Conditions of Moral Responsibility

• What do we need to have moral responsibility?

  We act with free will as a conscious human agent. Even if one thinks they are free, factors such as their upbringing; psychological makeup and the influence of society may suggest that they have no control over their actions
• What are the conditions of free will?


  To be morally responsible people must be able to exercise their free will. Only an individual with full free will can be morally responsible for their actions, just like how you cannot blame a computer for losing data because it has no moral autonomy; it is dependent on the conscious agent not the unconscious machine
• What three types of people are not morally responsible?

  - babies and young children; those who have not learned it yet

  - those who have permanently forgotten it, such as those suffering from dementia

  - those under pressure of anxiety, anger; who might temporarily forget it
• What are the sources of a person's moral awareness in telling right from wrong?

  - Some (eg Hume) will claim that we have an innate sense of right and wrong

  - we learn about right and wrong from our social context

  - religions present believers with moral principles and rules. For a Christian the knowledge of the good is encountered at three levels: 1. The innate 2. The social 3. The religious
• What are the three different theories surrounding free will and moral responsibility?

  1. Hard determinism

  2. Libertarianism

  3. Compatibilism