a widely accepted standard, which can serve as a benchmark for future attempts to factor in ETSs. (shrink)

BackgroundPatient advocacy organizations (PAOs) have an increasing influence on health policy and biomedical research, therefore, questions about the specific character of their responsibility arise: Can PAOs bear moral responsibility and, if so, to whom are they responsible, for what and on which normative basis? Although the concept of responsibility in healthcare is strongly discussed, PAOs particularly have rarely been systematically analyzed as morally responsible agents. The aim of the current paper is to analyze the character of PAOs’ responsibility to provide (...) guidance to themselves and to other stakeholders in healthcare.MethodsResponsibility is presented as a concept with four reference points: (1) The subject, (2) the object, (3) the addressee and (4) the underlying normative standard. This four-point relationship is applied to PAOs and the dimensions of collectivity and prospectivity are analyzed in each reference point.ResultsUnderstood as collectives, PAOs are, in principle, capable of intentionality and able to act and, thus, fulfill one prerequisite for the attribution of moral responsibility. Given their common mission to represent those affected, PAOs can be seen as responsible for patients’ representation and advocacy, primarily towards a certain group but secondarily in a broader social context. Various legal and political statements and the bioethical principles of justice, beneficence and empowerment can be used as a normative basis for attributing responsibility to PAOs.ConclusionsThe understanding of responsibility as a four-point relation incorporating collective and forward-looking dimensions helps one to understand the PAOs’ roles and responsibilities better. The analysis, thus, provides a basis for the debate about PAOs’ contribution and cooperation in the healthcare sector. (shrink)

We seem to be responsible for our beliefs in a distinctively epistemic way. We often hold each other to account for the beliefs that we hold. We do this by criticising other believers as ‘gullible’ or ‘biased’, and by trying to persuade others to revise their beliefs. But responsibility for belief looks hard to understand because we seem to lack control over our beliefs. In this paper, I argue that we can make progress in our understanding of responsibility for belief (...) by thinking about it in parallel with another kind of responsibility: legal responsibility for criminal negligence. Specifically, I argue that that a popular account of responsibility for belief, which grounds it in belief’s reasons-responsiveness, faces a problem analogous to one faced by H.L.A. Hart’s influential capacity-based account of culpability. This points towards a more promising account of responsibility of belief, though, if we draw on accounts of negligence that improve on Hart’s. Broadly speaking, the account of negligence that improves on Hart’s account grounds culpability in a concern for others’ interests, whereas my account of epistemic responsibility grounds responsibility for belief in a concern for the truth. (shrink)

The notion of responsible innovation suggests that innovators carry additional responsibilities beyond those commonly suggested. In this paper, we will discuss the meaning of these novel responsibilities focusing on two philosophical problems of attributing such responsibilities to innovators. The first is the allocation of responsibilities to innovators. Innovation is a process that involves a multiplicity of agents and unpredictable, far-reaching causal chains from innovation to social impacts, which creates great uncertainty. A second problem is constituted by possible trade-offs between different (...) kinds of responsibility. It is evident that attributing backward-looking responsibility for product failures diminishes the willingness to learn about such defects and to take forward-looking responsibility. We will argue that these problems can be overcome by elaborating what it is exactly that innovators are responsible for. In this manner, we will distinguish more clearly between holding responsible and taking responsibility. This opens a space for ‘supererogatory’ responsibilities. Second, we will argue that both innovation processes and outcomes can be objects of innovators’ responsibility. Third, we will analyze different kinds of responsibility and show that the functions of their attribution are not necessarily contradictory. Based on this conceptual refinement, we will argue that accountability, responsibility-as-virtue and the willingness to take responsibility are crucial for responsible innovation. (shrink)

In the higher education settings, the following questions are discussed and debated in modern times. Is ‘teaching’ a profession? Are university faculty members professionals? The paper attempts to answer these questions by adopting qualitative methodology that subsumes descriptive, evaluative, and interpretative approaches. While answering these questions, it discusses significance and usefulness of academic ethics in the university set up. It examines role of academic ethics to offer quality education to students. Further, it highlights university faculty members’ roles and responsibilities toward (...) students, colleagues, institution authorities, research works, and society at large. The paper submits that teaching in university settings is regarded as a profession, and university faculty members are regarded as professionals provided they perform their duties conforming to the teacher’s code of ethics. (shrink)

