Responsibility and the Condition of Moral Sense

Abstract

This chapter presents a thesis about necessary conditions of responsible agency that arise at the interface between (compatibilist) reason-responsive theories and Strawsonian naturalistic approaches. A number of contemporary compatibilists who accept broadly Strawsonian accounts of holding responsible, as understood in terms of moral sentiments or reactive attitudes, have also advanced accounts of moral capacity and moral agency in terms of powers of rational self-control or reasons responsiveness. These accounts do not, however, involve any reference to moral sentiments and our ability to hold agents responsible. The central thesis of this chapter is that the responsible agent (i.e. one who is capable of being responsible) must also be one who is capable of holding herself responsible. Where moral sense is lacking, rational self-control is seriously impaired or compromised.