Tracing the Epistemic Condition

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Epistemic Condition ◽  
Adequate Theory ◽  
Culpable Ignorance ◽  
General Line ◽  
Epistemic Dimension ◽  
Explanatory Mechanism

Tracing is an explanatory strategy which proposes to explain responsibility for some present action (where a necessary condition on responsibility is missing) by tracing back to some past one (in which the conditions are met). Tracing is thought by many theorists of moral responsibility to be an indispensable element of an adequate theory of responsibility. Previously, the author has argued that we can dispense with tracing for cases in which control is absent, by appealing to either a recklessness model or a negligence model. This chapter considers the prospects for that general line of argument with respect to tracing applied to the epistemic condition on responsibility, notably cases of culpable ignorance. It draws out how the author understands tracing to apply to the epistemic dimension and argues that we need no special explanatory mechanism like tracing to explain responsibility and blameworthiness.

Doing One's Reasonable Best: What Moral Responsibility Requires

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARTIN MONTMINY
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
General Condition ◽  
Skeptical Argument ◽  
Epistemic Condition ◽  
Michael Zimmerman

ABSTRACT:Moral responsibility, I argue, requires agents to do what is within their abilities to act morally. This means that an agent is to blame just in case his wrongdoing is due to an underperformance, that is, to a failure to do what he can to act morally. I defend this account by considering a skeptical argument about responsibility put forth by Gideon Rosen and by Michael Zimmerman. I explain why the epistemic condition they endorse is inadequate and why my alternative epistemic condition, which directly follows from my general condition on culpability, should be preferred. I then defend my view against potential criticisms.

Should Have Known

2021 ◽  
pp. 137-173
Author(s):  
Sanford C. Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Practice ◽  
Epistemic Reasons ◽  
Epistemic Condition ◽  
Culpable Ignorance ◽  
Legitimate Expectations

This chapter argues that there are cases in which a subject, S, should have known that p, even though, given her state of evidence at the time, she was in no position to know it. In particular, S should have known that p when (i) another person has, or would have, legitimate expectations regarding S’s epistemic condition, (ii) the satisfaction of these expectations would require that S knows that p, and (iii) S fails to know that p. I argue that these three conditions are sometimes jointly satisfied. There are (at least) two main sources of legitimate expectations regarding another’s epistemic condition: participation in a legitimate social practice; and moral and epistemic expectations more generally. In developing my position on this score, I will have an opportunity (i) to contrast practice-generated entitlements to expect with epistemic reasons to believe; (ii) to compare the “should have known” phenomenon with the phenomenon of culpable ignorance; and finally (iii) to suggest the bearing of the “should have known” phenomenon to epistemology itself.

scholarly journals Responsibility: The Epistemic Condition

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Basic Structure ◽  
High Time ◽  
Epistemic Condition ◽  
Quality Of Will ◽  
Independent Condition ◽  
Moral Ignorance ◽  
Full Volume

Philosophers have long agreed that moral responsibility might not only have a freedom condition, but also an epistemic condition. Moral responsibility and knowledge interact, but the question is exactly how. Ignorance might constitute an excuse, but the question is exactly when. Surprisingly enough, the epistemic condition has only recently attracted the attention of scholars, and it is high time for a full volume on the topic. The chapters in this volume address the following central questions. Does the epistemic condition require akrasia? Why does blameless ignorance excuse? Does moral ignorance sustained by one’s culture excuse? Does the epistemic condition involve knowledge of the wrongness or wrongmaking features of one’s action? Is the epistemic condition an independent condition, or is it derivative from one’s quality of will or intentions? Is the epistemic condition sensitive to degrees of difficulty? Are there different kinds of moral responsibility and thus multiple epistemic conditions? Is the epistemic condition revisionary? What is the basic structure of the epistemic condition?

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Regress Argument ◽  
Epistemic Condition ◽  
Section 8 ◽  
The Core ◽  
Current State

This Introduction provides an overview of the current state of the debate on the epistemic condition of moral responsibility. Its main goal is to offer a framework that contextualizes the chapters that follow. Section 1 discusses the main concepts of ‘ignorance’ and ‘responsibility’. Section 2 asks why agents should inform themselves. Section 3 describes what is taken to be the core agreement among the main participants in the debate. Section 4 explains how this agreement invites a regress argument with a revisionist implication. Section 5 provides an overview of the main responses to the regress argument. Section 6 addresses the question of why blameless ignorance excuses. Section 7 describes further issues that are addressed in the book. Section 8 concludes with some discussion of future directions the debate might take.

Gerard of Odo (c.1290–c.1349)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bonnie Kent
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Nicomachean Ethics ◽  
Human Being ◽  
The Subject

Gerard of Odo, a scholastic philosopher and theologian who wrote a long commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, is one of many scholastics who attempted to reconcile Aristotle’s teachings with the views of Christian authorities. Gerard’s work declares the subject of ethics to be the human being as free, makes the will’s power of self-determination a necessary condition for moral responsibility, and in other respects reflects the voluntarism commonly found in Franciscan writings of the period.

