Grounding remedial responsibility in causal contribution conflates outcome responsibility with agent-regret, a distinction Bernard Williams explicitly draws to resist moral luck's punitive implications.

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Reasons For

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Reason for

1.Williams distinguishes agent-regret (personal felt responsibility) from outcome responsibility (causal involvement), marking different moral categories.
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2.Grounding remedial duty solely in causal contribution makes moral obligations hostage to luck, punishing agents for unchosen consequences.
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3.Only agent-regret requires voluntary control; outcome responsibility can attach to purely accidental causal roles, conflating distinct accountability bases.
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Reasons Against

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Reason against

1.Causal contribution legitimately grounds repair duties independent of regret: breaking someone's vase creates restoration obligations regardless of feelings.
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2.Williams's distinction doesn't eliminate moral luck—agent-regret itself depends on luck in moral sensibilities and emotional dispositions.
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3.Remedial responsibility requires some causal nexus; divorcing it from causation makes repair duties arbitrary and disconnected from actual harm.
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Key Terms

Bernard Williams(as a defender of Humean philosophy): A late 20th-century British philosopher who wrote influential works on ethics, questioning whether morality can be truly objective and exploring the role of personal projects and desires in a good life.
Causal contribution(as used in ethics and metaphysics): When someone plays a direct role in causing something to happen—they're part of the chain of events that led to the outcome.
Moral luck(as used in ethics): The philosophical puzzle about whether it's fair to judge people differently for the same choice if one outcome succeeds and another fails through no fault of their own.
Outcome responsibility(as used in ethics): Being held accountable simply because a bad result happened, even if you didn't fully control whether it would occur.
Punitive implications(as used in ethics): The consequences of punishment or blame that result from a particular view or argument.
Remedial responsibility(as used in ethics): The obligation someone has to fix or repair harm they've caused, rather than just being blamed for it.
agent-regret(Williams argues that agent-regret is rational, contra utilitarianism which implies it is irrational when the agent acted optimally): A form of regret experienced by an agent specifically because of their causal role in bringing about a bad outcome, distinct from general regret that anyone might feel about an unfortunate event
grounding(Drawn from contemporary metaphysics; proposed as potentially applicable to understanding the foundations of legality.): A metaphysical relation in which some entities or facts are more foundational than others, providing a hierarchical structure of the world.

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Justice & Punishment1 linked Moral Responsibility1 linked

Causal contribution legitimately grounds repair duties independent of regret: br...Grounding remedial duty solely in causal contribution makes moral obligations ho...

Details

Type: claim
Perspectives: 2 (1 for, 1 against)
Edits: 1 edit