PurposeThe aim of this paper is to assess the complex issue of responsibility in clinical practice. The paper focuses mainly on the relationship between personal- and medical-professional responsibility of practitioners and clinical guidelines.MethodsAfter a theoretical review of the different definitions of responsibility in selected bioethical and biojuridical literature, two recent juridical proceedings concerning medical responsibility from Italian Courts are discussed. Subsequently, a theoretical analysis of the definition of clinical practice guidelines is proposed in order to show their feasibility to assess (...) personal- and medical-professional responsibility.ResultsThe definitions of responsibility and the two Italian cases show the theoretical and practical difficulties of shared assessments of both personal-professional and medical-professional responsibility in clinical practice. Clinical practice guidelines cannot be assumed as an objective code of action stating exactly a rule of conduct in all situations, but as a tool suggesting how to decide what to do in different conditions.ConclusionsResponsibility in clinical practice is such a complex issue to deserve a special ethical assessment. The clinician’s personal-professional responsibility cannot be replaced or reduced by clinical practice guidelines, because medicine is as such a relationship focused on the expertize of practitioners. Nonetheless, a shared approach to different clinical conditions is needed in order to avoid a relativist outcome and protect patients’ and even clinicians’ rights. Formal guidelines (that describe not exactly what to do but how to decide what to do) are proposed as potential useful tool to achieve this aim. (shrink)

William Alston has argued that the so‐called deontological conception of epistemic justification, on which epistemic justification is to be spelled out in terms of blame, responsibility, and obligations, is untenable. The basic idea of the argument is that this conception is untenable because we lack voluntary control over our beliefs and, therefore, cannot have any obligations to hold certain beliefs. If this is convincing, however, the argument threatens the very idea of doxastic responsibility. For, how can we ever be responsible (...) for our beliefs if we lack control over them? Several philosophers have argued that the idea that we bear responsibility for our beliefs can be saved, because absence of voluntary control over our beliefs is perfectly compatible with having obligations to hold particular beliefs. With others, I call this view ‘doxastic compatibilism’. It comes in two varieties. On the first variety, doxastic obligations do not require any kind of doxastic control whatsoever. I argue that this variety of doxastic compatibilism fails because it confuses doxastic responsibility with other closely related phenomena. On the second variety, doxastic obligations do not require voluntary doxastic control, but only compatibilist doxastic control (roughly, reason‐responsiveness) and we do in fact have such control. I grant that we have such control, but also argue that having such control is insufficient for bearing doxastic responsibility. The plausibility of the examples put forward by doxastic compatibilists in support of the claim that it is sufficient for doxastic responsibility derives from the fact that in these examples, the subjects have control over factors that influence what they believe rather than control over those beliefs themselves. (shrink)

It is commonly thought that when democratic states act wrongly, they should bear the costs of the harm they cause. However, since states are collective agents, their financial burdens pass on to their individual citizens. This fact raises important questions about the proper distribution of the state’s collective responsibility for its unjust policies. This article identifies two opposing models for sharing this collective responsibility in democracies: first, in proportion to citizens’ personal association with the unjust policy; second, by giving each (...) citizen an equal share of the costs. Proportional distribution is compatible with the principle of fairness. And yet, both in the literature and in political praxis we find many supporters for the equal sharing of the costs of unjust policies in democracies. How can equal distribution be defended on normative grounds? This article develops a defense that is grounded in citizens’ associative obligations. I argue that, at least in some democracies, one of the intrinsic values of the civic bond revolves around the joint formation and execution of worthy political goals. This social good generates the political associative obligation to accept an equal distribution of the costs of unjust policies. (shrink)

This paper side-steps the question of whether ‘the’ concept of sport exists, or can be usefully analysed. Instead, I try to explain the much more modest aim of exhibition-analysis, which is to seek a description of an actually existing example of some concept of sport internal to a normative position. My example is that of Olympic-sport. I try to set out its logically necessary conditions, which of course are conditioned by its context within a theory that emphasises the values of (...) formal competition, citius-altius-fortius, and excellence in contest, as well as rule-based procedural values related to fairness, justice and equality. In so doing, I readily accept that other kinds of sport can be similarly analysed, and I do not press the value claims of Olympic-sport. Instead, I try to show how Olympic-sport, properly construed, can accommodate the concerns of my critics with regard to sport’s play and game-like characteristics. (shrink)

