Attributability, Answerability, and Accountability: Toward a Wider Theory of Moral Responsibility

2011/04/01 by David Shoemaker · 447 citations
Arts and Humanities · Health Professions · Neuroscience · #Accountability #Epistemology #Ethics in medical practice #Free Will and Agency #Law #Law and economics #Moral responsibility #Philosophy #Political science #Sociology #War, Ethics, and Justification

paper · doi:10.1086/659003

published in Ethics 121(3), 602-632 (University of Chicago Press)

openalex publication_date 2011/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/03

Abstract

Recently T. M. Scanlon and others have advanced an ostensibly comprehensive theory of moral responsibility—a theory of both being responsible and being held responsible—that best accounts for our moral practices. I argue that both aspects of the Scanlonian theory fail this test. A truly comprehensive theory must incorporate and explain three distinct conceptions of responsibility—attributability, answerability, and accountability—and the Scanlonian view conflates the first two and ignores the importance of the third. To illustrate what a truly comprehensive theory might look like, I investigate what it would say about the difficult case of the psychopath.

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