Responsibility and the Problem of So-Called Marginal Agents

Bibliographic Data

ID21876421
AuthorsLarisa Svirsky (0000-0001-8786-6971, State Library of Ohio, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume6
Issue2
Pages246-263
Publication date2020-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Philosophical Association (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2053-4477 • E-ISSN: 2053-4485
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/apa.2019.36
OpenAlexW3014710418
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited16

Philosophical views of responsibility often identify responsible agency with capacities such as rationality and self-control. Yet in ordinary life, we frequently hold individuals responsible who are deficient in these capacities, such as children or people with mental illness. The existing literature that addresses these cases has suggested that we merely pretend to hold these agents responsible or that they are responsible to a diminished degree. In this paper, I demonstrate that neither of these approaches is satisfactory, and I offer an alternative focused on the role relationships play in determining whether it is appropriate to hold someone responsible. I argue that relationships are sources of normative expectations about how parties in that relationship ought to behave and that we can be responsible in virtue of being subject to these norms. This is so not only for those who are impaired or immature, but for all of us

Economics · Epistemology · Law and economics · Moral responsibility · Normative · Positive economics · Rationality · Sociology · Virtue · Computer Science · Free Will and Agency · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · War, Ethics, and Justification

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