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Moral Responsibility Reconsidered: Integrating Chance, Choice and Constraint

Received: 4 February 2019     Accepted: 15 March 2019     Published: 9 April 2019
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Abstract

Clarity is needed regarding moral responsibility, for theoretical and practical purposes, such as philosophical coherence and social regulation. In this article, I examine the notion of (individual) moral responsibility. I first dispense with a preliminary concern, that the notion of moral responsibility can be used in at least two distinct ways, which I argue are necessarily related and hence can be jointly addressed in this article. I then elaborate on what I consider to be the three key tenets of the proposed theoretical approach: chance, choice and constraint (which can hence be termed the 3Cs theory of responsibility); specifically, I consider chance as indeterminate (although calculable), whereas choice and constraint are determined by chance and by each other. I then integrate these tenets to form a rudimentary yet useful theory of (individual) moral responsibility, particularly referring to the iterative process of chance, choice and constraint. And then I apply this theory to three sufficiently dissimilar types of situations of ascending complexity: the responsibility of a democratically elected politician regarding his or her public communication, the responsibility of a person with psychosis regarding his or her psychosis-related behavior, and the responsibility of a parent regarding his or her dependent child’s upbringing. Finally, I summarize and attend to special and general implications of my conclusions, such as the importance of considering expected – rather than actual – impact of chance, choice and constraint, during moral deliberation for assignment of (individual) moral responsibility.

Published in International Journal of Philosophy (Volume 7, Issue 2)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11
Page(s) 48-54
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2019. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Chance, Choice, Constraint, Individual, Moral, Responsibility

References
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[2] Cross G (2002) An all-consuming century: why commercialism won in modern America. Columbia University Press, New York.
[3] Garfield L (2018) Mark Zuckerberg once made a $100 million investment in a major US city to help fix its schools – now the mayor says the effort ‘parachuted’ in and failed. businessinsider.com, May 12.
[4] Talbert M (2016) Moral responsibility: an introduction. Polity, Cambridge.
[5] Ceva E, Radoilska L (2018) Dimensions of responsibility. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21:771-773.
[6] Gert B (2006) Common morality: deciding what to do. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
[7] Bautz B (2016) What is the common morality, really? Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 26: 29-45.
[8] Azambuja LEOd, Garrafa V (2015) The common morality theory in the work of Beauchamp and Childress. Revista Bioetica 23:632-641.
[9] Cowley C (2014) Moral responsibility. Routledge, London.
[10] Niebuhr HR (1963) The responsible self: an essay in Christian moral philosophy. Harper & Row, New York.
[11] Gronholz S (2018) Moral reasons as other-regarding reasons. Ethical Perspectives 25:285-319.
[12] Eagle A (2011) Deterministic chance. Noûs 45:269-299.
[13] Wiener N (1948) Cybernetics: or control and communication in the animal and machine. MIT Press, Cambridge.
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  • APA Style

    Abraham Rudnick. (2019). Moral Responsibility Reconsidered: Integrating Chance, Choice and Constraint. International Journal of Philosophy, 7(2), 48-54. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11

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    ACS Style

    Abraham Rudnick. Moral Responsibility Reconsidered: Integrating Chance, Choice and Constraint. Int. J. Philos. 2019, 7(2), 48-54. doi: 10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11

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    AMA Style

    Abraham Rudnick. Moral Responsibility Reconsidered: Integrating Chance, Choice and Constraint. Int J Philos. 2019;7(2):48-54. doi: 10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11,
      author = {Abraham Rudnick},
      title = {Moral Responsibility Reconsidered: Integrating Chance, Choice and Constraint},
      journal = {International Journal of Philosophy},
      volume = {7},
      number = {2},
      pages = {48-54},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijp.20190702.11},
      abstract = {Clarity is needed regarding moral responsibility, for theoretical and practical purposes, such as philosophical coherence and social regulation. In this article, I examine the notion of (individual) moral responsibility. I first dispense with a preliminary concern, that the notion of moral responsibility can be used in at least two distinct ways, which I argue are necessarily related and hence can be jointly addressed in this article. I then elaborate on what I consider to be the three key tenets of the proposed theoretical approach: chance, choice and constraint (which can hence be termed the 3Cs theory of responsibility); specifically, I consider chance as indeterminate (although calculable), whereas choice and constraint are determined by chance and by each other. I then integrate these tenets to form a rudimentary yet useful theory of (individual) moral responsibility, particularly referring to the iterative process of chance, choice and constraint. And then I apply this theory to three sufficiently dissimilar types of situations of ascending complexity: the responsibility of a democratically elected politician regarding his or her public communication, the responsibility of a person with psychosis regarding his or her psychosis-related behavior, and the responsibility of a parent regarding his or her dependent child’s upbringing. Finally, I summarize and attend to special and general implications of my conclusions, such as the importance of considering expected – rather than actual – impact of chance, choice and constraint, during moral deliberation for assignment of (individual) moral responsibility.},
     year = {2019}
    }
    

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    AB  - Clarity is needed regarding moral responsibility, for theoretical and practical purposes, such as philosophical coherence and social regulation. In this article, I examine the notion of (individual) moral responsibility. I first dispense with a preliminary concern, that the notion of moral responsibility can be used in at least two distinct ways, which I argue are necessarily related and hence can be jointly addressed in this article. I then elaborate on what I consider to be the three key tenets of the proposed theoretical approach: chance, choice and constraint (which can hence be termed the 3Cs theory of responsibility); specifically, I consider chance as indeterminate (although calculable), whereas choice and constraint are determined by chance and by each other. I then integrate these tenets to form a rudimentary yet useful theory of (individual) moral responsibility, particularly referring to the iterative process of chance, choice and constraint. And then I apply this theory to three sufficiently dissimilar types of situations of ascending complexity: the responsibility of a democratically elected politician regarding his or her public communication, the responsibility of a person with psychosis regarding his or her psychosis-related behavior, and the responsibility of a parent regarding his or her dependent child’s upbringing. Finally, I summarize and attend to special and general implications of my conclusions, such as the importance of considering expected – rather than actual – impact of chance, choice and constraint, during moral deliberation for assignment of (individual) moral responsibility.
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Author Information
  • Department of Psychiatry and School of Occupational Therapy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

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