Resolving a puzzle about moral responsibility and logical truth

Bibliographic Data

ID10814616
AuthorsAndrew Geddes (0000-0002-4870-1696, University of Oxford, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume205
Issue1
Publication date2025-01-09
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSynthese (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0039-7857 • E-ISSN: 1573-0964
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1007/s11229-024-04838-y
OpenAlexW4406225063
LanguageEN
References cited35

Lampert and Waldrop have recently presented a puzzle about moral responsibility and logical truth, in which they derive a contradiction from three apparently plausible principles: (A) no one is responsible for any logical truth; (B) if no one is responsible for something, then no one is responsible for what it strictly implies; and (C) someone is responsible for something. They argue that, in response, we must give up (B)—a principle that plays a key role in arguments for incompatibilism. In this paper, I argue that this response is mistaken, and that the lesson to be drawn lies elsewhere. For the puzzle also rests on a conception of logical truth according to which there are contingent logical truths. And, given this conception, (A) is false—for reasons independent of (B). So the import here concerns, not a connection between responsibility and the debate over incompatibilism, but a connection between responsibility and the debate over the correct conception of logical truth: one can hold on to (A), or hold on to the relevant conception of logical truth, but not both

Epistemology · Logical truth · Metaphysics · Philosophy of language · Philosophy of science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Free Will and Agency · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access