We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
To save content items to your account,
please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies.
If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account.
Find out more about saving content to .
To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected]
is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings
on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part
of your Kindle email address below.
Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations.
‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi.
‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
I shall, first, adumbrate the sceptical challenge that arises from those views which argue that inadvertent action involves voluntariness in some deep sense of the concept. In a second step, I will suggest that we should not regard inadvertence as a block to a unified picture of moral responsibility. For, responsibility does not require voluntariness in a wholesale manner. Then I will draw on the theory and practice of the law of torts to suggest the plausibility of the distinction between responsibility and standards of fault. Subsequently, I trace a more principled foundation for this distinction in the philosophical literature: Tim Scanlon, drawing on the distinction between blame and permissibility, has demonstrated convincingly that the mental states of agents, which are relevant for determining blame, should not (in principle) feature among the grounds of the permissibility of actions. The argument submits that permissibility is determined by (objective) reasons for action while blame depends on the meaning of actions, which requires reference to (subjective) mental states of agents. I conclude by siding with authors who argue that among the grounds of responsibility is a reason not to act negligently. Notably, this displacement of negligence from voluntariness to the realm of reasons suggests that responsibility entails capacity for rational agency.
Recommend this
Email your librarian or administrator to recommend adding this to your organisation's collection.