Instrumentalism about Moral Responsibility Revisited

Anneli Jefferson

doi:10.1093/pq/pqy062

Abstract

I defend an instrumentalist account of moral responsibility and adopt Manuel Vargas’ idea that our responsibility practices are justified by their effects. However, whereas Vargas gives an independent account of morally responsible agency, on my account, responsible agency is defined as the susceptibility to developing and maintaining moral agency through being held responsible. I show that the instrumentalism I propose can avoid some problems more crude forms of instrumentalism encounter by adopting aspects of Strawsonian accounts. I then show the implications for our understanding of responsibility: my account requires us to adopt a graded notion of responsibility and accept the claim that certain individuals may not be responsible because they are not susceptible to being influenced by our moral responsibility practices. Finally, I discuss whether the account is committed to allowing the instrumentalization of non-responsible individuals in cases where blaming them may benefit others’ moral agency.

Highlights

I defend an instrumentalist account of moral responsibility and adopt Manuel Vargas’ idea that our responsibility practices are justified by their effects
I have argued that instrumentalist accounts can justify our responsibility practices by looking at the effect on both the blamers/praisers and those who are blamed and praised
I have argued that instrumentalist accounts, suitably revised, can meet the criticism that they describe mere mechanisms of behavioural modification

Summary

WHAT ROLE FOR CONSEQUENTIALISM?

Instrumentalist accounts of moral responsibility see the practice of holding accountable as central both to our concept of responsibility and to the justification of our practices of holding each other responsible. Developing moral agency provides a general, not a local, justification for our moral responsibility practices (Vargas 2013) This means that it is not required that every single instance of holding responsible needs to have a positive effect in order to be justified. The fact that their moral agency is susceptible to being fostered and scaffolded by being held responsible is what makes an agent a morally responsible agent, because it is what makes them the right kind of target for these practices This allows us to retain the close link between the purpose of holding responsible and being responsible so central to Smart’s account. This general account gives us an answer to the question: What kind of creatures are morally responsible? I will flesh my account out further by showing how it answers standard objections to Smart’s original account and how it relates to a family of positions that is often seen as incompatible with instrumentalism, Strawsonian or reactive attitude accounts of moral responsibility

PUTTING MEAT ON THE BONES

III.1. Being responsible vs being held responsible

III.2. Worries about instrumentalization and the scope of consequentialism

CONCLUSION