Abstract

There is a persistently troublesome puzzle concerning the transmission of moral responsibility from actions and omissions to outcomes. On the one hand there are cases of action in which responsibility appears to transmit to an outcome despite the fact that the agent could not have prevented the outcome. On the other hand there are similar cases of omission in which responsibility does not appear to transmit to an outcome. One seemingly plausible solution to this puzzle is to posit an underlying causal asymmetry between the action cases and the omission cases. I argue that this solution fails. I then discuss John Martin Fischer’s asymmetric account of responsibility for actions and omissions. I argue that his account does better than the causal account, but that a symmetric account on which alternative possibilities are always required for responsibility does better still.