Free will skepticism is the view that people never truly deserve to be praised, blamed, or punished for what they do. One challenge free will skeptics face is to explain how criminality could be dealt with given their skepticism. This paper critically examines the prospects of implementing legal changes concerning crime and punishment derived from the free will skeptical views developed by Derk Pereboom and Gregg Caruso. One central aspect of the changes their views require is a concern for reducing (...) the severity of current forms of punishment. The paper considers two strategies for pursuing such a reduction. By taking into account evidence from the psychology of belief in free will and desire to punish, it is argued that a strategy aiming at a reduction of people’s natural desire to punish criminals can be successful if capable of providing alternatives to current forms of punishment satisfying three properties: they must be less harmful than current forms of punishment, more effective in preventing crime, and incompatible with current forms of punishment. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism is often taken to task for its alleged harsh implications. For example, it may seem to imply a policy of nonassistance toward uninsured reckless drivers who suffer injuries. Luck egalitarians respond to such objections partly by pointing to a number of factors pertaining to the cases being debated, which suggests that their stance is less inattentive to the plight of the victims than it might seem at first. However, the strategy leaves some cases in which the attribution of (...) individual responsibility is appropriate . One such case is oral health or significant aspects of this. It is appropriate, the paper argues, to hold people responsible for a number of factors that affect their oral health. A luck egalitarian approach inspired by John Roemer can assess whether people have acted responsibly by comparing their choices to those of their peers. A luck egalitarian approach to oral health would recommend prioritizing scarce resources in a responsibility-weighted queuing system and include copayment and general taxation among its measures of financing. (shrink)

In some situations in which undesirable collective effects occur, it is very hard, if not impossible, to hold any individual reasonably responsible. Such a situation may be referred to as the problem of many hands. In this paper we investigate how the problem of many hands can best be understood and why, and when, it exactly constitutes a problem. After analyzing climate change as an example, we propose to define the problem of many hands as the occurrence of a gap (...) in the distribution of responsibility that may be considered morally problematic. Whether a gap is morally problematic, we suggest, depends on the reasons why responsibility is distributed. This, in turn, depends, at least in part, on the sense of responsibility employed, a main distinction being that between backward-looking and forward-looking responsibility. (shrink)

The concept of “moral responsibility” has almost always been defined in relation to a certain idea of metaphysical freedom and to a conception of the physical world. So, classically, for indeterminist thinkers, human beings are free and therefore responsible, if their choices are not defined by a previous state of the world but derive from an autonomous selection among a set of alternatives. Differently, for the majority of determinist philosophers , the only form of freedom we need has to be (...) identified with freedom of the conduct, considered as opposite to any form of coercion. Some argue that, given the truth of determinism and the related suppression of concepts such as “guilt” and “praise”, or “merit” and “demerit”, morality could survive just as a utilitarian tool, even though this seems to be in conflict with our deepest feelings and practices. Considering some revisionist approaches of moral responsibility in connection with classical positions , I will reconstruct some of the attempts to release responsibility from the thematisation of freedom, exploring the possibility of redefining it as an independent concept. My conclusion is that the focus on the choice-action process and on the characteristics of the “self”, avoiding reference to alternative scenarios, could be a good starting point for elaborating a conception of what really counts for our moral life – even though, in the end, this could entail the abandonment of the traditional concept of responsibility itself. (shrink)

Christian theology still condemns the sin of pride, yet many modern political movements stake their claims in terms of pride (Black Pride, Gay Pride, Deaf Pride, etc.). In the age of identity politics, it would seem pride may help to overcome self-loathing and to transform society. To see the appropriate personal and political place of pride, one must properly understand the differing roles of responsibility and value in the constitution of pride. A distinction between self-respect and self-esteem also helps clarify (...) the issues. (shrink)

This is a review essay of Gardner, John. 2007, Offences and Defences: Selected Essays in the Philosophy of Criminal Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 288 pp.

The responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic was first ascribed to persons associated with the Huanan Seafood Market. However, many scientists suggest that this pandemic is actually a consequence of human intrusion into nature. This opens up a whole new perspective for an examination of direct and indirect, individual and collective responsibility concerning this particular pandemic, but also zoonotic pandemics as such. In this context, one of the key issues are the consequences of factory-farming of animals, which contributes to circumstances in (...) which zoonotic pandemics emerge. Moreover, it is part of a larger economic system, global capitalism, whose logic implies certain coercion toward its participants to keep it essentially unchanged and therefore to make sure that livestock health remains?the weakest link in our global health chain?. However, even though the precise answer to the issue of moral responsibility for zoonotic pandemics outbreaks in general and the COVID-19 pandemic in particular cannot be given, it is possible to list certain indicators and make a framework helpful in ascribing moral responsibility to certain persons. The paper intends to do so by examining the notion of responsibility and by applying it to the issues mentioned. The results of this analysis show that it is misleading to place moral blame on people involved in actions that directly caused the animal-to-human transmission of a certain virus or on humanity as a whole. (shrink)

It’s commonly thought that, in conversation, speakers accept and reject propositions that have been asserted by others. Do speakers accept and reject questions as well? Intuitively, it seems that they do. But what does it mean to accept or reject a question? What is the relationship between these acts and those of asking and answering questions? Are there clear and distinct classes of reasons that speakers have for acceptance and rejection of questions? This chapter seeks to address these issues. Beyond (...) their intrinsic interest to those working on the nature of questions, solutions to these problems may aid the extension of inferentialist approaches to logic and language. Inferentialists who think that inferences should be conceived in terms of the norms we are subject to in virtue of both the sentences we accept or assert as well as those we reject or deny are known as bilateralists. A coherent account of accepting and rejecting questions raises the prospects for a bilateralism that interprets question-involving or erotetic inferences according to these additional primitives. While a full-blown bilateralism for erotetic inferences and ultimately for question-forming operators themselves far exceeds this chapter’s scope, the work presented here does sketch the first steps in that direction. (shrink)

Most punishment theories acknowledge neither the full extent of the harms which punishment risks, nor the caring practices which punishment entails. Consequently, I shall argue, punishment in most of its current conceptualizations is inconsistent with treating offenders as equals qua persons. The nature of criminal punishment, and of our interactions with offenders in punishment decision-making and delivery, risks causing harm to offenders. Harm is normalized when central to definitions of punishment, desensitizing us to unintended harms and obscuring caring practices. Offenders (...) may be partially silenced and excluded by mainstream criminal justice practices which limit interaction between offenders and practitioners. When we ignore significant harms, or silence and exclude, we treat others as passive non-subjects. This partially objectifies offenders, and is inconsistent with treatment as equals. Penal theories employing harm-centred and harm-normalizing definitions of punishment can provide few resources to help practitioners either avoid, or recognize and respond to, harms. Care ethics, by contrast, motivates the avoidance of harm, ongoing inclusive engagement, and respectful interaction with others. I argue that defining punishment without presupposing harm facilitates the identification of morally problematic harms, and recognition of caring practices. I offer a principled argument, and political and pragmatic supplementary arguments, for responding to offenders without intentional harm and with care. Principles drawn from care ethics can help to strengthen mainstream criminal practices by structuring decision-making and action. Bottom-up alternative criminal justice practices share some values with these proposed guiding principles, allowing a partial test of the principles. I consider examples of restorative justice practices, therapeutic jurisprudence, community justice and other problem-solving court practices, in addition to considering how well mainstream punishment practices measure up to these principles. My analysis illuminates the strengths and weaknesses of the principles, and how they might contribute to securing treatment as equals for offenders in mainstream practices. (shrink)

In Ignorance of Law, Douglas Husak’s main thesis is that ignorance of the law typically provides an excuse for breaking the law, but in the case of recklessness he claims that the excuse it provides is only a partial one, and in the case of willful ignorance he claims that it provides no excuse at all. In this paper I argue that, given the general principle to which Husak appeals in order to support his main thesis, he should revise his (...) position on the exculpatory significance of both recklessness and willful ignorance. (shrink)

