Moral Responsibility Reconsidered: Integrating Chance, Choice and Constraint

Abraham Rudnick

doi:doi:10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11

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Moral Responsibility Reconsidered: Integrating Chance, Choice and Constraint

Abraham Rudnick

Published in International Journal of Philosophy (Volume 7, Issue 2)

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.
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[15]	Fried Y, Agassi J (1976). Paranoia: a study in diagnosis. Reidel, Boston.
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[17]	Rudnick A (2015). Choice and criminal responsibility of mentally ill offenders: moral reasoning as a likely mediator related to primary secondary and tertiary prevention. Journal of Psychiatry Reform December 15:1-2.

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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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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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TY  - JOUR
T1  - Moral Responsibility Reconsidered: Integrating Chance, Choice and Constraint
AU  - Abraham Rudnick
Y1  - 2019/04/09
PY  - 2019
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11
T2  - International Journal of Philosophy
JF  - International Journal of Philosophy
JO  - International Journal of Philosophy
SP  - 48
EP  - 54
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-7455
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11
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.
VL  - 7
IS  - 2
ER  -

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Author Information

Abraham Rudnick

Department of Psychiatry and School of Occupational Therapy, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

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Plain Text BibTeX RIS

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

Copy | Download

@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}
}

Copy | Download

TY  - JOUR
T1  - Moral Responsibility Reconsidered: Integrating Chance, Choice and Constraint
AU  - Abraham Rudnick
Y1  - 2019/04/09
PY  - 2019
N1  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11
DO  - 10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11
T2  - International Journal of Philosophy
JF  - International Journal of Philosophy
JO  - International Journal of Philosophy
SP  - 48
EP  - 54
PB  - Science Publishing Group
SN  - 2330-7455
UR  - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20190702.11
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.
VL  - 7
IS  - 2
ER  -

Copy | Download