Recent work on moral responsibility

Elinor Mason (The University of Edinburgh) has written an overview article on recent work on moral responsibility, titled (appropriately enough) "Recent Work on Moral Responsibility." It can be found here:

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-0149.2005.00375.x

For those without the relevant electronic subscription, here's the citation: Philosophical Books
Volume 46 Issue 4 Page 343 - October 2005.

Comments

[John Fischer]

Thanks, Manuel. I think it should have been entitled, "Even More Recent Work on Moral Responsibility"...

[Kip Werking]

That's funny.

[Fritz]

I confess to some skepticism about this given that the opening paragraph identifies one of the three main questions as the question of whether moral responsibility is *compatible* with free will (rather than as, say, whether moral responsibility requires free will). I suppose one might ask this question if one is worried that free will is incoherent and so not compatible with anything, but that's no *special* question about the compatibility of free will and *moral responsibility*.

But the author says she's going focus on a different issue (focusing on accounts of moral responsibility, rather than its relation to other things, like freedom and/or determinism). So maybe my worry won't matter much. And maybe I should, well, read past the first two paragraphs before I start spouting off about things. :),

[Elinor Mason]

re Fritz's comment: I wasn't making any fancy point, it's just a mistake - I meant to say that one of the questions is whether moral responsibility is compatible with *determinism*. How embarrassing - sorry about that! If you overcome your understandable skepticism enough to read more, I hope you don't find any more howlers.

re John Fischer's comment: I absolutely agree - I do cite your article as the first item in the first footnote.

[Fritz]

Hi Elinor, I overcame my hesitancy based on the typo/mistake I noted above. For the material you are mainly focused on (positive accounts of responsibility), I found it to be a well done overview. I'm mean and would of course quibble about things here and there... but hey, that's philosophy. Others are encouraged to give the paper a read.