This article concerns the problems of proportionality in the theory of punishment. The problem is how to determine whether the severity of a punishment for a criminal offense is proportional to the seriousness of that offense. The resolution to this problem proposed in the article is that, first, one understand punishment as pain or loss intentionally and openly inflicted on someone S in retaliation for something S did, by a person or agent who is at least as powerful as S, (...) and, second, one take such retaliatory pain or loss as, within stable social groups, a means for preserving social order. Accordingly, it is argued that, on this proposal, the measure by which the severity of punishment is determined to be proportional to the seriousness of the crime for which it is inflicted is the minimal amount of pain or loss necessary to preserve social order. Sentencing policies that follow this measure, it is then observed, tend to yield less severe punishments than the policies that classical deterrence theory yields. Finally, the article offers an argument for regarding as morally more defensible sentencing policies whose goal is preserving social order than sentencing policies whose goal is that of classical deterrence theory, which is to achieve the smallest incidence of crimes consistent with not diminishing the overall welfare of society. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend the general thesis that intentions are relevant not only to moral permissibility and impermissibility, but also to criminal wrongdoing, as well as a specific version of the Doctrine of Double Effect that we believe can help solve some challenging puzzles in the criminal law. We begin by answering some recent arguments that marginalize or eliminate the role of intentions as components of criminal wrongdoing [e.g., Alexander and Ferzan, Chiao, Walen ]. We then turn to some (...) influential theories that articulate a direct role for intentions [e.g., Duff, Husak ]. While we endorse the commitment to such a role for intentions, we believe that extant theories have not yet been able to adequately address certain objections or solve certain puzzles, such as that some attempt convictions require criminal intent when the crime attempted, if successful, requires only foresight, and that some intended harms appear to be no more serious than non-intended ones of the same magnitude, for example. Drawing on a variety of resources, including the specific version of the Doctrine of Double Effect we have developed in recent published work, we present solutions to these puzzles, which in turn provide mutual support for our general approach to the role of intentions and for thinking that using others as means is itself a special kind of wrongdoing. (shrink)

The doctrine of double effect, together with other moral principles that appeal to the intentions of moral agents, has come under attack from many directions in recent years, as have a variety of rationales that have been given in favor of it. In this paper, our aim is to develop, defend, and provide a new theoretical rationale for a secular version of the doctrine. Following Quinn (1989), we distinguish between Harmful Direct Agency and Harmful Indirect Agency. We propose the following (...) version of the doctrine: that in cases in which harm must come to some in order to achieve a good (and is the least costly of possible harms necessary), the agent foresees the harm, and all other things are equal, a stronger case is needed to justify Harmful Direct Agency than to justify Harmful Indirect Agency. We distinguish between two Kantian rationales that might be given for the doctrine, a “dependent right” rationale, defended by Quinn, and an “independent right” rationale, which we defend. We argue that the doctrine and the “independent right” rationale for it are not vulnerable to counterexamples or counterproposals, and conclude by drawing implications for the larger debate over whether agents' intentions are in any way relevant to permissibility and obligation. (shrink)

This paper argues that there are compelling grounds for thinking that coercive indoctrination can defeat or mitigate moral culpability in virtue of being a form of non-culpable moral ignorance. That is, I defend a two-tier account such that what excuses an agent for a wrongful act is the agent’s ignorance regarding the moral quality of their act; and what excuses the defendant for their ignorance is that coercion or manipulation deprived the defendant of a fair opportunity to avoid that ignorance. (...) I further argue that criminal defense theory would better track moral culpability were it to broaden existing defenses whose desert-base is moral ignorance—such as insanity or mistaken-belief self-defense—to include non-culpable ignorance due to diminished situational control. In this way, criminal law can plausibly recognize a defense of coercive indoctrination without postulating any new categories of defense. (shrink)

