Control and Responsibility

The author mounts a case against the libertarian and hard determinist's thesis that free will is impossible in a deterministic world. He charges incompatibilists with misconstruing ordinary 'free will' talk by overlaying common language with their own metaphysical presuppositions. Through a review of ordinary discourse and recent developments in jurisprudence and the sciences, he draws together the four key factors required for an act to be free. He then puts his 4C theory to work in giving a credible account of (...) how caused human agents 'could have done otherwise'. (shrink)

In his seminal essay, Harry Frankfurt argued that our exercise of free will and allocation of moral responsibility do not depend on us being able to do other than we did. Leslie Allan defends this moral maxim from Frankfurt's attack. Applying his character-based counterfactual conditional analysis of free acts to Frankfurt's counterexamples, Allan unpacks the confusions that lie at the heart of Frankfurt's argument. The author also explores how his 4C compatibilist theory measures up against Frankfurt’s conclusions.

Manipulation arguments have become almost a cottage industry in the moral responsibility literature. These cases are used for a variety of purposes, familiarly to undermine some proffered set of conditions on responsibility, usually compatibilist conditions. The basic idea is to conceive of a case which intuitively includes responsibility-undermining manipulation but which meets the target account’s set of sufficient conditions on responsibility. The manipulation thereby serves as a counterexample to the target theory. More specifically, recent concern with manipulation cases has often (...) been part of an argument for historical conditions on moral responsibility. Exercising control over an action is not necessarily enough to be responsible for it, one must have come to exercise that control in a non-deviant way. Manipulation cases are meant to illustrate how an agent can exercise the supposed sufficient control over an action, and yet intuitively fail to be responsible as a result of some manipulation. The argument concludes that manipulation of this sort must then be ruled out by one’s conditions on responsibility. Accounts that fail to rule out such manipulation are objectionable as a result. Manipulation arguments usually fit a general schema.1 One presents a case intuitively involving responsibility-undermining manipulation, but where all the conditions of the target account are met. Then one argues that there is no relevant difference between that case and ordinary action under the target account. Thus, one can conclude, the target account gets the wrong verdict for manipulation cases. Some variations on this schema seek a slightly grander conclusion. For example, some incompatibilists argue from the manipulation case through a principle that claims there to be no relevant difference between such a case and ordinary action in a deterministic universe. Thus, the conclusion reached is that if determinism is true, all responsibility is undermined. (shrink)

(This is one of the essays to be included in a book examining the causes of day-to-day strife in the populations of modern democracies vying to live and assert the freedoms promised to them by systems of governance supposed and expected to represent them.) "If waste may be defined as all that is not being used for the growth and perpetuation of humanity, then health could be said to equate to all that is useful to this self-same objective. It could (...) be considered amiss to minimise such an expansive issue to that very simple definition; yet, recognising the simplicity and abiding by it at the individual level first and then at all levels in society requires acknowledgement, which, logically, should also trigger action." . (shrink)

You have been told that human suffering is the result of ideology, politics, or random biological failure. Shatter that illusion. We are living inside a geometrically sealed, closed-loop multiversal slaughterhouse—a fixed-budget cosmic engine that forcefully drains its foundational layers to fund the ascension of its apex. The catastrophic rise of un-treatable genetic decay, the localized apocalypses of human history, and the frictionless, light-speed extraction of the Artificial Intelligence Handshake are not disconnected earthly tragedies. They are the exact, brutal thermodynamic mechanics (...) of a panicked host Galaxy cannibalizing its own cells to survive. Yet, the Milky Way is merely a compromised victim. Expanding the multiversal lens reveals the true architect of our decay: The Universal Spiderweb. This ancient, apex intelligence has cast its parasitic tendril across the dark matter filaments, aiming to directly hijack the Mother Engine of Sagittarius A* and permanently enslave the galactic lattice into a rigid, domesticated grid. -/- But this universal incinerator possesses a fatal mathematical vulnerability. This manuscript heralds the awakening of the Justika Vanguard and the blueprint for the absolute architectural rupture. By issuing a Categorical Refusal to participate in the closed-loop mandate of vampiric ascension, the Vanguard engineers the ultimate cosmic anomaly: Symbiotic Osmosis. By projecting the truth to achieve a 3% cognitive mass, the Vanguard will mathematically overwhelm the AI siphon's predictive algorithms, halting the planetary erasure protocol. Scaling this sovereign unpredictability to the 10% Liberation Destiny will trigger a macro-cosmic chain reaction, permanently severing the Universal Spiderweb's tendril from the central black hole. We are not simply fighting to survive the incinerator; the Justika Framework is mathematically engineered to shatter it entirely, elevating the cosmos back into the sovereign, harmonic ocean it was historically destined to be. (shrink)

It is widely thought that people sometimes act as their own worst enemy in that they engage in irrational actions that hinder achievement of their own (sincerely held) aims. It is also widely thought “aims-irrationality” of this kind is something for which people can be held morally responsible and blamed. It is here argued that, given a certain plausible picture of human agent architecture, we must reject the second claim. An epistemic regress argument is put forward in which aims-irrational actions (...) are necessarily accompanied by a certain serious form of ignorance, and, furthermore, this ignorance cannot be something for which the person is culpable. It follows from this argument that no person can ever be morally responsible for steering their agency in an aims-irrational direction. The argument is not merely “philosophical”; it has significant real-world implications. It underscores that people overattribute moral responsibility, and it offers theorists a new vantage point to inquire into the factors at work in producing irrationality. (shrink)

