KJuris: On Responsibility for Untoward Inadvertent Action

Title:

On Responsibility for Untoward Inadvertent Action

Abstract:

Inadvertence poses a problem for theories of moral responsibility. Assuming that a person is blameworthy for what she does only if she does so from an objectionable quality of will, it seems to follow that in some case agents are not responsible for their inadvertence. Yet holding people responsible for their mistakes is widespread. The person who accidentally spills their red wine on your white couch is responsible for doing so even if they act from no objectionable quality of will. Moreover, they often hold themselves responsible, blame themselves, feel badly about what they have done, and so on. I argue that we can explain such cases by distinguishing between responsibility for conduct for which one is either praiseworthy or blameworthy, and responsibility for conduct for which one is neither praiseworthy nor blameworthy.

Speaker Bio:

Michael McKenna is Professor of Philosophy and Core Faculty in the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom at University of Arizona. McKenna works primarily in the related areas of moral responsibility and the metaphysics of free will, but also on related topics, such as theory of action and moral psychology. He is the author of *Conversation and Responsibility* (OUP, 2012), *Responsibility and Desert* (OUP, 2024), and, coauthored with Derk Pereboom, *Free Will: A Contemporary Introduction* (Routledge, 2016). He is currently working on a book defending a compatibilist account of free will.

Location:

Ante Room (SW1.17), Somerset House East Wing, Strand Campus, King's College London

Time:

17:00-19:00