Moral Responsibility, Justice, and Freedom

Quaerens Deum: The Liberty Undergraduate Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5 (1) (2020)
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Abstract

Freedom, and in particular, the freedom of human beings, is a hot topic within the field of metaphysics. In this paper, instead of arguing for the truth of a particular position on freedom, I explore whether a particular position, compatibilism, might be consistent with the existence of moral responsibility and retributive justice. To alleviate ambiguity, I construct a model by which the four primary positions on freedom might be clearly understood. I then distinguish between what I call ‘common-sense’ views of moral responsibility, and ‘complex’ views of moral responsibility. I select a particular complex view, which I term the ‘virtue’ theory of moral responsibility, offer some justification for the sensibility of such a theory, and demonstrate how the virtue theory is consistent with compatibilism. Finally, I propose that retributive justice is consistent with the virtue theory of moral responsibility, and consequently, that retributive justice is consistent with compatibilism.

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References found in this work

Human Freedom and the Self.Roderick Chisholm - 1982 - In Gary Watson (ed.), Free will. New York: Oxford University Press.
Human Freedom and the self.Roderick M. Chisholm - 2004 - In Tim Crane & Katalin Farkas (eds.), Metaphysics: a guide and anthology. New York: Oxford University Press.
14. Responsibility for Consequences.John Martin Fischer & Mark Ravizza - 1993 - In John Martin Fischer & Mark Ravizza (eds.), Perspectives on moral responsibility. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 322-348.
Free will and moral responsibility: does either require the other?Alfred Mele - 2015 - Philosophical Explorations 18 (3):297-309.

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