The techno-moral scenarios approach has been developed to explore the interplay between technology, society and morality. Focused on new and emerging sciences and technologies, techno-moral scenarios can be used to inform and enhance public deliberation on the desirability of socio-technical trajectories. The article presents an attempt to hybridise this scenario tool, complementing the focus on ethics with an explicit acknowledgement of the multiple meanings of responsibility and of the plurality of its regimes, i.e. the institutional arrangements presiding over the assumption (...) and assignment of responsibilities. We call this integrated technique ‘rTMS’ to stress the continuity with the original technique and, at the same time, to highlight the additional element we aim to develop: responsibility. The article describes this approach and illustrates a loosely standardised procedure that can be used to organise and conduct public engagement workshops based on rTMS. (shrink)

This paper considers electronic monitoring (EM) a promising alternative to imprisonment as a criminal sanction for a series of criminal offenses. However, little has been said about EM from an ethical perspective. To evaluate EM from an ethical perspective, six initial ethical challenges are addressed and discussed. It is argued that since EM is developing as a technology and a punitive means, it is urgent to discuss its ethical implications and incorporate moral values into its design and development.

Those who commit crime on a grand scale, numbering their victims in the thousands, seem to pose a special problem both for consequentialist and for non-consequentialist theories of punishment, a problem the International Criminal Court makes practical. This paper argues that at least one non-consequentialist theory of punishment, the fairness theory, can provide a justification of punishment for great crimes. It does so by dividing the question into two parts, the one of proportion which it answers directly, and the other (...) of ‘anchoring points’ which it assigns to a broader theory of enforcement (which may have a non-consequentialist or consequentialist version). (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the licensing of and codes of ethics that affect the accountant not in public accounting, the potential for an accountant not in public accounting encountering an ethical conflict situation, and the moral responsibility of such accountant when faced with an ethical dilemma. We review an approach suggested by the National Association of Accountants for dealing with an ethical conflict situation including that association's position on whistleblowing. We propose another approach based on the work of De (...) George (1981), in which both internal and external whistleblowing are possible alternatives, for use by management accountants in an ethical conflict situation. Finally, we consider the implications of our analysis for management accounting. While most of the analysis centers on management accountants, we note the likely applicability of the analysis to accountants in the public sector. (shrink)

How does the brain generate our experience of being in control over our actions and their effects? Here, we argue that the perception of events as self-caused emerges from a comparison between anticipated and actual action-effects: if the representation of an event that follows an action is activated before the action, the event is experienced as caused by one’s own action, whereas in the case of a mismatch it will be attributed to an external cause rather than to the self. (...) In a subliminal priming paradigm we show that participants overestimated how much control they had over objectively uncontrollable stimuli, which appeared after free- or forced-choice actions, when a masked prime activated a representation of the stimuli immediately before each action. This prime-induced control-illusion was independent from whether primes were consciously perceived. Results indicate that the conscious experience of control is modulated by unconscious anticipations of action-effects. (shrink)

Predmet su rada rasprave o odnosu determinizma i slobode volje (tj. problem kompatibilnosti), odnosno implikacije koje imaju po moralnu odgovornost. Problemu se pristupa iz naturalističke perspektive iako se ne nudi odgovor na pitanje istine kauzalnog determinizma. Međutim, s ciljem da se ispita perspektiva za moralnu odgovornost, pretpostavlja se da je kauzalni determinizam potkrijepljen znanošću. Razmatra se pojam kauzalnog determinizma, a potom se ispituju izazovi koje argument konzekvenci postavlja pred slobodu volje shvaćenu kao mogućnost da se učini drugačije. Cilj je rada (...) pokazati da su u osnovi svakodnevne upotrebe pojma moralne odgovornosti slabiji uvjeti od slobode shvaćene kao mogućnosti da se učini drugačije. Na tim temeljima branimo zaključak da je moralna odgovornost kompatibilna s kauzalnim determinizmom. (shrink)