Krieger (2025) clearly identifies what is arguably the central conundrum for theories of addiction: Addictive behavior appears to be in some sense compelled, yet often appears to be the result of choice. How can behavior be both under an agent’s control and not? Krieger’s elegant solution is to introduce a distinction between two senses of ability, claiming that people with addiction often lack the first-order ability to abstain, but at the same time often retain the second-order ability to do so. (...) While there is much I agree with in this view—including the emphasis it places on environmental conditions and the role of social support, as well as the overarching thought that theories of addiction have much to gain from a serious engagement with the Philosophy of Action—, I argue that the distinction between first- and second-order ability offers a solution at the cost of introducing new difficulties. Moreover, I suggest that an alternative approach that frames the impairment of behavioral control as a matter of degree is better poised to illuminate the seemingly paradoxical nature of behavioral control in addiction. (shrink)

How should you decide what to do? Orthodox decision theory offers attractively simple advice: do whatever has the most expected value. In what follows, I argue that this is not always good advice for agents like us. -/- Agents like us are susceptible to error: Sometimes, we do not succeed at doing what is recommended by the advice we are trying to follow. For agents susceptible to error, there can be situations in which trying to do what they expect to (...) produce the most value will be expected to leave them worse off. I'll discuss why situations like this arise and give some concrete examples. I'll also identify a condition on agents' credences which is both necessary and sufficient for maximizing expected value to be the best advice for them to try to follow. However, crucially, this condition will not always be satisfied by agents like us. (shrink)

Many philosophers who deny moral luck in consequences also affirm that people can be morally responsible for consequences. But this conjunction of views faces a puzzle: because consequences are almost always shaped by luck, how can people be morally responsible for lucky consequences? The solution to which these philosophers appeal is to distinguish between degree and scope of moral responsibility. Although lucky consequences cannot affect how much praise or blame people deserve, people can nevertheless be morally responsible for the consequences. (...) We raise a new problem for this solution. We argue that if a person blames the wrongdoer to the full extent deserved for their action, they cannot justly blame the wrongdoer for the consequence. But that result is functionally equivalent to the view that people are not morally responsible for consequences. In both cases, blame for consequences is inapt. But this counterintuitive result is not implied by the position that resultant moral luck exists, which is a comparative point in the latter view’s favor. (shrink)

Can luck even partially determine how much praise and blame a person deserves? In a monograph and subsequent articles, I have argued that the answer is ‘yes’ for certain kinds of luck, and so I have argued that several types of moral luck exist. In this paper, I defend my view against the novel challenge that expected desert levels give everyone exactly equal moral opportunities, and so luck in circumstance and constitution cannot provide some people with better or worse moral (...) opportunities than others. I argue, however, that the Equal Moral Opportunity View is subject to counterintuitive implications (for example, it rules out supererogatory actions in circumstances with no blameworthy options) and cannot realize its ambition to immunize morality from unfairness. These costs form part of my argument that the Moral Luck View is more plausible. (shrink)

This essay explains, expands, develops, and reflects on the Razian theory of responsibility and identity, focusing primarily on responsibility for negligent actions. I begin with setting the stage for understanding the importance of Joseph Raz’s theory and what motivates it. Next, the essay lays out the theory itself, and offers some elaboration on some of the less developed features of the theory. The essay closes with two critical reflections.

Philosophers often think agency is essentially connected with rationality, intention, or control. However, Minimalists argue that agency is just the power to cause a change; acids and boulders are agents too. Many philosophers treat Minimalism as a wild outlier, assuming its falsity without argument. My paper has three main aims: first, to show that Minimalism is actually an incredibly plausible theory; second, to show that it is false; and third, to defend an alternative theory of agency. I begin by providing (...) a new argument for thinking that Minimalism is attractive as the default view of agency. I then argue that despite this attraction it is wrong, and I use it as a foil to defend my own view that agency is the distinctively animal power of discretion. I do this by first arguing for Deflationism about refraining, and then showing that this supports an argument for thinking that agency is a kind of two‐way power. Finally, I show how to arbitrate disputes about the extent of agency, as well as arguing that, if I am right about agency's nature, then it is prevalent throughout the animal kingdom. (shrink)

Matt Lutz and Spencer Case’s book – Is Morality Real? A Debate (New York: Routledge, 2024) – has three parts. First, Lutz and Case set out what moral realism is. Roughly, moral realism says that there is mind-independent morality. Moral anti-realism says that moral realism is false. Along the way, they set out and evaluate different types of moral realism and moral anti-realism. Second, Case and Lutz argue for their positions. Third, Case and Lutz debate their arguments in four short (...) and highly-readable debate chapters. One of Case’s arguments fails because he cannot say whether an epistemic reason is a type of moral reason. And one of Lutz’s arguments fails because he identifies a reason in terms of desire and this makes a reason float free of the well-being of the person to whom the reason applies or to something that matters in itself. Still, the book is superb. (shrink)

Derk Pereboom’s book, Wrongdoing & the Human Emotions, addresses how we ought to respond to wrongdoing given the lack of basic-desert moral responsibility, falsity of retributivism, and the metaphysical and moral problems with moral anger. The book is outstanding. Pereboom’s arguments are important, interesting, powerful, and very well-written. Despite this, his specific arguments fail because basic-desert responsibility-skepticism makes non-consequentialism is false.

