David Shoemaker is a contemporary American philosopher whose work centers on moral responsibility, free will, and their intersection with ethics and metaphysics. He is best known for developing a tripartite account of responsibility that distinguishes attributability, answerability, and accountability as distinct but related normative relations. His research examines how responsibility practices function at the margins of agency, including cases of diminished capacity, psychopathy, and moral luck.
Developed a tripartite theory of moral responsibility distinguishing attributability, answerability, and accountability
Authored 'Responsibility from the Margins' (Oxford University Press, 2015), examining responsibility for agents with atypical capacities
Argued that free will debates are inextricably tied to both metaphysical and normative ethical commitments
Contributed to the philosophy of personal identity and its bearing on moral responsibility
Advanced empirically-informed approaches to moral psychology and agency
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