Abstract

This book extends our understanding of the nature of moral obligation and moral responsibility by arguing that they are far more similar in pertinent respects than frequently conceived. First, the view that, unlike obligation, responsibility does not require freedom to do otherwise is challenged. Conceptual ties between obligation and responsibility largely speak in favor of responsibility’s requiring alternatives. Second, many philosophers champion responsibility semicompatibilism, the thesis that even if determinism is incompatible with freedom to do otherwise, it is compatible with responsibility. Essential relations between obligation and responsibility are deployed against this thesis, and the parallel thesis of obligation semicompatibilism is rejected. An upshot of forsaking these species of semicompatibilism is that determinism threatens both obligation and responsibility in virtue of eliminating alternate possibilities. Third, many concur that whereas you may now no longer have an obligation that you previously had, you cannot now fail to be blameworthy for something for which you were formerly to blame. This immutability thesis about blameworthiness is shown to be false, and significant ramifications of its falsity are exposed. Finally, a legitimate difference between obligation and responsibility is uncovered: while how you acquire your values may significantly influence whether you are responsible for much of your conduct, obligation is not “historical” in this way. The impact of these similarities and the one difference on whether obligation is overriding and whether various accounts of practical rationality, love, and punishment are cogent is discussed.