Abstract
The debate about moral responsibility for one’s actions often revolves around whether the agent had the ability to do otherwise. An alternative account of moral responsibility, however, focuses on the actual sequence that produces the agent’s action and which criteria it must fulfil for the agent to be considered morally responsible for her action. Mental Time Travel allows the agent to simulate a possible future scenario; therefore, it is relevant for the selection of a course of action. I will argue that implicit prospection is a rudimentary form of Mental Time Travel and that the role that implicit prospection, or non-rudimentary forms of Mental Time Travel, plays in the production of intentional actions helps explain guidance control and, hence, moral responsibility.Keywords: implicit prospection, guidance control, feeling the future, plan, intention.
Highlights
Recent discussions in the cognitive sciences have considered the relevance of Mental Time Travel (MTT) to moral agency (Ger ans and Kennett, 2017)
I consider discussions on moral agency in an admitte ly modest sense compared to other ap roaches; my concern is whether moral responsibility can be attributed to the agent for at least some of her intentional a ions
If one accepts the ar uments above and that implicit pro ection is enough to make the cost of a course of action affectively salient when one feels the future, implicit pro ection plays a relevant role for planning and a ion production
Summary
Recent discussions in the cognitive sciences have considered the relevance of Mental Time Travel (MTT) to moral agency (Ger ans and Kennett, 2017). Phenomenology contributes to explain why MTT such as planning is not motivationa ly neutral, because, roughly, the agent expe iences herself in the future, and when one looks to the future instead of the past, the affective valence towards alternative courses of a ion inclines the agent to act
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