In this paper, I demonstrate that Kant's commitment to an asymmetry between the control conditions for praise and blame is explained by his endorsement of the principle Ought Implies Can (OIC). I argue that Kant accepts only a relatively weak version of OIC and that he is hence committed only to a relatively weak requirement of alternate possibilities for moral blame. This suggests that whether we are transcendentally free is irrelevant to questions about moral permissibility and moral blameworthiness.

According to typical ought-implies-can principles, if you have an obligation to vaccinate me tomorrow, then you can vaccinate me tomorrow. Such principles are uninformative about conditional obligations: what if you only have an obligation to vaccinate me tomorrow if you synthesize a vaccine today? Then maybe you cannot vaccinate me tomorrow ; what you can do instead, I propose, is make it the case that the conditional obligation is not violated. More generally, I propose the ought-implies-can-obey principle: an agent has (...) an obligation only at times at which the agent can obey the obligation. I also propose another principle, which captures the idea that ‘ought’ implies ‘can avoid’. I defend both principles mainly by arguing that they help explain why agents lose obligations, including conditional ones. (shrink)

This paper aims to contribute to the current debate about the status of the “Ought Implies Can” principle and the growing body of empirical evidence that undermines it. We report the results of an experimental study which show that people judge that agents ought to perform an action even when they also judge that those agents cannot do it and that such “ought” judgments exhibit an actor-observer effect. Because of this actor-observer effect on “ought” judgments and the Duhem-Quine thesis, talk (...) of an “empirical refutation” of OIC is empirically and methodologically unwarranted. What the empirical fact that people attribute moral obligations to unable agents shows is that OIC is not intuitive, not that OIC has been refuted. (shrink)

Those who want to deny the ‘ought implies can’ principle often turn to weakened views to explain ‘ought implies can’ phenomena. The two most common versions of such views are that ‘ought’ presupposes ‘can’, and that ‘ought’ conversationally implicates ‘can’. This paper will reject both views, and in doing so, present a case against any pragmatic view of ‘ought implies can’. Unlike much of the literature, I won't rely on counterexamples, but instead will argue that each of these views fails (...) on its own terms. ‘Ought’ and ‘can’ do not obey the negation test for presupposition, and they do not obey the calculability or the cancelability tests for conversational implicature. I diagnose these failures as partly a result of the importance of the contrapositive of ‘ought implies can’. I end with a final argument emphasizing the role the principle plays in moral thinking, and the fact that no pragmatic account can do it justice. (shrink)

I defend the thesis that beliefs are constitutively normative from two kinds of objection. After clarifying what a “blindspot” proposition is and the different types of blindspots there can be, I show that the existence of such propositions does not undermine the thesis that beliefs are essentially governed by a negative truth norm. I argue that the “normative variance” exhibited by this norm is not a defect. I also argue that if we accept a distinction between subjective and objective norms (...) there need be no worrying tension between doxastic norms of truth and doxastic norms of evidence. I show how a similar approach applies to the attitude of guessing. I then suggest that if we distinguish between practical and theoretical rationality, we will prefer a negative form of norm that does not positively oblige us to form beliefs. I finish by considering an alternative possible subjunctive form of norm that would also avoid problems with blindspots but suggest this has a non-intuitive consequence. (shrink)

Negligence reminds us that we often do and cause things unawares, occasionally with grave results. Given the lack of foresight and intention, some authors argue that people should not be judged culpable for negligence. This paper offers a contrasting view. It argues that gaining control is itself a fundamental responsibility, with both collective and individual elements. The paper underlines both sides, focussing on how they relate as we ascribe responsibility or culpability. Following the introduction, Section 2 argues that conscious awareness (...) is neither necessary nor sufficient for control. Control is not a property of deliberate choice, so much as a practical achievement. Section 3 stresses the collective aspects of non-negligence: creating knowledge about risks, structuring environments to guard against them, and developing standards of care. Failings in the collective task, rather than lack of individual control, mean it can often be unfair to pin culpability on a single individual. Section 4 suggests that a basic duty of a responsible person is to acknowledge the ways in which we may do more or less than we mean to, often in ways that create risks. It then sketches an approach to culpability as part of a collective exercise: as we take responsibility for standards of care, and for our own and others’ agency. (shrink)

