Causation, moral norms, and responsibility for outcomes

Beskrivning

Abstract: In this talk, I consider the role of causation in attributions of responsibility for outcomes. It is intuitively plausible that a person S is responsible for an outcome O only if S has performed an action or omission that is a cause of O. As I shall argue, however, the truth-value of causal claims is sensitive to a contextual distinction between candidate causes and mere background conditions. This raises a question: what is the appropriate context for making the causal judgements that underlie attributions of responsibility for outcomes? I will tentatively suggest that the appropriate context is one in which the distinction between candidate causes and mere background conditions is drawn on the basis of moral norms, i.e. where actions or omissions that go against the norms are treated as candidate causes, while actions or omissions that are in accordance with the norms are treated as mere background conditions.

Period	2018 nov. 7
Vid	Linköping University, Sverige
Omfattning	Nationell