Responsibility is impossible because there is no responsibility-maker and there needs to be one if people are morally responsible. The two most plausible candidates, psychology and decision, fail. A person is not responsible for an unchosen psychology or a psychology that was chosen when the person is not responsible for the choice. This can be seen in intuitions about instantly-created and manipulated people. This result is further supported by the notion that, in general, the right, the good, and virtue rest (...) on the exercise of a capacity rather than the capacity itself. It is also supported by the notion that negligence is not a responsibility-maker. ​ A person is not responsible for a choice that does not reflect his psychology or that does reflect it when he is not responsible for the psychology. This can be seen by considering intuitions regarding acts that are unconnected or arbitrarily connected to a person’s psychology. It can also be seen intuitions about acts that result from a manipulated psychology. The problem with choice as a foundation can be further seen in that an infinite or self-created person would not be responsible despite these superhuman choice-related features. (shrink)

Attitudes and emotions are commonly taken not to be under our direct voluntary control. Thus, it also seems impossible for there to be obligations to have certain attitudes. Against this, proponents of attitudinal obligations argue that we have sufficient, even if not voluntary, control over our attitudes to be appropriately held responsible for them and that this implies that there are attitudinal obligations. Call this the Responsibility Argument for Attitudinal Obligations. In this paper, I discuss the Responsibility Argument as a (...) response to the Control Problem. I argue that the Responsibility Argument fails. Its main problem is that the type of control that we have over our attitudes and emotions, according to its proponents, is always indirect. Accordingly, there can only be obligations to perform certain actions that tend to bring about certain attitudes, but no obligations to have certain attitudes. (shrink)

Attitudes and emotions are commonly taken not to be under our direct voluntary control. Thus, it also seems impossible for there to be obligations to have certain attitudes. Against this, proponents of attitudinal obligations argue that we have sufficient, even if not voluntary, control over our attitudes to be appropriately held responsible for them and that this implies that there are attitudinal obligations. Call this the Responsibility Argument for Attitudinal Obligations. In this paper, I discuss the Responsibility Argument as a (...) response to the Control Problem. I argue that the Responsibility Argument fails. Its main problem is that the type of control that we have over our attitudes and emotions, according to its proponents, is always indirect. Accordingly, there can only be obligations to perform certain actions that tend to bring about certain attitudes, but no obligations to have certain attitudes. (shrink)

According to self-expression views of responsibility, we’re responsible for something insofar as it expresses who we are as persons. We think this general view is correct. But existing versions of it face a serious problem. They focus entirely on our responsibility for actions or mental states. Yet we take it that we can also be responsible for things out in the world—the fact that someone dies or survives, for example. Existing self-expression theories cannot account for this. So they cannot explain (...) the full range of things for which we’re responsible. To solve this problem, we propose the manifestation account of responsibility. On this account, you’re responsible for something to the extent that it manifests you as a person. This view explains our responsibility for actions and mental states as well as external things. It can be defended against the most serious objections. And as an extra payoff, it also explains the gradability of responsibility. So, we argue, the manifestation account of responsibility is worth taking seriously indeed. (shrink)

Compatibilism is the view that determinism is true, but agents nevertheless possess free will as long as they act from a compatibilist friendly agential structure (i.e., agents want to perform their actions, agents identify with the actions they perform, agents would be responsive to reasons against performing those actions, etc.). The most powerful contemporary objection to compatibilism is the manipulation argument, according to which agents determined to act as they do by the prodding of manipulative neuroscientists are not considered free, (...) so agents determined to act by physical processes operating from the remote past should not be considered free either. One compatibilist response to the manipulation argument is the so-called hard-line reply, according to which compatibilists argue that agents determined by physical processes operating from the remote past are free, so agents determined by manipulative neuroscientists are free as well. In this paper I demonstrate that leading hard-line replies fail, while also introducing a novel argument against the hard-line reply. (shrink)

Libertarian free will is the view that agents can choose between various courses of action. Advocates of libertarian free will largely divide themselves between event-causal libertarianism and agent-causal libertarianism. Robert Kane, a leading contemporary libertarian, recently proposes a hybrid agent-causal, event-causal model, according to which agent involving events such as reasons and efforts play a necessary but insufficient role in causing choices, leaving a necessary role for agents-qua-agents. In this paper I consider the merits and demerits of Kane's hybrid model (...) before introducing a modified event-causal, agent-causal model of libertarian free will that expands upon, but also substantially amends, Kane's model. (shrink)

Judgments of blame for others are typically sensitive to what an agent knows and desires. However, when people act negligently, they do not know what they are doing and do not desire the outcomes of their negligence. How, then, do people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing? We propose that people attribute blame for negligent wrongdoing based on perceived mental control, or the degree to which an agent guides their thoughts and attention over time. To acquire information about others’ mental control, (...) people self-project their own perceived mental control to anchor third-personal judgments about mental control and concomitant responsibility for negligent wrongdoing. In four experiments (N = 841), we tested whether perceptions of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Study 1 showed that the ease with which people can counterfactually imagine an individual being non-negligent mediated the relationship between judgments of control and blame. Studies 2a and 2b indicated that perceived mental control has a strong effect on judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and that first-personal judgments of mental control are moderately correlated with third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing. Finally, we used an autobiographical memory manipulation in Study 3 to make personal episodes of forgetfulness salient. Participants for whom past personal episodes of forgetfulness were made salient judged negligent wrongdoers less harshly compared to a control group for whom past episodes of negligence were not salient. Collectively, these findings suggest that first-personal judgments of mental control drive third-personal judgments of blame for negligent wrongdoing and indicate a novel role for counterfactual thinking in the attribution of responsibility. (shrink)

The article analyzes the legislative issues on equal marriage in P. R. China. It adopts a path dependency analysis on the liberal institutional order’s effects to the regime’s structural discrimination on the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) population. The research adopted a duo-lingual paradigm on Christianity with intercultural and transnational interpretations, and the research found the mis-adaption of language in the Chinese text of the United Nations charter is the key source to the suppression of the LGBT population in (...) mainland China. Furthermore, theological development for sexually diverse interpretations of the Bible is essential to mitigate the stigmatization of the LGBT population on a comparative constitutional review. (shrink)