On Knowing What’s Right and Being Responsible for It

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Intentional Action ◽  
Moral Knowledge ◽  
Philosophy Of Action ◽  
Right Action ◽  
Epistemic Condition ◽  
Moral Ignorance ◽  
Wrong Thing ◽  
The Right ◽  
Central Claim

The debate about whether moral responsibility has an epistemic condition has traditionally focused on whether and, if so, when moral ignorance can provide an excuse for wrong actions. This chapter takes up the question of moral responsibility for right actions. Its central claim is that whether an agent is morally responsible for her right action depends on whether she knows what the right thing is to do. The chapter’s argument for this appeals to considerations from the philosophy of action. It argues that moral knowledge matters to moral evaluations because it is a central ingredient in intentional action. Our knowledge of what the right and wrong thing is to do partly determines whether we do the right or wrong thing intentionally. Moral responsibility inherits its epistemic condition from the epistemic condition on intentional action.

Artificial Moral Responsibility: How We Can and Cannot Hold Machines Responsible

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 435-447
Author(s):  
Daniel W. Tigard
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Medical Practice ◽  
Intelligent Systems ◽  
Just War ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Artificial Moral Agents ◽  
Autonomous Technology

AbstractOur ability to locate moral responsibility is often thought to be a necessary condition for conducting morally permissible medical practice, engaging in a just war, and other high-stakes endeavors. Yet, with increasing reliance upon artificially intelligent systems, we may be facing a widening responsibility gap, which, some argue, cannot be bridged by traditional concepts of responsibility. How then, if at all, can we make use of crucial emerging technologies? According to Colin Allen and Wendell Wallach, the advent of so-called ‘artificial moral agents’ (AMAs) is inevitable. Still, this notion may seem to push back the problem, leaving those who have an interest in developing autonomous technology with a dilemma. We may need to scale-back our efforts at deploying AMAs (or at least maintain human oversight); otherwise, we must rapidly and drastically update our moral and legal norms in a way that ensures responsibility for potentially avoidable harms. This paper invokes contemporary accounts of responsibility in order to show how artificially intelligent systems might be held responsible. Although many theorists are concerned enough to develop artificial conceptions of agency or to exploit our present inability to regulate valuable innovations, the proposal here highlights the importance of—and outlines a plausible foundation for—a workable notion of artificial moral responsibility.

scholarly journals Is regulative control a necessary condition for moral responsibility?

2014 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-62
Author(s):  
Marko Peric
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Sufficient Cause ◽  
Principle Of Alternate Possibilities ◽  
Regulative Control ◽  
The Given ◽  
Alternate Possibilities

Libertarianist concept of free will is based on the principle of alternate possibilities - standpoint which presupposes that an agent has moral responsibility only if, in the given circumstances, he could have done otherwise. The author of this paper tries to review this key principle of libertarianism, and to determine whether the access to alternate possibilities represents necessary or sufficient cause for the assessment of moral responsibility, or neither of that. Finally, based on the consideration of famous Frankfurt?s and Austin-style examples, in this paper is defended a sort of compatibilism, and the main advantages of that kind of free will concept over libertarianism are emphasized.

scholarly journals Taking the Straight Path. P.F. Strawson's Later Work on Freedom and Responsibility

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin De Mesel
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Essential Role ◽  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Straight Path ◽  
Quality Of Will ◽  
Knowledge Condition ◽  
Freedom And Responsibility ◽  
Ability To Do Otherwise

I highlight three features of P.F. Strawson’s later, neglected work on freedom and responsibility. First, in response to a criticism by Rajendra Prasad, Strawson explicitly rejects an argument put forward in ‘Freedom and Resentment’ against the relevance of determinism to moral responsibility. Second, his remarkable acceptance of Prasad’s criticism motivates him to take the ‘straight path’, that is, to be straightforward about the relation between determinism, freedom, the ability to do otherwise and the conditions of responsibility. He claims that the ability to do otherwise is a necessary condition of responsibility and provides a list of additional conditions, including a knowledge condition. Third, he clarifies the relation between responsibility, quality of will and the reactive attitudes. The latter do not figure essentially in his answer to the question, ‘What are the conditions of responsibility?’, but they do play an essential role in his answer to the question, ‘Why do we have the concept of responsibility?’ We have it, Strawson suggests, because of our natural concern about the quality of will with which people act, a concern expressed in our reactive attitudes. I argue that, although Strawson’s later work definitely involves a shift of emphasis when compared to ‘Freedom and Resentment’, his overall account of freedom and responsibility is coherent. The later work helps to better understand the nature and significance of Strawson’s contribution, and to identify problems with common interpretations of and objections to ‘Freedom and Resentment’. 

scholarly journals Defending the Epistemic Condition on Moral Responsibility

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Montminy
Keyword(s):  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Traditional View ◽  
Epistemic Condition ◽  
Quality Of Will ◽  
The Third ◽  
Wrong Action

I consider three challenges to the traditional view according to which moral responsibility involves an epistemic condition in addition to a freedom condition. The first challenge holds that if a person performs an action A freely, then she thereby knows that she is doing A. The epistemic condition is thus built into the freedom condition. The second challenge contends that no epistemic condition is required for moral responsibility, since a person may be blameworthy for an action that she did not know was wrong. The third challenge invokes the quality of will view. On this view, a person is blameworthy for a wrong action just in case the action manifests a bad quality of will. The blameworthy person need not satisfy an additional epistemic condition. I will argue that contrary to appearances, none of these challenges succeeds. Hence, moral responsibility does require a non-superfluous epistemic condition.

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