The reactive attitude of ‘resentment’ has been gaining increasing attention within contemporary philosophical literature. However, little attention has been given to the conceptions of resentment in Asian philosophy. In recent years, some philosophers have argued that there is a positive account of resentment in Confucian philosophy. This paper brings a recent Mencian account of resentment in conversation with contemporary philosophical discussions. The conversations revolve around aspects of resentment such as exculpatory conditions, payback, transition, and moral cultivation. The conversation not only (...) adds clarity to the Mencian account, it also demonstrates potential contributions this account has to contemporary discussions on resentment. (shrink)

[full article, abstract in English; only abstract in Lithuanian] This paper proposes a new pragmatic interpretation of the Frege–Geach problem and presents a possible solution using a model of ascriptive legal language. The first section includes the definition of the Frege–Geach problem. In the second section, I analyze the content of Geach’s critical argument against prescriptivism in ethics. I discuss what Geach means by ascriptivism, why he mixes it with prescriptivism, and why a particular article by Herbert Hart became the (...) subject of criticism by Geach. The third section proposes a possible solution to the Frege–Geach problem based on the explication of the assertoric force of ascriptive legal utterances and the performativity of legal language. (shrink)

This paper considers the interpretive significance of the intersecting relationships between different conceptions of responsibility as they shift over space and time. The paper falls into two main sections. The first gives an account of several conceptions of responsibility: two conceptions founded in ideas of capacity; two founded in ideas of character, and one founded in the relationship between an agent and the outcome which she causes. The second main section uses this differentiated conceptual account to analyse and interpret certain (...) aspects of the contemporary criminal law of England and Wales. In conclusion, the paper considers a number of hypotheses about what the evidence of certain shifts in the relationship between the three families of responsibility-conception can tell us about the current state and significance of criminal law among other systems of social governance. (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)

In everyday life, we assume that there are degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. Yet the debate about the nature of moral responsibility often focuses on the “yes or no” question of whether indeterminism is required for moral responsibility, while questions about what accounts for more or less blameworthiness or praiseworthiness are underexplored. In this paper, I defend the idea that degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness can depend in part on degrees of difficulty and degrees of sacrifice required for performing the (...) action in question. Then I turn to the question of how existing accounts of the nature of moral responsibility might be seen to accommodate these facts. In each case of prominent compatibilist and incompatibilist accounts that I consider, I argue that supplementation with added dimensions is required in order to account for facts about degrees of blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. For example, I argue that the reasons-responsiveness view of Fischer and Ravizza requires supplementation that takes us beyond even fine-grained measures of degrees of reasons-responsiveness in order to capture facts about degrees of difficulty to extend the reasons-responsiveness view by appealing to such measures). I conclude by showing that once we recognize the need for these additional parameters, we will be in a position to explain away at least some of the appeal of incompatibilist accounts of moral responsibility. (shrink)

In this paper, I first review some of the recent empirical work on the biasing effect that moral considerations have on folk ascriptions of intentional action. Then, I use Mark Alicke's affective model of blame attribution to explain this biasing effect. Finally, I discuss the relevance of this research - both philosophical and psychological - to the problem of the partiality of jury deliberation. After all, if the immorality of an action does affect folk ascriptions of intentionality, and all serious (...) criminal offenses - e.g., murder and rape - are immoral in addition to being illegal, then a juror's ability to determine the relevant mens rea (i.e., guilty mind) of a defendant in an unbiased way may be seriously undermined. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on whether and to what extent we judge that people are responsible for the consequences of their forgetfulness. We ran a series of behavioral studies to measure judgments of responsibility for the consequences of forgetfulness. Our results show that we are disposed to hold others responsible for some of their forgetfulness. The level of stress that the forgetful agent is under modulates judgments of responsibility, though the level of care that the agent exhibits toward performing (...) the forgotten action does not. We argue that this result has important implications for a long-running debate about the nature of responsible agency. (shrink)

How to respond justly to the dangers persistent violent offenders present is a vexing moral and legal issue. On the one hand, we wish to reduce predation; on the other, we want to treat predators fairly. The central theme of this paper is that it is difficult to achieve both goals without compromising one of them, and that both are being seriously undermined. I begin by explaining the legal theory, doctrine and practice governing dangerous offenders and demonstrate that the law (...) leaves a gap in the ability to confine them. Next I explore the means by which the law has overtly or covertly sought to fill the gap. Many of these measures, especially the new form of civil commitment for sexual predators, dangerously conflate moral and medical categories. I conclude that pure preventive detention is more common than we usually assume, but that this practice violates fundamental assumptions concerning liberty under the American constitutional regime. (shrink)

