En función de otras circunstancias

My use of the notion of responsibility as attributability adopts much from Shoemaker’s use of the same notion, as well as Watson’s notion of aretaic responsibility. This is the variant of responsibility involved in cases where I judge an

77 _{This opens the way for the obvious objection that, using this reasoning, a unitary model would be}

even better. My response to this is that yes, such a model would be preferable if it were possible, but it is not. The entire point of the ambivalence cases is to reveal that no such unitary response can be adequate.

agent’s moral conduct as faulty, and may have certain reactive attitudes toward him such as contempt or disdain (a la Shoemaker), and may further be inclined to alter my interpersonal relations as regards the agent. Scanlon (2015: 91-92) gives a good overview of the kinds of alteration to our interpersonal relationships this may include, such as: withdrawing my trust, decreasing my readiness to help him with his projects or emotionally invest in his success or failures78 _{– all alterations that align with the}

attitude of disdain. Scanlon takes these responses to be reactive attitudes “in the general sense that Strawson defines: attitudes toward a person, including changes in one’s intentions about how one will treat or respond to him or her, that are adopted in response to that person’s attitudes toward oneself or others.” I am inclined to agree with him, but nothing in my account hangs on whether these responses are thought of as reactive attitudes. Agents can of course be praiseworthy as well as blameworthy on this account, and when this is the case the reactive attitude legitimated is that of admiration. Where the interpersonal relationships are concerned, we will see the opposite movements to what we saw with blame: an increase in trust, increase in readiness to help, and greater emotional investment in the agent’s successes and failures – again, changes that align strongly with admiration. Despite this symmetry, I will generally focus on cases of blameworthiness, as these have generally been the source of greater contention. Quite clearly these types of responses seem appropriate in cases such as that of Skip and Harris. When discussing a variant of moral responsibility, there are two important elements to consider: what are the conditions of this variant, and what responses does the presence of this variant legitimate? We have already been introduced to the responses legitimated by attributability, and so turn now to its conditions.

I take the condition for moral attributability to be some version of the conditions for responsibility put forward by QoW accounts. As such, rather than introduce my own condition of attributability, I will instead endorse MORAL EXPLANTORY BLAME (CREDIT) as the appropriate condition. To recall:

78 _{Scanlon also includes in his list a decreased willingness to enter into special relationships such as}

friendship with the person. This may be a justified response, but I would argue that it is actually a result of the other three shifts in interpersonal relations. The reason that I would be less willing to be friends with such an agent is because of my withdrawal of trust, lack of willingness to support him, and lack of emotional investment in his success or failures.

MORAL EXPLANATORY BLAME (CREDIT): X deserves moral blame (credit) for Y if and only if Y is morally bad (good) and is explained in a normal way by X’s quality of will falling below (above) what could be properly morally demanded of X

However, recall this condition only allows for differences in degrees of responsibility based on the moral valence of the given outcome and how much the degree of the agent’s deviation from the normatively expected level of care is required in the explanation of the object of blame or praise. So, as it stands, this condition is not exclusively linked to those responses legitimated by accountability. In order to introduce this aspect into the condition, it is necessary to differentiate between those behaviours that are “explained in a normal way” involving control, and those without (I will be limiting my discussion to behaviour, given my overarching argument, but Björnsson certainly does not take his account to be limited to such, presumably attitudes and judgements could just as easily be accounted for). As we saw in Section 3.2., Björnsson argues that the perceived need for a control condition can be wholly accommodated by the requirement that the explanatory link between behaviour and quality of will must be a normal one. However, there is an ambiguity involved here: it can be asked whether or not the explanation of the behaviour was normal relative to the kinds of responses that we take to be legitimated. In other words, what would count as a normal explanatory link between behaviour and quality of will for legitimating the response of withdrawing trust, may be very different to what would count as such for legitimating the response of moral anger. Recall the stream of activity and the process of individuation. Just as there are many ways to individuate out activities relative to what is used as guidance for the individuation (such as intentional status for example), so too are there many ways to understand an explanation as normal relative to the purpose the explanation serves.

To see what the implications of this may be, consider this example from Björnsson (2017a: 147):

Knockout: Leaving the room, Victor pushes the door open quickly and with great force, inadvertently knocking unconscious the person just about to open the door from the busy corridor outside. At the moment of action, it didn’t cross

Victor’s mind that opening the door in that way might hurt someone, though he would have realized this if the question had come up

For Björnsson (ibid.: 158), Victor would be responsible if it were the case that his failure to appreciate the information available in memory and perception – “based on which Victor could have realized that he might be putting others in danger or distress” – was due to a deficit in concern. Björnsson makes the further point that Victor is responsible in this case despite not meeting the kind of control condition of the sort proposed by Levy (2017b: 152-153), and that it does not seem plausible to think that this could be a case resolved by tracing (2017a: 147). I agree that Victor is responsible in this case, and that this is despite Victor not having conscious control over the outcome, but my contention is that this is a case of attributability only, and Victor’s behaviour legitimates only the responses that follow from this. In order for it to be the case that Victor be open to those responses legitimated by accountability – which I will discuss in the next section – it is in fact necessary that a he meet some control condition (though not necessarily conscious control). It is on this point that I hope to expand on the explanatory quality of will account by illuminating this second, more stringent understanding of what it means for an agent’s behaviour to be explained in a normal way by the agent’s quality of will.