No Responsibility No Morality

Abstract

This chapter argues that if individuals are not morally responsible, then there is no morality. By no morality, I mean that there are no right or wrong actions, no good or bad states of affairs, and no other things with moral properties or, at perhaps less sweepingly, we do not know whether there are such things. Here I focus on right and wrong actions. My main argument in this chapter is that if people are not morally responsible, then there is no morality as it relates to matters that are up to us or, at least, we don’t know whether there is morality on such matters. When it comes to the right, either consequentialism or non-consequentialism is true. Consider consequentialism. If we don’t know whether determinism is true, then we don’t know whether there are acts that produce more good than any other act available to the agent and hence we don’t know whether there are obligatory or wrong acts. Consider non-consequentialism. If non-consequentialism is true, then people have rights and rights protect autonomy. The notion that non-consequentialism depends on rights rests on a consideration of the most plausible non-consequentialist theories. The notion that rights protect autonomy depends on a theory of what best fits and justifies rights. Autonomy is inextricably linked to moral responsibility and, as argued above, people do not have it.