How to respond justly to the dangers persistent violent offenders present is a vexing moral and legal issue. On the one hand, we wish to reduce predation; on the other, we want to treat predators fairly. The central theme of this paper is that it is difficult to achieve both goals without compromising one of them, and that both are being seriously undermined. I begin by explaining the legal theory, doctrine and practice governing dangerous offenders and demonstrate that the law (...) leaves a gap in the ability to confine them. Next I explore the means by which the law has overtly or covertly sought to fill the gap. Many of these measures, especially the new form of civil commitment for sexual predators, dangerously conflate moral and medical categories. I conclude that pure preventive detention is more common than we usually assume, but that this practice violates fundamental assumptions concerning liberty under the American constitutional regime. (shrink)

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.

Research Articles Michael S. Moore, Social Philosophy and Policy, FirstView Article.

According to Christopher New, prepunishment is punishment for an offence before the offence is committed. I will first analyze New’s argument, along with theepistemic conditions for practicing prepunishment. I will then deal with an important conceptual objection, according to which prepunishment is not a genuine kind of ‘punishment’. After that, I will consider retributivism and present conclusive reasons for the claim that it cannot justify prepunishment without leading to paradoxical results. I shall then seek to establish that from the utilitarian (...) point of view it is possible to provide a plausible justification of this practice. Finally, I shall attempt to defend the claim that the fact that utilitarianism can justify prepunishment in a satisfactory way is clearly a favourable characteristic of this ethical position. (shrink)

Once relegated to the margins of the responsibility debate, moral influence theories have recently been rehabilitated. This paper offers a moral influence theory with two parts: a theory of responsibility as influenceability and an act-consequentialist justification of blame. I defend this account against six concerns commonly raised both by opponents and by advocates of similar views. Some concerns target act consequentialism, claiming that it 1) permits blaming innocents; 2) permits coercion, manipulation, and other objectionable forms of influence; and 3) fails (...) to capture intuitions about desert. Other concerns target responsibility as influenceability, claiming that influenceability accounts are 4) unsophisticated, 5) make ascriptions of responsibility dependent on assessments of permissible blame, and 6) have various counterintuitive implications. (shrink)

In this paper, I am concerned with what automation—widely considered to be the “future of work”—holds for the artificially intelligent agents we aim to employ. My guiding question is whether it is normatively problematic to employ artificially intelligent agents like, for example, autonomous robots as workers. The answer I propose is the following. There is nothing inherently normatively problematic about employing autonomous robots as workers. Still, we must not put them to perform just any work, if we want to avoid (...) blame. This might not sound like much of a limitation. Interestingly, however, we can argue for this claim based on metaphysically and normatively parsimonious grounds. Namely, all I rely on when arguing for my claim is that the robots we aim to employ exhibit a kind of autonomy. (shrink)

Philosophers traditionally have been concerned both to explain intentional behavior and to evaluate it from a moral point of view. Some have maintained that whether actions (and their consequences) properly count as intended sometimes hinges on moral considerations - specifically, considerations of moral responsibility. The same claim has been made about an action's properly counting as having been done intentionally. These contentions will be made more precise in subsequent sections, where influential proponents are identified. Our aim in this paper is (...) to show that familiar defenses of these more precise claims are unpersuasive and that the claims do not merit acceptance. Our concern, more broadly, is to illuminate the place occupied by intention and intentional action in a conceptual scheme suited both to explanatory needs in the philosophy of mind to evaluative needs in moral philosophy. (shrink)

Wimpy retributivism finds reasons to refrain from giving the blameworthy and culpable what they deserve, even if it comes to very little. These reasons have to do with the moral hazards of being mistaken about when harsh treatment is justified. A moral influence theory can help supplement retributivist reasons with further consequentialist considerations and thereby keep these skeptical worries in check.

Theories of blame posit that observers consider causality, controllability, and foreseeability when assigning blame to actors. The present study examined which of these factors, either on their own or in interaction, predicted blame assigned to actors in a case of harm caused by negligence. The findings revealed that only causal impact ratings predicted blame. The findings also revealed a novel form of asymmetric discounting: the causal impact of a negligent actor was used to discount blame assigned to an innocent actor, (...) but the causal impact of the innocent actor was not used to discount the blame assigned to the negligent actor. (shrink)

