The concept of responsibility has received much diversified explanations. For this section, I am much concerned with responsibility as moral competence. This type of responsibility is the other side of a sense of duty. Here responsibility refers to ‘sense of having a duty’ or a role to play as well as the follow-up implications. It is also tied up closely to the ideas of inescapable obligation and that of conscientiousness. That is, the duty involved is what the agent ought to be conscious of. In the event of a lack of this conscientiousness, the agent is said to be very irresponsible. But a conscientious agent, according to Haydon, “[is] concerned
58 Kant, Metaphysics of Morals Ak 6:408
59 Kant, Immanuel (1998): Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason: And Other Writings, (eds.
Allen Wood & George di Giovanni) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Religion 6:36-37)
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about doing what he ought to do (and not doing what he ought not to do), is generally careful to consider what it is that he ought to do, and careful to see that he does it.”60 This type of attitude presupposes also moral maturity.Zimmerman had more on this:
Sometimes individuals are said to be responsible persons (period), rather than responsible for something. This view attributes to them a measure of moral maturity. Two types of such maturity may be distinguished. In one sense, one is a responsible person if one has a certain capacity: the capacity to make a reasonable assessment of one’s prospective responsibilities (duties, obligations) ... If one is not a responsible person in this sense, one is “nonresponsible.” In another sense, one is a responsible person if one takes one’s prospective responsibilities seriously and endeavors to fulfill them. If one is not a responsible person in this sense, one is
“irresponsible.”61
The moral maturity in terms of making reasonable assessment of one’s duties and responsibilities, in fact, of what one ought to do, is in the terminology of Kant, the moral ability to assess maxims of operations. Responsibility understood along the lines of moral maturity is something taken rather than something assigned. The community or societal context of moral action makes this type of moral assessment to have as its consideration, the agent himself or herself and other rational agents. Therefore, this type of responsibility involves at least two persons, the person who is responsible for something-the agent, and the person to whom he is responsible-other moral actors or the community as an entity. These other moral actors normally react to what the agent does or fails to do. For this fact, Peter Strawson explained moral responsibility in terms of the reactive attitudes and the follow-up consequences, such as blame (punishment) and praise (a positive moral assessment or reward). By “reactive attitudes” Strawson means attitudes that belong to our involvement or participation with others in interpersonal human relationships. These include attitudes like respect, indignation, love, forgiveness, resentment, guilt, gratitude, etc. Being morally responsible therefore is to be subject to these attitudes.62
Korsgaard argues that being subject to these attitudes is a demand if one must see oneself as a moral and rational agent, and as such, as one under an obligation and one who has a moral worth. According to her, “this explains why Kant refers to the kingdom of ends as an
“ideal,” which we might fail to promote, and, therefore, as an “obligation” …. [And] unless you hold others responsible for the ends that they choose and the actions that they do, you
60 Haydon, G. (1978): “On being responsible”, In The Philosophical Quarterly, 28, 46-57 at p. 51.
61 Zimmerman, M. (2001). „Responsibility”, In L. Becker (ed.), Encyclopedia of Ethics, p. 1487 62 Strawson, P. F., (1962): “Freedom and Resentment”, Proceedings of the British Academy, 48, pp. 1-25
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cannot regard them as moral and rational agents, and so you will not treat them as ends in themselves.”63 This sort of ‘responsibility-obligation’ relations we enter with other human beings, is seen by J. M. Torralba as being so necessary that he argues that “moral law commands us to enter into a kingdom of ends, because it “has” the legality that corresponds to the relations we enter into with other human beings….” And that “the categorical imperative (in its “humanity” and “kingdom of ends” formulations) is a consequence of our condition or constitution as human beings among other human beings.”64
Our constitution as human beings among other human beings requires that we relate with one another and hold one another responsible. Responsibility, therefore, is the distinctive element in the relationships rational beings enter. If I hold you responsible, that is to say that I regard you as a person with full freedom, capable of acting both rationally and morally. I can then enter with you a relation of reciprocity, a type of relation that takes for granted that each of us will be conscious of what we are: human beings having a dignity above price and ends which are to be respected. Such a relation of reciprocity demands as well that “I must make your ends and reasons mine, and I must choose mine in such a way that they can be yours….
Generalized to the Kingdom of Ends, my own ends must be the possible objects of universal legislation, subject to the vote of all. And this is how I realize my autonomy.”65
“People who enter into relations of reciprocity must be prepared to share their ends and reasons; to hold them jointly; and to act together”66 says Korsgaard, and thereby create a kingdom of ends, and a kingdom where all ends are shared. The content of the formula of kingdom of ends is therefore meant to express something fundamental about a moral attitude.
It is supposed to be concerned with willingness and a strong desire to act with responsibility and reciprocity. This is supposed to be a characterization of the attitude of a conscientious member of a kingdom of ends. On this view, responsibility and reciprocity are necessary construction materials for a possible kingdom of ends.
With all the above construction materials of a kingdom of ends, an ideal of moral legislation is expected therefrom.
63 Korsgaard, C. M (1996): Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge, p. 206
64 Torralba, José M. (2013): “The Individuality and Sociality of Action in Kant. On the Kingdom of Ends as a Relational Theory of Action.” en Archiv für Recht- und Sozialphilosophie, vol. 99, pp. 475-498. Footnote 37 65 Korsgaard M. Christen: “Creating the Kingdom of Ends: Reciprocity and Responsibility in Personal Relations”, Philosophical Perspectives, Vol. 6, Ethics (1992), pp. 305-332 at p. 309)
66 Korsgaard M. Christen, Ibid, p. 311
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