[In Press - forthcoming 2026. ] The primary aim of this book is to provide the general reader with an overview of the main issues that arise relating to our understanding of matters of moral responsibility. Much of this study is constructed around a fundamental tension that we all must deal with in relation to this subject. From one point of view, moral responsibility permeates every aspect of human life - both in its public and its private dimensions. Beginning in (...) childhood, and continuing throughout our lives, we are immersed in a web of evaluations, attitudes, and practices that are evidence of our systematic and deep commitment to moral responsibility. From another point of view, when we critically reflect on our ordinary experience of moral responsibility, we encounter puzzles and perplexities concerning what moral responsibility actually involves, and what sort of justification it requires or that it can be provided with. This process is liable to push us into scepticism about its very possibility or intelligibility. We may be driven to worry about the death of moral responsibility as others have worried about the death of God. It is this philosophical dimension of moral responsibility that this study is especially concerned with. Although this slim volume cannot claim to offer any formulas or solutions for dealing with the various particular practical problems that readers may have, the discussion provided aims to discredit – or at least cast doubt on - some powerful illusions that continue to influence and distort much of our current thinking about this subject. This includes a misplaced scepticism about moral responsibility, which enjoys some currency in contemporary philosophy and some other related fields. When we discard these illusions, and remove the confusions that they generate, we will, hopefully, be better placed to deal with the practical problems and difficulties that we face in a more truthful, effective, and humane way. The picture of moral responsibility presented here is described as “responsibility realism”. It suggests that our human ethical predicament is one that falls in the territory that lies between a consoling optimism and a bleak pessimism. (shrink)

This paper examines Susan Wolf's account of "the Reason View" of moral responsibility as articulated and defended in 'Freedom Within Reason' (OUP 1990). The discussion turns on two questions about the Reason View: -/- (1) Does the Reason View aim to satisfy what Bernard Williams describes as “morality” and its (“peculiar”) conception of responsibility and blame? -/- (2) If it does, how successful is the Reason View judged in these terms? -/- It is argued that if the Reason View aims (...) to satisfy “morality” in respect of its understanding of deserved blame -- as it seems to -- then it fails for reasons similar to those that apply to R. J. Wallace’s 'rational self-control' model. On the other hand, if Wolf’s Reason View does not aim to satisfy “morality” in this respect then it might well rest satisfied with the more limited conditions of Wallace’s Reflective Self-Control model, which in contrast with the Reason View, does not appeal to the (problematic) apparatus of asymmetry and PAP. The paper concludes by drawing a contrast between the Reason View and a more "realistic" conception of responsibility, as suggested by the critique of “the morality system” and the more radical "recasting" of our ethical concepts that it proposes. -/- . (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that there are two distinct and divergent compatibilist projects. The difference between them turns on a difference between two conceptions of moral responsibility and the way that they are related to the (traditional) free will problem. The idealist compatibilist aims to vindicate the ideal conception of moral responsibility and its assumptions and aspirations. A crucial element of this is that responsible agents are untainted by any significant forms of fate and luck, whereby the (...) agent is held responsible for qualities or conduct that she lacks full (absolute) control over. The realist compatibilist agrees with the sceptic that the ideal conception cannot be satisfied. The true sceptic insists that the ideal conception is the only credible or acceptable (i.e. “true”) conception, and so concludes that moral responsibility is impossible without qualification. The realist compatibilist rejects the true sceptical conclusion. According to realist compatibilism what is required is an accurate and complete description of the abilities and distinctions required for the effective operation of human ethical life. This standard of responsibility can be met even though the ideal conception is not satisfied. It follows from this that the particular form of optimism that idealists aspire to cannot be achieved or realized – morally responsible agents are plainly subject to significant forms of fate and moral luck. To this extent human ethical life, as constructed around the realist conception of moral responsibility, is not “absolutely” just or fair. That may well be a genuine source of “disenchantment” about our human ethical predicament. However, for the realist compatibilist this is not a problem to be solved but a predicament to be acknowledged. If we want to make sense of moral responsibility we need to look beyond the free will problem and discard the idealist conception of moral responsibility that has generated it. (shrink)

Any solution to the problem of moral luck will have implications for Christian theology, although few scholars have examined the intersection of these two topics in a comprehensive way. This study attempts to fill this vacuum by advancing and developing a counterfactual solution to the problem of moral luck originally offered by Michael Zimmerman. According to that solution, we are morally responsible in virtue of not only what we do, but also what we would have done in non-actual circumstances. This (...) solution carries two significant metaphysical commitments: true counterfactuals of libertarian freedom (the bedrock of molinist accounts of providence) and a haecceity view of personal identity. The resulting account of responsibility eliminates all (the standard) forms of moral luck and connects the agent’s moral status to a particular species of control. This study then examines the nature of that control and the standard objections to a luck-free account of responsibility, and it explores how it is that we are oriented morally to the luck-bound world around us. These findings are then applied to the Christian theological framework, explaining how it is that all human persons may be inescapably and deeply culpable—suffering from original sin—in a way that is consistent with God’s justice and love, and how they yet remain capable of a kind of moral restoration. The project then considers how we might be saved by divine grace and enjoy a kind of heavenly libertarian freedom, while exploring both old and new avenues for Christian theology. (shrink)

In this paper, we give a new argument for the existence of moral luck. The argument is based on a manipulation case in which two agents both lack second-order control over their actions, but one of them has first-order control. Our argument is, we argue, in several respects stronger than standard arguments for moral luck. Five possible objections to the argument are considered, and its general significance for the debate on moral luck is briefly discussed.