En este trabajo pretendo mostrar que el derecho penal contemporáneo no ha encontrado todavía buenas soluciones a las difi cultades conceptuales y normativas planteadas por los casos de ignorancia deliberada. Las difi cultades surgen, en buena medida, al tratar de resolver estas situaciones mediante una herramienta equivocada: ampliando el concepto de dolo eventual. Este recurso conceptual intenta encontrar justifi cación para un castigo severo –el tipo de castigo paradigmáticamente ligado a los delitos intencionales–pero fracasa porque el dolo eventual requiere que (...) exista conocimiento. En contraste con ello, sugiero que la ignorancia deliberada puede ser vista, en algunas situaciones, como una especifi cación del fraude de ley. Esta sería la razón por la que esta fi gura puede algunas veces parecer más grave que la imprudencia. (shrink)

The argument between retributivists and consequentialists about what morally justifies the punishment of offenders is incoherent. If we were to discover that all of the contending justifications were mistaken, there is no realistic prospect that this would lead us to abandon legal punishment. Justification of words, beliefs and deeds, can only be intelligible on the assumption that if one's justification were found to be invalid and there were no alternative justification, one would be prepared to stop saying, believing or doing (...) what one has attempted to justify. Therefore, the moral standing or basis of our practices of punishing offenders can not rest on a justification of it. (shrink)

El trabajo ofrece una reconstrucción de aquello que la dogmática del derecho penal denomina una “tentativa inacabada”, cuya estructura es analizada a partir de premisas obtenidas de la filosofía de la acción. El argumento se centra en demostrar por qué y cómo la así llamada “resolución-al-hecho”, en cuanto presupuesto de tal forma de tentativa, ha de ser caracterizada como una intención previa, a través de cuya formación el agente adquiere el compromiso práctico de ejecutar u omitir una acción de cierta (...) índole. El objetivo así perseguido consiste en identificar las condiciones de las cuales depende que una tentativa inacabada pueda ser constitutiva de un quebrantamiento de la misma norma quebrantada por el autor del respectivo delito consumado. (shrink)

Our conversations about punishment have been constrained by the presumption that crimes ought to be punished. This presumption does not entail that crimes must be punished, but rather that punishment occurs as a natural response to wrongdoing instead of as a conventional creation. As a consequence, the challenges for punishment’s justification have been reduced to the problems of purpose, opportunity and form, leaving unaddressed the question of the authority of a certain polity to impose this form of treatment on a (...) given individual. In order to present and criticize this presumption, the article traces its origins by revisiting the debate about the nature of punishment that took place during the emergence of liberal political philosophy. After evaluating the main arguments of this debate the article concludes by arguing that liberal theories of punishment should give up this presumption. (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)

It is a truism that there are erroneous convictions in criminal trials. Recent legal findings show that 3.3% to 5% of all convictions in capital rape-murder cases in the U.S. in the 1980s were erro...

T. M. Scanlon’s contractualism is a meta-ethical theory that explains moral motivation and also provides a conception of how to carry out moral deliberation. It supports non-consequentialism – the theory that both consequences and deontological considerations are morally significant in moral deliberation. Regarding the issue of punishment, non-consequentialism allows us to take account of the need for deterrence as well as principles of fairness, justice, and even desert. Moreover, Scanlonian contractualism accounts for permissibility in terms of justifiability: An act is (...) permissible if and only if it can be justified to everyone affected by it. This contractualist thesis explains why it is always impermissible to frame an innocent person, why vicarious punishment is impermissible, and why there has to be a cap on sentences. Contractualism therefore allows us to take deterrence as a goal of punishment without the excess of utilitarianism. This paper further argue that the resulting view is superior to pure retributivism. Finally, it shows why legal excuses and mitigation can be justified in terms of the notion of negative desert. (For access to this paper: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/sJ2JBVXkztyFMGmxS7tS/full ) . (shrink)

Various theories of moral cognition posit that moral intuitions can be understood as the output of a computational process performed over structured mental representations of human action. We propose that action plan diagrams—“act trees”—can be a useful tool for theorists to succinctly and clearly present their hypotheses about the information contained in these representations. We then develop a methodology for using a series of linguistic probes to test the theories embodied in the act trees. In Study 1, we validate the (...) method by testing a specific hypothesis (diagrammed by act trees) about how subjects are representing two classic moral dilemmas and finding that the data support the hypothesis. In Studies 2–4, we explore possible explanations for discrete and surprising findings that our hypothesis did not predict. In Study 5, we apply the method to a less well‐studied case and show how new experiments generated by our method can be used to settle debates about how actions are mentally represented. In Study 6, we argue that our method captures the mental representation of human action better than an alternative approach. A brief conclusion suggests that act trees can be profitably used in various fields interested in complex representations of human action, including law, philosophy, psychology, linguistics, neuroscience, computer science, robotics, and artificial intelligence. (shrink)