It is a dominant dictum in ethics that ‘ought implies can’ (OIC): if an agent morally ought to do an action, the agent must be capable of performing that action. Yet, with current technological developments, such as in direct-to-consumer genomics, big data analytics and wearable technologies, there may be reasons to reorient this ethical principle. It is our modest aim in this article to explore how the current wave of allegedly disruptive innovation calls for a renewed interest for this dictum. (...) As an effect of prevention and prediction oriented technological innovation, an increased focus on assumedly controllable lifestyle risks may be anticipated. For lay people who might turn into patients, this may entail a reinforced behavior-based individual responsibilisation. Holding on to the OIC dictum, such responsibilisation seems to require that individuals can actually control what is framed as ‘lifestyle risks’ when there is not always a reliable consensus about what one should do. As such, reference to OIC may be mobilised in function of a political task of designing institutions so as to enable such choice and control. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

It is often argued that the requirement that moral obligations be ‘action guiding’ motivates the claim that one can be obligated to ϕ only if one can ϕ. I argue that even on its most plausible interpretation, this argument fails, since the reasoning behind it leads to the absurd conclusion that one is permitted to ϕ if one cannot ϕ.

In this paper, we investigate the ‘ought implies can’ thesis, focusing on explanations and interpretations of OIC, with a view to clarifying its uses and relevance to legal philosophy. We first review various issues concerning the semantics and pragmatics of OIC; then we consider how OIC may be incorporated in Hartian and Kelsenian theories of the law. Along the way we also propose a taxonomy of OIC-related claims.

The concept of missed care refers to an irrefragable truth that required nursing care, which is left undone, occurs in the delivery of health care. As a technical concept, missed care offers nurses the opportunity to articulate a problematic experience. But what are we to make of missed care from an ethical perspective? Can nurses be held morally responsible for missed care? Ethically speaking, it is generally accepted that if a person has a moral obligation to do something, s/he needs (...) to have the capacity to do it. If a person does not have the capacity to fulfil a moral obligation, then s/he cannot be held responsible for failing to do so. This is captured by the “ought implies can” (OIC) principle. This paper brings the OIC principle to the forefront of the discussion on missed care. It is contended that nurses – qua moral agents – may be discharged from a moral obligation to carry out a required caring act because of some inability that is not of their making and therefore may not be morally responsible for missed care. However, the OIC principle may not be applied to all situations of missed care depending on their causes. In addition, following in the thought of Sapontzis (The Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1991, XXIX, 383–393) it is contended that when an original obligation to deliver a required act of care cannot be fulfilled, other obligations may be generated as summed up in the “Principle of Making Amends” and the “Principle of Appropriate Feeling.” It is the view of this paper that these further principles could prevent the OIC principle from being used to simply excuse omissions of care from a normative standard and could support the view that nurses continue to have alternative obligations to make amends and to respond with appropriate feelings to missed care. (shrink)

Does theorising always presuppose a programme of justification? Does the Critical Theory of Adorno and Horkheimer do so? Do they claim it does? The answer should be a resounding ‘no’ to all three questions. In regard to the second and third question, I have sketched an argument to that effect in an earlier paper in this journal. In this paper, I offer a rejoinder to the critical reply offered by Stefan Müller-Doohm und Roman Yos on behalf of the Habermasian mainstream (...) in Frankfurt School Critical Theory. This rejoinder depends on giving a negative answer also to the first question. In rejecting the Habermasian idea of a programme of justification, I stand accused of dogmatism and, consequently, decisionism. I show that this accusation itself betrays a certain dogmatism – insofar as it accepts that such a programme of justification is undeniably possible and required, without consideration of evidence or arguments to the contrary. Self-reflective and critical theorising about society can, indeed must, take other forms. (shrink)

Many philosophers accept that ought implies can (OIC), but it is not obvious that we have a good argument for that principle. I consider one sort of argument for it, which seems to be a development of an Aristotelian idea about practical deliberation and which is endorsed by, amongst others, R. M. Hare and James Griffin. After briefly rehearsing some well-known objections to that sort of argument (which is based on the supposed pointlessness of impossible obligations), I present a further (...) objection, based on a maximally charitable reading of the argument, and conclude that nobody ought to think that it gives them a reason to accept OIC. (shrink)