If a desire underlies every action performed by a potentially self-governing agent, then that desire plays a causal role even when an agent fails to govern her motives in the minimal way necessary to be accountable for them.
The extent to which something actually causes or influences an outcome; how much responsibility something bears for what happens.
desire(Plato's account of desire in the Meno and Symposium)
A motivational state analogous to hunger — a felt lack or want directed toward its object
govern her motives(as used in ethics and moral responsibility)
To control or manage the desires and impulses that drive your actions.
self-governing agent(Used to identify the minimal condition of agentive self-determination in the context of higher-order desire theory)
An agent who has sufficient power to determine her own motives; the only attitude from which no agent can be alienated is the desire to possess this capacity.
As we have seen, no such limitation seems to apply where the mental state at stake is an agent’s highest-order desire, evaluative judgment, or plan, or even an integrated combination of such attitudes. The only attitude from which it seems that no agent can be alienated is the desire to have sufficient power to determine one’s own motives—the desire to be a self-governing agent.[15] Even if, however, we leave to one side the question of whether this desire can really be attributed to every pot