The article examines the relationship between a wrongdoer and his victim. Based on this examination, a justification for criminal punishment is proposed. It is argued that crime violates thea prioriequality of constituent boundaries and of infinite human value between the wrongdoer and the victim. Criminal punishment re-equalizes respective boundaries and infinite human value. To develop this argument, the article observes how subject-subject boundaries are essential for the formation of separateness between subjects - separateness which is recognized and acknowledged by them (...) in a cooperative process. The article further discusses the value of boundaries and the significance of theira prioriequality in every human relationship. It then shows how crime, which is intrusion of the victim’s boundaries, works to demolish the victim’s self-recognizing separateness and hence to create inequality in the parties’ value. Last, the article demonstrates that only punishment can reset the relationship between the parties and re-equate their (still infinite) human value in the relationship. (shrink)

The idea of individual responsibility for action is central to our conception of what it is to be a person. Behavioural genetic research may seem to call into question the idea of individual responsibility with possible implications for the criminal justice system. These implications will depend on the understandings of the various agencies and professional groups involved in responding to violent and anti-social behaviour, and, the result of negotiations between them over resulting practice. The paper considers two kinds of approaches (...) to the question of responsibility and ‘criminal genes’ arising from a sociological and philosophical perspective respectively. One is to consider the social context and possible practical implications of research into ‘criminal genes’ which will later be examined through interviews and discussions with a range of experts including lawyers and social workers. A second and different kind of approach is to ask whether the findings of behavioural genetics ought to have implications for attributions of responsibility. Issues of genetic influence are central to both approaches. (shrink)

Pereboom and Caruso propose the quarantine model as an alternative to existing models of criminal justice. They appeal to the established public health practice of quarantining people, which is believed to be effective and morally justified, to explain why -in criminal justice- it is also morally acceptable to detain wrongdoers, without assuming the existence of a retrospective moral responsibility. Wrongdoers in their model are treated as carriers of dangerous diseases and as such should be preventively detained (or rehabilitated) until they (...) no longer pose a threat to society. Our main concern in this paper is that Pereboom and Caruso adopt an idiosyncratic meaning of quarantine regulations. We highlight a set of important disanalogies between their quarantine model and the quarantine regulations currently adopted in public health policies. More specifically, we argue that the similarities that Pereboom and Caruso propose to substantiate their analogy are not consistent—despite what they claim—with the regulations underlying quarantine as an epidemiological process. We also notice that certain quarantine procedures adopted in public health systems are inadequate to deal with criminal behaviors. On these grounds, we conclude that Pereboom and Caruso should not appeal to the quarantine analogy to substantiate their view, unless they address the issues and criticism we raise in this paper. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a new self-defense theory of punishment, the rights-protection theory. By appealing to the interest theory of right, I show that what we call “the right of self-defense” is actually composed of the right to protect our basic rights. The right of self-defense is not a single, self-standing right but a group of derivative rights justified by their contribution to the protection of the core, basic rights. Thus, these rights of self-defense are both justified and constrained (...) by the basic rights they are supposed to protect. I then explain how this theory responds to a common objection. Opponents argue that, to exercise the right of self-defense, some threat must be present. However, in the context of punishment, the threat has already taken effect or is already gone. Thus, the right of self-defense becomes irrelevant when we punish an offender. I show that this objection is based on an implausibly narrow conception of self-defense. A reasonable conception would allow us to exercise our right of self-defense when there is a present definite threat, a future definite threat, or a potential threat. Thus, we may still exercise our right of self-defense in the context of punishment. (shrink)

One of the most potent motivations for retributivist approaches to punishment has been their apparent connection to an ethical background shaped by the Kantian notion of morally autonomous and rational human agency. The present article challenges the plausibility of this connection. I argue that retributivism subverts, rather than embodies, the normative consequences of moral autonomy, justifying a social practice that conflicts with the considered judgments that the proper recognition of moral autonomy would authorize. The core of my case is the (...) analysis of whether a punishment should be understood as a restriction of a criminal's freedom properly understood. I argue that the affirmative view faces serious difficulties that have not been, and are not likely to be, resolved by retributivist justifications that draw their support from Kantian moral theory. (shrink)

