Common Sense about refraining : locating moral responsibility when nothing happens
It appears common sense that acts of refraining, or absence-events, are morally assessed in part by what they cause. This paper focuses on determining which agential absence-events are put up for deontic assessments. Proposals are introduced to align with the common-sense thought in order to determi...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Final Year Project |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Nanyang Technological University
2022
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/156124 |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | It appears common sense that acts of refraining, or absence-events, are morally assessed in part by what they cause. This paper focuses on determining which agential absence-events are put up for deontic assessments. Proposals are introduced to align with the common-sense thought in order to determine what kinds of absence-events are put up for assessment. Ultimately, we need to accept an All Things Considered proposal of what is morally significant in absence-events. However, the normative implications of accepting this proposal shows what is being located: moral responsibility is more significant to our thought than causal responsibility. There are two further implications if we accept the thought: one, that Deontologists have to carve out a clearer picture of what goes on behind moral responsibility and two, that the Consequentialist view may have to be rejected in cases of refraining to accommodate the thought. |
|---|