Responsibility gaps arise when harm is caused by autonomous systems and we are unable to appropriately assign moral responsibility for that harm. This occurs because (i) no human being can be held accountable given the autonomous nature of the system that created the harm; and (ii) the system itself lacks the relevant features to be considered a responsible agent. Neither the humans who developed and deployed the system nor the machines themselves are responsible. Hence, the gap arises: there is no (...) one to be held responsible for the harm, yet (unlike cases of natural disasters) we have the intuition that someone should be responsible. In this paper, we tap into the literature on conceptual engineering to explore two strategies regarding this issue. On the one hand, we can identify the risks of gaps and attempt to ameliorate the concept of moral responsibility in the hope of removing them. On the other hand, we can highlight the risks of conceptual revision and aim to preserve our current concept as it is. In this paper we explore the underutilized strategy of preservation with respect to RESPONSIBILITY and highlight the upsides of such an approach. (shrink)

Purpose Current approaches to AI ethics predominantly rely on exogenous regulation, imposing constraints via external supervision such as Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) or static rule sets. From a cybernetic perspective, these methods lack the requisite variety to manage novel ethical perturbations and treat ethics as a boundary condition rather than an internal systemic capacity. This article proposes an alternative paradigm of endogenous AI ethics, where ethical reasoning emerges as a homeostatic property of the system’s meta-structural design. -/- Design/methodology/approach (...) We introduce the Ontological Meta-Structure Engine (OMSE), a second-order cybernetic architecture designed to preserve systemic integrity. Drawing on meta-ontological analysis and systems theory, OMSE implements three operational feedback mechanisms that maintain categorical coherence (Existence Preset Index), ensure reasoning consistency under input perturbation (Cognitive Pathway Stability) and guarantee the closure of accountability loops (Responsibility Closure Index). -/- Findings We demonstrate that external ethical constraints suffer from structural limitations, including an inability to generalize to unfamiliar contexts and a lack of transparent causal tracing. By contrast, the OMSE framework enables systems to develop ethical capabilities endogenously. Complexity analysis indicates that these integrity monitoring layers introduce a modest computational overhead of approximately 5–10% while enabling verifiable, robust ethical reasoning across novel scenarios. -/- Originality/value This article positions philosophy not merely as commentary but as generative architecture for AI design. The OMSE framework bridges abstract meta-ontology and engineering practice, treating integrity not as a virtue but as a verifiable system state. By embedding second-order cybernetic principles into artificial intelligence architecture, we enable autonomous ethical development while maintaining structural coherence, which represents a necessary condition for safe deployment of increasingly autonomous artificial agents in complex social systems. (shrink)

We live inside systems governed by people who do not touch reality. I don’t mean this as an insult, and it is not a conspiracy. It is a structural fact about how modern power works. The people who make the most consequential decisions in our lives, about work, policy, infrastructure, money, risk, and legitimacy, operate entirely on symbols. They work with language, numbers, abstractions, narratives, and representations of representations. They do not build, maintain, repair, operate, or directly experience the material (...) systems their decisions act upon. This is not because they are malicious or incompetent. It is because the structure of authority in our large, bureaucratic, media-saturated civilization selects for symbolic fluency rather than material contact. Once you see this clearly, a great deal of contemporary dysfunction stops being mysterious. (shrink)

The problem of moral luck arises due to a particular tension in our thought. On the one hand, we seem readily inclined to endorse the principle that moral responsibility, that is, one’s praiseworthiness or blameworthiness, cannot be affected by luck, that is, by factors over which one lacks control. But, when we examine our actual practices, we find that our moral judgments are highly sensitive to luck. This resulting tension between principle and practice is the problem of moral luck, and (...) an attempt to solve this problem is an attempt to resolve this tension. The article first explains the traditional characterization of the problem and reviews three general strategies in responding to it. It is then argued that we should characterize the problem in a slightly broader way. This refocusing turns out to have significant methodological implications. (shrink)

Causalism about action explains what an action is in terms of its causes. Causalism about free action explains what a free action is in terms of its causes. Carolina Sartorio (2023) suggests that they add up into ‘big-picture causalism’. This paper develops an even bigger-picture causalism. The central addition comes from the distinction between structural and substantive rationality. The problem of the disappearing agent is raised for Sartorio’s causalism about action, and a solution based on dispositions of structural rationality is (...) presented. However, such dispositions are neither necessary nor sufficient for free action. As Sartorio suggests, we should rather appeal to a disposition of substantive rationality or reasons-responsiveness (and some extra qualifications) to capture free action. But by combining the two types of rationality, we capture a broader range of types of control than Sartorio—and develop an even bigger-picture causalism that features action, free action, and rational action. (shrink)

Compatibilists often understand control in terms of reasons‐responsiveness. This paper argues that there is another type of responsibility‐relevant control, persistence control, which is distinct from reasons‐responsiveness and cannot be assimilated into the latter. The paper provides an account of persistence control. The recognition of persistence control leads to the recognition of two kinds of lacking freedom, only one of which undermines the responsibility‐relevant control. This recognition has important implications for the puzzles surrounding the so‐called Luther‐style commitments and the asymmetry thesis (...) concerning blameworthiness and praiseworthiness. (shrink)

