Moral Agency Responsibility

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

Our ordinary moral concepts and practices presuppose the existence of responsible moral agents. We assume that most people are capable of exercising control over who they are and what they do, and we generally regard people as accountable for their characters and the choices that flow from those characters. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how we could engage any moral relationships without thinking of ourselves and others this way. But we also know that these assumptions present practical difficulties when it comes to people whose agency is undermined or incomplete in some way—children, people with serious mental health issues, people with dementia, etc. In this class, we will explore the philosophical foundations of agency and responsibility and the moral practices that depend on them. We will move between theoretical and practical problems about agency, using our practices to inform theory and theory to inform our practices. What features of human psychology matter to our assessments of agency? What circumstances make it appropriate or inappropriate to blame someone, or to resent or forgive? How does luck affect our judgments of responsibility? These and other questions will be considered.