In this paper we propose a new interpretation of Hegel's views on action and responsibility, defending it against its most plausible exegetical competitors.1Any exposition of Hegel will face both terminological and substantive challenges, and so we place, from the outset, some interpretative constraints. The paper divides into two parts. In part one, we point out that Hegel makes a number of distinctions which any sensible account of responsibility should indeed make. Our aim here is to show that Hegel at least (...) has the materials for a sensible and nuanced account, whatever the precise details of how they hang together. Part two then turns to a hard question concerning the relation of two different aspects of our deeds to responsibility. We consider five alternate ways of relieving the tension in Hegel's text, before putting forth our own preferred solution. (shrink)

Criminal liability for acts committed by AI systems has recently become a hot legal topic. This paper includes three different contributions. The first contribution is an analysis of the extent to which an AI system can satisfy the requirements for criminal liability: accomplishing an actus reus, having the corresponding mens rea, possessing the cognitive capacities needed for responsibility. The second contribution is a discussion of criminal activity accomplished by an AI entity, with reference to a recent case involving an online (...) bot, the Random Darknet Shopper. This discussion will provide the context for the analysis of commonalities and differences between criminal activities by humans and by artificial systems. The third contribution concerns the evaluation of different ways of addressing criminal activities by AI systems in a regulatory perspective. (shrink)

How do people attribute responsibility in situations where the contributions of multiple agents combine to produce a joint outcome? The prevalence of over-determination in such cases makes this a difficult problem for counterfactual theories of causal responsibility. In this article, we explore a general framework for assigning responsibility in multiple agent contexts. We draw on the structural model account of actual causation (e.g., Halpern & Pearl, 2005) and its extension to responsibility judgments (Chockler & Halpern, 2004). We review the main (...) theoretical and empirical issues that arise from this literature and propose a novel model of intuitive judgments of responsibility. This model is a function of both pivotality (whether an agent made a difference to the outcome) and criticality (how important the agent is perceived to be for the outcome, before any actions are taken). The model explains empirical results from previous studies and is supported by a new experiment that manipulates both pivotality and criticality. We also discuss possible extensions of this model to deal with a broader range of causal situations. Overall, our approach emphasizes the close interrelations between causality, counterfactuals, and responsibility attributions. (shrink)

Moral and legal philosophy are too entangled: moral philosophy is prone to model interpersonal moral relationships on a juridical image, and legal philosophy often proceeds as if the criminal law is an institutional reflection of juridically imagined interpersonal moral relationships. This article challenges this alignment and in so doing argues that the function of the criminal law lies not fundamentally in moral blame, but in regulation of harmful conduct. The upshot is that, in contrast to interpersonal relationships, the criminal law (...) cannot lose its standing to blame through institutional analogues of hypocrisy, complicity, and meddling. Rather, certain forms of structural and severe historical and contemporary injustice point to the question of the overall legitimacy of state authority. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie Jahrgang: 64 Heft: 2 Seiten: 258-272.

The article focuses on examining the distinct nature of persecution. In the article I argue that on the grounds of common historical cases of persecution an account of the core components of the concept may be established. The core comprises three central elements: asymmetrical and systemic threat, severe and sustained harm, and unjust discriminatory targeting. I will conclude the paper by suggesting that none of the components alone make persecution anything distinct. However, the simultaneous occurrence of the components may be (...) argued to amount to a separable class of harms that are among the worst-case scenarios for those having to endure them. (shrink)

A number of philosophers in recent years have maintained that H. L. A. Hart in The Concept of Law propounded an expressivist account of the semantics of the legal statements that are uttered from the internal viewpoint of the people who run the institutions of legal governance in any jurisdiction. Although the primary aim of this article is to attack the attribution of that semantic doctrine to Hart, the article will begin with some metaphysical matters—the matters of reductionism and naturalism—that (...) often lie behind the development of expressivist approaches to the semantics of normative discourse. After briefly exploring those metaphysical concerns (to which I will return later), the article will begin its main discussion by rehearsing the distinction between the semantics and the pragmatics of utterances. It will then delineate the doctrine of expressivism which the aforementioned philosophers have in mind when they ascribe that doctrine to Hart. Although I will make reference to a few such philosophers, I will focus chiefly on an article by Kevin Toh that has been the fountainhead of all the subsequent attributions of expressivism to Hart. As will be argued herein, Toh and like‐minded philosophers have gone astray in imputing to Hart a semantic version of expressivism. Notwithstanding that Hart’s theory of law can aptly be characterized as expressivist, that characterization is appropriate only when expressivism is understood as an account of the pragmatics of legal statements rather than as an account of their semantics. (shrink)