Agency and the Moral Life

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

This course will focus on philosophical conceptions of moral agency, and the associated topics of moral responsibility, blame, and assessment. We will take up both canonical accounts of agency and criticisms of those canonical accounts. The course will focus on the practical challenges that agency presents, as well as the philosophical challenges. Students enrolled in the course will participate in the selection of particular topics, but they may include the following: whether corporations can be moral agents, how we should think about the moral agency of children, whether the existence of moral luck poses problems for agency, how conditions like psychopathy or addiction affect agency, and how we should think about standing to blame.