‘Optimistic’ normative theories of criminal justice aim to justify criminal sanction in terms of its reprobative/rehabilitative value rather than its punitive nature as such. But do such theories accord with ordinary intuitions about what constitutes a ‘just’ response to wrongdoing? Recent empirical work on the psychology of punishers suggests that human beings have a ‘brutely retributive’ moral psychology, making them unlikely to endorse normative theories that sacrifice retribution for the sake of reprobation or rehabilitation; it would mean, for example, that (...) we cannot expect people to support such optimistic theories democratically, calling their feasibility into question. Taking the civic republican theory as an exemplar of optimistic theories, we argue that it does not fail this feasibility test. We review recent empirical research, including studies of our own, to support the claim that, far from being brute retributivists, human beings are generally satisfied only with punishment that delivers something other than mere retribution. And we show that this coheres very closely with the goals and policies that civic republicanism would support, as it may be expected to cohere also with other optimistic proposals. (shrink)

Responsibility within life science research is a highly scrutinised field. Increasingly, scientists are presented with a range of duties and expectations regarding their conduct within the research setting. In many cases, these duties are presented deontologically, forgoing extensive discussion on how these are practically implemented into the minutiae of daily research practices. This de-contextualized duty has proven problematic when it comes to practical issues of compliance, however it is not often considered as a fundamental aspect of building ethics discourse. This (...) paper examines this issue in detail, particularly focusing on how differences in the contrasts between the ideal and real physical research environments cause conceptual problems for scientists and retard ethical engagement. Such issues are particularly pertinent in low- and middle-income countries. This paper combines theoretical and empirical analyses using the concept of “dual-use” as a focalizing topic. The data show that the research environment acts as an intimate component in the interpretation and implementation of ethical actions. (shrink)

Descriptions of emotion incidents were extracted from classic American novels of the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern Periods. These descriptions were then rated by respondents on scales relevant to attribution of responsibility for emotions. It was found that ratings of the emotion descriptions differed across the three literary periods, with descriptions from the Romantic Period being rated most intense and most appropriate, descriptions from the Victorian Period as least intense, and descriptions from the Modern Period as least appropriate. In addition, it (...) was found that the contemporary American folk theory of attribution of responsibility for emotions might be characterised as being based on perceived intensity of emotions, the social appropriateness of emotions, and the degree to which persons other than the emoter might be said to be responsible for the emoter's emotion. These findings are supportive of a growing appreciation in the emotion literature for culturally and historically relative approaches to emotion research. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to demonstrate that the theory of changes in perspectives allows a different presentation of the problems which arise from a loss of recognition as an element of punishment, particularly in reference to others, the entire structure of the interaction is changed. Communicative conditions of moral discourses assume that every participant of the argumentation process takes place in all spheres of social life and can assume the perspective common to all other participants. The main task (...) of criminal law is, then, the protection of elementary aspects of one’s role as a participant of interaction without which the chain of mutual recognition and understanding could be freely and at any moment infringed by any given participant of interactions, i.e. the protection of such rights. (shrink)

This article draws on the history of automobile safety in the United States to illustrate how technical design has been used to promote or maintain duties, values, and ethics. It examines two specific episodes: the debates over the “crash avoidance” and “crash-worthiness” approaches in the 1960s and the responses to the accusation that air bags were killing dozens of people in the mid-1990s. In each of these debates, certain auto safety advocates promoted the development of technologies designed to circumvent, replace, (...) or compensate for “irresponsible” human actions because they believed that devices and techniques would be considerably more obedient and reliable than the American public. Other organizations, however, contested such reallocations because they also involved a shift in responsibilities throughout the rest of the sociotechnical network of auto safety. This article argues that those who controlled the precise definition of risk in auto safety had the upper hand in constructing both the solution to the problem and the distribution of responsibilities the solution entailed. (shrink)

Descriptions of emotion incidents were extracted from classic American novels of the Romantic, Victorian, and Modern Periods. These descriptions were then rated by respondents on scales relevant to attribution of responsibility for emotions. It was found that ratings of the emotion descriptions differed across the three literary periods, with descriptions from the Romantic Period being rated most intense and most appropriate, descriptions from the Victorian Period as least intense, and descriptions from the Modern Period as least appropriate. In addition, it (...) was found that the contemporary American folk theory of attribution of responsibility for emotions might be characterised as being based on perceived intensity of emotions, the social appropriateness of emotions, and the degree to which persons other than the emoter might be said to be responsible for the emoter's emotion. These findings are supportive of a growing appreciation in the emotion literature for culturally and historically relative approaches to emotion research. (shrink)

