Moral Responsibility

Moral Responsibility in Engineering

• We talk of responsibilities of engineers in the context of professional
codes of ethics – but what does it mean to be responsible for
something?

• Concepts of responsibility play a role in Protagoras

To be morally responsible for an action is to be
worthy of praise or blame for it
What would a comprehensive theory of moral
responsibility look like?
• Elaborate the concept of moral responsibility itself

• Identify moral agents – who or what qualifies as being capable of moral

responsibility?

• Identify just when a human agent is morally responsible

• Identify objects of responsibility ascriptions (actions, omissions, traits? etc.)

Aristotle (382 – 322 BCE) gives the first
comprehensive account of moral responsibility

1. CONTROL – The agent

must be free to perform or
not perform the action; it
cannot be compelled

2. KNOWLEDGE – The agent

must know what he/she is
doing
When is it appropriate to praise or blame, per
Aristotle?
1. Merit-based view – praise or blame is only appropriate if an agent
deserves praise or blame (Socrates seems to take this view in
Protagoras)

2. Consequentialist view – praise or blame is appropriate only when

they lead to desired changes in an agent’s behavior (Protagoras
seems to take this view in Protagoras)
 The Challenge of Determinism
• Theological determinism

• Causal determinism
 Determinism and Moral Responsibility are
Incompatible
• Determinism Moral Responsibility
Determinism and Moral Responsibility are
Compatible
• Determinism Moral Responsibility
How does one commitment influence
another?
Merit-based view Consequentialist view
tends towards tends towards
Incompatibilism Compatibilism
______________ ______________

St. Augustine Hobbes

Immanuel Kant Hume
Mill
But these commitments hinge on views of
free will more generally
• Metaphysical libertarianism – you have free will: you are free to
choose, and nothing compels you to choose as you do

• Causal Determinism – you do not have free will: everything you do is

determined by antecedent physical conditions together with the laws
of nature
Both positions hold that free will and
determinism are incompatible
• Free will • Determinism
 But some hold that free will and determinism are
compatible…if what is meant by “free will”is revised

• Free will • Determinism

Compatibilism about free will and determinism
should lead to compatibilism on moral
responsibility and determinism

….for both merit-based and consequentialist views of appropriate

moral responsibility ascription