The Complexity of Moral Responsibility and Its Degrees

Abstract

A simplified version of philosophical discussion on any problem could be summarised like this: to explain a phenomenon P theory A is developed, then in response to A theory B is developed, then these theories are modified and give rise to new argument, including ar­guments based on or inspired by some scientific findings and theories from other fields of philosophy. However, in moral responsibility discussion, it is complicated to distinguish one central conflict. Different philosophers write about moral responsibility as a problem of ethical evaluation of an action, and metaphysical conditions do moral responsibility, and criteria of moral agent, and possibility of several agents sharing responsibility for the same action, etc. In this paper, I discuss “Ethics and metaphysics of moral responsibility: that is a rigorous analysis of various theories of moral responsibility turned into in the original systematisation of the conceptual chaos in contemporary debates on moral re­sponsibility. The first part of the paper includes tackling the problem of moral responsibil­ity and a short review of the theories of moral responsibility. In the second part, there are conceptual clarifications of the term “appropriateness” that is the key term for interpreting conditions of moral responsibility. In the paper, I have two pursues. First, to highlight strong and less strong points of analysis of the problem of moral responsibility proposed by E. Loginov, M. Gavrilov, A. Mertsalov and A. Iunusov. Second, to draw an attention to theoretical challenges of moral reactions when it is assumed that moral reactions come in degrees.