As the number of elderly prisoners increases in the UK and other Western countries, there will be individuals who develop dementia whilst in custody. We present two case vignettes of men with dementia in English prisons, and explore some of the ethical implications that their continuing detention raises. We find little to support their detention in the various purposes of prison put forward by legal philosophers and penologists, and conclude by raising some of the possible implications of The Human Rights (...) Act 1998. (shrink)

Adversaries of Moral Luck (AMLs) are at pains to explain why wrongdoers are liable to bear burdens (punishment, compensation etc.) which are related to the harm they cause, because the consequences of what we do are a matter of luck. One attempt to solve this problem suggests that wrongdoers who cause more harm are liable to bear a greater burden not because they are more blameworthy but rather because they get the short straw in a liability lottery (represented by the (...) apparently indeterminate causal process). In this paper I argue that this attempt fails on several grounds. Apart from the fact that it is hard to see how the implementation of liability lotteries can be motivated and the fact that such scheme presupposes a political order (whereas the notion of liability does not seem to presuppose one), detaching liability from the outcomes of a culpable action undermines whichever justifications there were for imposing liability in the first place. Moreover, relying on the determination of the causal process as a good indication of the wrongdoer’s degree of culpability is mistaken, because the luck brought about through the causal process is not necessarily the only element involved in cases of harmful conduct which lies beyond the wrongdoers’ control. (shrink)

Whatever else liberalism involves, it involves the idea that it is objectionable, and often wrong, for the state, or anyone else, to intervene, in certain ways, in certain choices. This article aims to evaluate different possible sources of support for this core liberal idea. The result is a pluralistic view. It defends, but also stresses the limits of, some familiar elements: that some illiberal interventions impair valuable activities and that some violate rights against certain kinds of invasion. More speculatively, it (...) points to two further sources of support for liberalism, each of which represents a certain kind of social standing: a self-sovereignty compromised simply by being subject to certain kinds of commands and a relational equality compromised by the condemnation of choices with which one’s group is identified. (shrink)

Anger and disgust may have distinct roles in sexual morality; here, we tested hypotheses regarding the distinct foci, appraisals, and motivations of anger and disgust within the context of sexual offenses. We conducted four experiments in which we manipulated whether mutual consent (Studies 1–3) or desire (Study 4) was present or absent within a counter-normative sexual act. We found that anger is focused on the injustice of non-consensual sexual acts, and the transgressor of the injustice (Studies 1 and 3). Furthermore, (...) the sexual nature of the act was not critical for the elicitation of anger—as anger also responded to unjust acts of violence (Study 3). By contrast, we hypothesised and found that disgust is focused on whether or not a person voluntarily engaged in, desired or consented to a counter-normative sexual act (Studies 2–4). Appraisals of abnormality and degradation were the primary appraisals of disgust, and the sexual nature of the act was a critical elicitor of disgust (Study 3). A final study ruled out victimisation as the mechanism of the effect of consent on disgust and indicated that the consenter's sexual desire was the mechanism (Study 4). Our results reveal that anger and disgust have differential roles in consent-related sexual offenses due to the distinct appraisals and foci of these emotions. (shrink)

Recent criticisms of traditional understandings of risk, responsibility and the division of labour between science and politics build on the idea of the co-produced character of the natural and social orders, making a case for less ambitious and more inclusive policy processes, where questions of values and goals may be addressed together with questions of facts and means, causal liabilities and principled responsibilities. Within the neo-liberal political economy, however, the contingency of the world is depicted as a source of unprecedented (...) opportunities for human craftsmanship, rather than of possibly unmanageable surprises. Gene technologies offer a vantage point for reflecting on the consequences of the drift from discovery to invention as a master frame in the appraisal of human intermingling with the world. Biotech patenting regulations carve out a sovereign agency which, by crafting nature, also crafts the distinction between the manufactured and non-manufactured world. Difficulties in ascribing responsibility stem as a consequence. It is likely that politics and economy can be democratized and responsibilities rearranged not by ‘democratizing’ knowledge production, but rather the reverse. (shrink)