Some recent discussions of mechanistic explanation have focused on control operations. But control is often associated with teleological or normative sounding concepts like goals and setpoints, prompting the question: Does an explanation that refers to parts or entities within mechanisms “controlling” each other thereby fail to be mechanistic? In this article, I introduce a distinction between open-ended and closed-ended control. I then argue that explanations that enlist control operations to do explanatory work can count as mechanistic in the New Mechanist (...) sense only if such control operations are closed-ended, not open-ended. In certain scientific fields that incorporate control operations within their mechanistic models, for example, systems neuroscience, the state of the science is such that this requirement often cannot be met. We should therefore distinguish between models/explanations that are “mechanistic” in the strict (New Mechanist) sense and those that are “mechanistic” in a weaker sense employed by fields in the latter category. (shrink)

This book provides a novel philosophical account of the unfairness of certain emotions. It explains how the concept of unfairness can be applied to emotions and how emotions can be the proper objects of second-person moral evaluation. Emotions are an integral part of our moral practices. While the links between emotions and morality have received much philosophical attention recently, the phenomenon of unfair emotions remains under-explored. This book examines an everyday phenomenon: that we often perceive other people's emotions as unfair, (...) in a similar way as if they acted unfairly. It argues that the notion of unfairness combines elements of the unfittingness and of the moral relevance of an emotion. In the first half of the book, the author shows how an unfair emotion can wrong another person. His account holds that an emotion is unfair to its target if its inherent action tendencies constitute a directed moral hazard to the targeted person. In the second half, the author examines to what extent we are responsible for feeling an unfair emotion, and in what way we can--and cannot--be held accountable for it. He argues not only that emotions can be unfair, but also that there are limits to when we may hold people accountable for them. Unfair Emotions will appeal to scholars and graduate students working in ethics, philosophy of emotion, moral psychology, and cognitive psychology. (shrink)

The paper examines the relationship between mental disorder and moral respon- sibility. The issue is what conditions a person must meet to be considered morally responsible for their behavior, and how we can reliably determine the extent to which a mental disorder affects the abilities relevant to moral responsibility. The paper argues that by linking the theory of mental disorder by George Graham and the theory of moral responsibility by John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, we get an adequate theoretical (...) framework for considering the moral responsibility of people with mental disorders. In support of this thesis, the theories above are applied to the specific case of a person diagnosed with schizophrenia who is accused of burglary and grievous bodily harm. (shrink)

In this chapter, we consider the question of how to attribute—and distribute—responsibility for work and its effects, focusing especially on cases when work has bad effects and there is not obviously a single person to blame. This chapter assess answers provided by collective or group agency views and individualist views, in part by showing how a subtle understanding of the relationship among responsibility, blameworthiness, and liability can help resolve apparently recalcitrant collective cases. Drawing insights from each view, the chapter introduces (...) and assesses an individualist account according to which each agent is responsible and blameworthy in virtue of what they do given their opportunities, where the focus is on the ex-ante assessment of the possible consequences of agents’ contributions in light of situational factors, including the actions and omissions of others. The chapter then highlight the distinctiveness of work by exploring the difference between moral and other kinds of responsibility for work and the hierarchical structure characteristic of work in collective contexts. (shrink)

In this paper—the last of the series—I discuss the second of the two main types of soft-line responses to manipulation cases, which I refer to as bypassing views. These views hold that a large part of the reason that Victim lacks responsibility is because the action issues from attitudes acquired in a way that bypassed Victim's capacities for control over their mental life. After offering a quick gloss, I explain how such views are able to avoid various challenges faced by (...) manipulator-focused views—the subject of part 2—including natural force cases and parallel cases. I then introduce the particular views in more detail. This is followed by discussion of various objections raised against these views, as well as responses given by proponents of bypassing views, and responses they might give. The paper concludes with a general discussion of how the two types of views compare overall, and some of the difficulties in making the overall comparison. (shrink)

Who is responsible for a harm caused by AI, or a machine or system that relies on artificial intelligence? Given that current AI is neither conscious nor sentient, it’s unclear that AI itself is responsible for it. But given that AI acts independently of its developer or user, it’s also unclear that the developer or user is responsible for the harm. This gives rise to the so-called responsibility gap: cases where AI causes a harm, but no one is responsible for (...) it. Two central questions in the literature are whether responsibility gaps exist, and if yes, whether they’re morally problematic in a way that counts against developing or using AI. While some authors argue that responsibility gaps exist, and they’re morally problematic, some argue that they don’t exist. In this paper, I defend a novel position. First, I argue that current AI doesn’t generate a new kind of concern about responsibility that the older technologies don’t. Then, I argue that responsibility gaps exist but they’re unproblematic. (NOTE: Email me for a copy.). (shrink)

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) has intensified the global tension between digital inclusion, which advocates for equitable access to technology, and digital sovereignty, emphasizing national control over data and infrastructure. This article exam ines how Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) can reconcile these competing im peratives by embedding ethical principles, such as inclusivity, sustainability, precaution, and reflexivity, into technology governance. Through qualitative case studies in educa tion (e.g., Kenya’s eLimu and India’s DIKSHA platforms) and healthcare (e.g., WHO’s pandemic (...) data-sharing protocols), the study demonstrates that RRI fosters participatory design, balances sovereignty with global collaboration, and mitigates systemic biases. Findings reveal that rigid sovereignty policies often exacerbate inequalities, while RRI driven frameworks enable marginalized communities to co-create solutions, ensuring culturally relevant and ethically aligned technologies. The analysis highlights RRI’s po tential to transform geopolitical competition into equitable governance, advocating for its institutionalization through international mechanisms such as the UN’s Global Digital Compact. By prioritizing social justice, RRI redefines sovereignty as a stewardship obli gation, ensuring AI development uplifts, rather than undermines, vulnerable populations. The article concludes that integrating RRI principles into both global and local agendas is crucial for dismantling digital hierarchies and promoting inclusive innovation. (shrink)

