Omissions, Moral Luck, and Minding the (Epistemic) Gap

This paper warns of two threats to moral responsibility that arise when accounting for omissions, given some plausible assumptions about how abilities are related to responsibility. The first problem threatens the legitimacy of our being responsible by expanding the preexisting tension that luck famously raises for moral responsibility. The second threat to moral responsibility challenges the legitimacy of our practices of holding responsible. Holding others responsible for their omissions requires us to bridge an epistemic gap that does not arise when holding others responsible for their actions—one that we might often fail to cross.

Consequentialism, Blame, and Moral Responsibility

In this chapter I examine various accounts of the relationship between consequentialism and moral responsibility. The first idea is that the only reason we have for praising and blaming, for holding responsible, is that it will produce good consequences. This view is widely derided, but a descendant, the view that our responsibility practices as a whole can be defended on consequentialist grounds, has been gaining popularity in recent years. I go on to look at the idea of blameless wrongdoing and give an account of how that might fit into to a consequentialist picture. Finally, I discuss the possibility that the direction of influence is the other way: that consequentialist ethical theories are constrained by theories of moral responsibility, and I discuss possible upshots of a responsibility constrained account of consequentialism.

Contextualism

The threat of determinism suggests that every action, including the action of holding morally responsible, is both the best and worst of all possible alternatives. This seems to pose a problem for consequentialist approaches to determinism, and moral responsibility. The solution is to appeal to the conversational context of praising, blaming, judging right and wrong, holding responsible, and the like. Even if, strictly speaking, an agent couldn’t have done otherwise, conversational context may select certain counterpossible alternatives as the relevant ones with which to compare the action. The non-identity “problem,” popularized by Parfit, suggests that the existential dependence of people on our actions creates puzzles, problems even, for some common approaches to ethics. A scalar version of consequentialism, combined with a contextualist semantics for some moral terms, dissolves the apparent problem. The scalar contextualist approach has practical implications for our moral discourse.

Political participation and social exclusion in later life: What politically active seniors can teach us about barriers to inclusion and retention

Addressing older people’s social exclusion is a major challenge for contemporary societies. However, policies designed to address it have tended to focus on poverty and unemployment. This paper explores the relationship between social exclusion and political participation from the perspective of those already holding responsible roles within seniors’ organisations. We aim to highlight the impact of later-life social exclusion in relation to politically active older individuals from two diverse socio-political contexts, Australia and Spain. Participants perceived a range of potential barriers for the inclusion of new members and their own continued involvement. These related to practical and resource ssues, beliefs and attitudes towards participation, and organisational and contextual issues. Members’ views of retention of existing members as well as the recruitment of new members highlight the complexity associated with building the diversity and representativeness that organisations need if they are to represent seniors’ views in the policy process.

Banking in Ukraine as an object of criminal and legal protection

Banking institutions spend a lot of money and use various resources to ensure both their activities’ security and their customers’ security. States and international institutions make significant efforts in this regard. But, unfortunately, this cannot always completely protect bank or client from attackers (lawbreakers). This problem is not only of technical, economic and informational character, but also legal. The article deals with issues of ensuring the criminal law protection of banking in Ukraine. Current criminal legislation of Ukraine, and draft regulations as to the holding responsible for crimes in banking sector are analyzed. The proposals as to criminalization of actions dangerous for a society in the field of banking activity are put forward: illegal obtaining of a loan; willful evasion of satisfaction of accounts payable; improper execution of the bank deposit contract terms; abuse of authority in banking; fraud with bank electronic payments.