Abstract
Many philosophers endorse the idea that there can be no moral responsibility without a moral community and thus hold that such responsibility is essentially interpersonal. In this paper, various interpretations of this idea are distinguished, and it is argued that no interpretation of it captures a significant truth. The popular view that moral responsibility consists in answerability is discussed and dismissed. The even more popular view that such responsibility consists in susceptibility to the reactive attitudes is also discussed, and it is argued that this view at best supports only an etiolated interpretation of the idea that moral responsibility is essentially interpersonal.
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Notes
In keeping with what was stated in Sect. 2, “necessarily” here expresses conceptual necessity.
Q will of course still be a member of the set of persons, but that does not make him a member of a community whose members have significant interrelations.
Saying that the capacity is intrinsic to its bearer is of course compatible with saying that the manifestation of the capacity may depend on something extrinsic to the bearer (such as the presence of alternate possibilities, say)—just as, for example, the exertion of some external force may be required for a glass to manifest its fragility.
Why “defend or justify”? It might be that, although P cannot justify x, P can furnish an adequate excuse for x. Or it might be, of course, that P can neither defend nor justify x. P’s success, or lack thereof, in answering for x will dictate the nature of Q’s counter-response to P.
In making this claim, I am presupposing that we can have moral obligations regarding certain entities (including people) that we do not owe to these things, and hence that these things do not have a moral right to the fulfillment of the obligations, even though it would of course be morally wrong not to fulfill them. [Cf. Feinberg (1980: 143f. and 161f.) although Feinberg’s emphasis tends to be on legal, rather than moral, rights and obligations].
I should note, however, that it is not clear how much weight such etymological considerations can bear. It is difficult to see how the construal of responsibility as the worthiness of some response could be correctly applied to prospective responsibility or causal responsibility.
Two important questions that arise here are these. Which attitudes qualify as reactive attitudes? And what is the relation between the appropriateness and the worthiness of a response? I will have nothing to say about the former. I will have something to say about the latter in Sect. 8.4 below.
A related question could of course have been raised regarding Answerability. Alongside of the concern that has to do with obligations regarding animals and the environment, there is a concern that has to do with self-regarding obligations.
“Of course” is perhaps too strong. Perhaps one’s temporal slices will fail to be interrelated in the appropriate way. Cf. note 2, above.
Here, “necessarily” cannot express conceptual necessity. (Cf. note 1, above.) Rather, it expresses logical or metaphysical necessity.
An earlier version of this paper was presented to an audience at Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá, Colombia, in March 2016. I am grateful for comments from Santiago Amaya, Yenni Milena Castro, Wilson Herrera, Riin Koiv, Alexander Narváez, Carlos Patarroyo, Alejandro Velasco, and Alejandro Vesga. Many thanks also to Randy Clarke, Angelo Corlett, and Ish Haji for helpful comments on a previous draft.
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Zimmerman, M.J. Moral Responsibility and the Moral Community: Is Moral Responsibility Essentially Interpersonal?. J Ethics 20, 247–263 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-016-9233-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-016-9233-x