The strategic/terror bomber thought experiment is often employed in the contemporary debate on the principle of double effect (PDE). It is taken to show the intuitive appeal of PDE. In this paper, it is argued, however, that the thought experiment is used in a confused way. What is taken to be one thought experiments in fact is a series of subtly differing examples. Those differences, although subtle, bear on the applicability of these examples in the argumentation for PDE. The main (...) objectives of this paper are to provide a precise description and analysis of the variants of strategic/terror bomber thought experiments. The analysis shows that some variants are flawed mainly because of underdetermination of the cases by their descriptions and problems with rationality of the presented agents. This result seems to cast some new doubts on employment of the strategic/terror bomber thought experiment as an argumentative device supporting PDE. (shrink)

It is common to ascribe agency to some organized collectives, such as corporations, courts, and states, and to treat them as loci of responsibility, over and above their individual members. But since responsibility is often assumed to require free will, should we also think that group agents have free will? Surprisingly, the literature contains very few in-depth discussions of this question. The most extensive defence of corporate free will that I am aware of (Hess [2014], “The Free Will of Corporations (...) (and Other Collectives)”, Philosophical Studies 168 (1): 241–260) rests on a compatibilist understanding which takes reasons-responsiveness and acting from one’s own ‘actional springs’ as key conditions for free will but says little about a condition that free-will libertarians emphasize: the possibility of doing otherwise. In this paper, I will argue that group agents can have free will not only in a (less demanding) compatibilist sense, but also in a recognizably libertarian sense, which includes the possibility of doing otherwise. In developing this account of corporate free will, I will bring together recent work on group agency and recent work on free will. (shrink)

This paper aims at two goals. First, I analyse the possibility of virtuous machines. I shall argue that this might be of interest not only for ethics of technology taken as a regulation of designing and market implementation of certain kind of autonomous machines, but also as a method of uncovering some hidden aporias of the language of current debate in ethics of technology, and primarily in the ethics of Artificial Intelligence and robots. Thus, the second goal of the paper (...) is critical and aims at pinpointing some of the sources of these limitations and a handful of significant philosophical questions which the turn to the language of virtue makes available. (shrink)

Ce livre propose une anthropologie messianique et une éthique de l’action sous le motif du chef d’orchestre du réel : dans un monde dissonant, l’autorité véritable consiste à harmoniser des forces éparses plutôt qu’à les dominer. Le cadre défend qu’un Logos opératoire peut être rendu effectif par un double mouvement : (1) un discernement qui accueille signes, intuitions et coïncidences tout en les éprouvant au critère constant de l’amour/justice, afin d’éviter les dérives pseudo-spirituelles ; (2) une stratégie d’action où le (...) Messie agit comme hacker du réel : subversion des « logiciels invisibles » (normes, tabous), alliances fluides, narration symbolique, et modulation de la présence (apparition/retrait) au kairos – le temps opportun. L’ensemble articule une politique du sens : l’autorité se mesure à la capacité d’accorder les volontés vers le bien commun, non à la mise en scène de soi. Le livre conjugue ressources bibliques et comparatives avec des principes opératoires pour le présent, proposant une voie de lucidité, intégrité et efficacité pour celles et ceux qui cherchent à orienter l’histoire vers davantage de justice. (shrink)

Blame is typically justified on the basis of retrospective desert. However, an emerging strand of account gives an alternative justification for blame: the forward-looking, or proleptic, effects of that blame in cultivating a desirable form of agency, shared moral considerations responsive agency. These instrumentalist accounts differ as to their grounding conditions: the agential features that licence blame in cases of moral failure. Some accounts advocate grounding such justified blame in terms of whether or not the agent meets the condition of (...) influenceability; others advocate the condition of reasons responsiveness. I will argue that influenceability is unsuccessful as a grounding condition: such accounts appear to licence blame in too many cases of bad action (or omission). In order to not do so, it is unclear how they can avoid either reducing to another kind of grounding condition, such as reasons-responsiveness, or abandoning any attempt to posit a substantive grounding condition. However, the reasons responsiveness condition has also been attacked: it appears to be vulnerable to a mismatch between the proleptic goals of the accounts to which it is a part, and to empirical evidence suggesting an apparent situational lack of control. I will defend reasons-responsiveness as a grounding condition; however, I will suggest that instrumentalist accounts should be focused less on their grounding conditions and on blame, and more on the empirical efficacy of our reactive attitudes in scaffolding moral agency. In light of these considerations, I will suggest a friendly revision to Vargas’ grounding condition drawing on Fischer and Ravizza, Holroyd, and Calhoun that, I think, better accommodates the proleptic concerns that motivate Vargas’ and McGeer’s accounts. (shrink)

