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An Erratum to this article was published on 19 February 2016

Abstract

In this paper, I investigate the role played by Quality of Will in Michael McKenna’s conversational theory of responsibility. I articulate and press the skeptical challenge against it, and then I show that McKenna has the (untapped) resources in his account to deflect it.

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Notes

  1. Or if not knowledge, at least justified belief.

  2. These would probably be touted as necessary conditions as well if not for possible cases of culpable ignorance and derivative, or indirect, freedom (a kind of control one might have over X only in virtue of having direct control over Y, which itself determines X).

  3. Importantly, McKenna is presenting here a QW theory only of accountability, a conception of responsibility he takes to be distinct from, although entailing, attributability. The latter he takes to be merely about the moral worth of the agent as revealed in his or her actions, whereas the former is about the fittingness of the agent’s being held to account in a variety of ways (typically involving expression of various reactive attitudes like resentment, indignation, and gratitude) (McKenna 2012: 7). In what follows, I will use “responsibility” and “accountability” mostly interchangeably.

  4. Although after laying out this strategy, Scanlon admits that he is not inclined to take it himself (Scanlon 1998, 184).

  5. The psychological literature on empathy is vast and, in many cases, confused or confusing. I discuss both the literature and the confusions in my book manuscript, Responsibility from the Margins, esp. Chapter 5.

  6. See Scanlon (1998): 65–66 for a discussion of what he calls these two critical stages in the consideration of a reason.

  7. In the psychological literature, something like what I am about to spell out is often referred to as “affective empathy.”

  8. See Responsibility from the Margins, esp. Chapters 3 and 5.

  9. For one thing, it effectively denies the strenuously-argued thesis of Darwall (2006).

  10. I am grateful to Mark Timmons for suggesting this way of putting it.

  11. My thanks to Michael McKenna for writing such a great book and for hours and hours of excellent conversation over many of the ideas in it, including the issues I have focused on here.

References

  • Darwall, Stephen. 2006. The Second-Person Standpoint. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • Deigh, John. 1995. “Empathy and Universalizability.” Ethics 105: 743–763.

  • McKenna, Michael. 2008. “Putting the Lie on the Control Condition for Moral Responsibility.” Philosophical Studies 139: 29–37.

  • McKenna, Michael. 2012. Conversation and Responsibility. New York: Oxford University Press.

  • Scanlon, T.M. 1998. What We Owe to Each Other. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

  • Scanlon, T.M. 2008. Moral Dimensions. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

  • Sher, George. 2006. In Praise of Blame. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Shoemaker, David. 2007. “Moral Address, Moral Responsibility, and the Boundaries of the Moral Community.” Ethics 118: 70–108.

  • Shoemaker, David. Forthcoming. “Ecumenical Attributability.” In Randolph Clarke, Michael McKenna, and Angela Smith, eds., The Nature of Responsibility (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

  • Smith, Angela M. 2005. “Responsibility for Attitudes: Activity and Passivity in Mental Life.” Ethics 115: 236–271.

  • Strawson, P.F. 2003. “Freedom and Resentment.” In Gary Watson, ed., Free Will 2nd Ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 72–93. 

  • Wallace, R. Jay. 1994. Responsibility and the Moral Sentiments. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Shoemaker, D. McKenna’s Quality of Will. Criminal Law, Philosophy 9, 695–708 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-014-9322-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-014-9322-5

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