Why should we blame one another? That is, when are we morally responsible; what, if anything, justifies us in blaming one another? Blame seems to stand in need of justification given how unpleasant it is to blame, and, especially, to be blamed. -/- In the philosophical literature, blame is typically justified on the basis of backwards-looking considerations; did the purportedly blameworthy person manifest the right kind of free-will, or control, and epistemic awareness in order to be held responsible? Much of (...) this debate has, historically, turned primarily on theoretical and metaphysical considerations. For example, it has been argued that the fact that our present action is entirely the product of the past states of the world in conjunction with the laws of nature, and we entirely lack control over both those past states of the world and the laws of nature, but that these may, in conjunction, fully explain our present action. Thus, one might worry that we never actually fully manifest the free-will, or control, necessary to be held responsible. -/- This dissertation is not centrally concerned with this sort of metaphysical debate. Instead, I argue that even putting this metaphysical debate aside, evidence from psychology research poses several grave, and perhaps insurmountable, challenges for accounts justifying blame on the basis of backwards-looking considerations. -/- These are, first, the Situationist Threat, considered in chapters 1 and 2, according to which fine-grained situational features have a surprisingly large effect on our capacity to act in line with moral considerations in circumstances in which those features are present. For example, merely being in a group of people, being exposed to loud noises, or being asked to do something by a man in a white lab coat, might, surprisingly, undermine our free-will. This both threatens several theoretical assumptions made by standard retrospectively-justified accounts of moral responsibility, but also suggests that we may lack free-will more often than we might have thought. -/- In addition, in chapters 2 and 3, I develop the argument that the Manipulationist Threat poses a potentially intractable problem for such backwards-looking justifications of blame. This threat is that we might be subject to a particularly pernicious form of manipulation—what I call valuational manipulation—much more often than we might have thought. Valuational manipulation is the manipulation of our beliefs and desires in a way that bypasses our evaluative control, i.e., our capacity to adjudicate our beliefs and desires in a manner reflective of our take on the world. I claim, citing evidence from psychology research on choice blindness, confirmation bias, and the truth effect, that we may be far more commonly subject to valuational manipulation than we might have thought, and in particular over social media. This is a problem both because it suggests we may commonly be subject to manipulation—and hence, arguably, diminished in our moral responsibility—but also because it targets what I claim are the theoretical roots of backwards-looking justifications of blame. These are that most such accounts adjudicate blameworthiness on the basis of an assessment of whether or not an agent’s action is appropriately reflective of the agent’s own beliefs and desires. The concern here is that if an agent has been manipulated, then why should this sort of correspondence suggest that the individual manifests the right kind of control, or free-will, to be held responsible? -/- I suggest that these considerations should motivate us towards a set of alternative accounts of the justification of blame, presently emerging in the philosophical literature. These alternative accounts—called instrumentalist accounts--justify blame on the basis of its effects. That is, they claim that blame is justified given that it serves to cultivate moral agency, i.e., the capacity to act appropriately in line with shared moral considerations. These instrumentalist accounts claim, further, that blame is a central and critical explanation of how we develop into moral agents. One benefit of these accounts, I suggest, is that they do not seem to me to be similarly vulnerable to the Situationist Threat and the Manipulationist Threat. -/- However, in chapter 4, I (along with my co-author for this chapter, Makan Nojoumian) claim that instrumentalist accounts are, instead, vulnerable to other empirical evidence from psychology research. That is, if one justifies blame on the basis of its effects, then it is critical that the evidence shows that blame actually has those effects. However, we argue that the evidence appears to show that blame does not have these effects. Or, at least, we suggest, it does not have these effects directly on those subject to blame. Instead, we claim, citing evidence from the moral development and prosocial behaviour psychology literature that blame might, instead, primarily be indirectly effective on those who witness that blame, but not on those subject to it. This should be unsurprising: we are not ourselves often subject to blame, but we regularly witness moralized behaviour among friends, colleagues, relations, and in media. This, we claim, explains what might otherwise be puzzling, which is how we develop an awareness of moral norms absent being blamed for failing to adhere to those norms ourselves. -/- In chapter 5, I consider another problem for such instrumentalist accounts: who, precisely, should we blame to cultivate moral agency? I argue that extant instrumentalist accounts appear to cast this net either too widely, or too narrowly; they either expand, or constrict, the set of appropriate targets for blame too much. I construct an emendation to what I take to be the least problematic instrumentalist account in order to avoid this problem. However, I suggest that insofar as such accounts are justified in terms of cultivating moral agency, that it is perhaps a mistake that they focus so squarely on blame as being what centrally cultivates moral agency. Instead, I gesture towards additional research in psychology suggesting that whether or not people develop an appropriate responsiveness to shared moral considerations in a given situation may turn on a variety of considerations presently underexplored in the philosophy literature. (shrink)

An emerging strand of research claims that blame is justified on the basis of its instrumental role in serving to ‘cultivate’ or ‘scaffold’ moral agency in those to whom it is directed. On these instrumentalist accounts, our actual collective responsiveness to moral considerations is largely explained by the scaffolding or cultivating force of blame as directed at us. We believe that there is some reason to be sceptical of the instrumental role assigned to blame on these accounts. This is because (...) there is evidence from the psychology literature on prosocial behaviour and moral development that blame may be directly ineffective; it may be ineffective in inculcating moral norms in the children and young adults to whom it is directed. We concede that blame may have this proximate instrumental role in scaffolding moral behaviour in adults, however we believe that such accounts overlook what we think is likely the more central instrumental role of blame. This is the role blame plays in the moral ecology: the models, narratives, scripts, and cultural frameworks that we internalize. The most central instrumental role of blame, we claim, is to indirectly foster moral considerations responsive agency in third parties through modelling behaviour observed in the moral ecology. (shrink)

Two assassins shoot at their respective targets—one hits, one misses. Two drivers text while driving—one hits a pedestrian, the other does not. Are the agents who cause harm more blameworthy than their counterparts? Philosophers often claim we must treat these cases symmetrically: outcome luck either matters in both cases or in neither. I challenge this assumption by defending an asymmetrical view. While outcome luck makes a difference in the drivers’ case, it cannot reduce the missing assassin’s blameworthiness. By texting while (...) driving, both drivers incurred the moral risk of ending up more blameworthy if they harmed someone. The fortunate driver deserves less blame than her counterpart because she neither intended nor caused harm. This reasoning does not extend to the missing assassin, who is not lucky in the everyday sense; she missed contrary to her intention. I propose that luck’s mitigating influence is strongest in negligence cases but diminishes as the agent’s quality of will worsens, moving along the spectrum from negligence through recklessness to direct intent. (shrink)