Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T17:37:09.036Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

MOORE ON CAUSING, ACTING, AND COMPLICITY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 June 2012

Gideon Yaffe
Gideon Yaffe*
Affiliation:
University of Southern CaliforniaDepartment of Philosophy and School of Lawyaffe@usc.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In Michael Moore's important book Causation and Responsibility, he holds that causal contribution matters to responsibility independently of its relevance to action. We are responsible for our actions, according to Moore, because where there is action, we typically also find the kind of causal contribution that is crucial for responsibility. But it is causation, and not action, that bears the normative weight. This paper assesses this claim and argues that Moore's reasons for it are unconvincing. It is suggested that sometimes a person's responsibility for that to which he causally contributes depends on his recognition of an identity between himself and the protagonist of the event for which he is held responsible. Since this fact about identity is not captured by causal contribution, action matters to responsibility for reasons that are not exhausted by the fact that action involves causal contribution. The relevance of this idea for accomplice liability is also briefly discussed.

Type
Research Article
Information
Legal Theory , Volume 18 , Special Issue 4: MICHAEL MOORE'S CAUSATION AND RESPONSIBILITY , December 2012 , pp. 437 - 458
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Michael Moore, Causation and Responsibility: An Essay in Law, Morals and Metaphysics (2009).

2. For some discussion, see Yaffe, Gideon, “Ought” Implies “Can” and the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, 59 Analysis (1999) 218–222CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Widerker, David, Frankfurt on “Ought Implies Can” and Alternative Possibilities 51 Analysis 222–224 (1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Copp, David, Defending the Principle of Alternate Possibilities: Blameworthiness and Moral Responsibility 31 Nous 441–456 (1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Copp, David, “Ought” Implies “Can,” Blameworthiness, and the Principle of Alternate Possibilities, in Moral Responsibility and Alternative Possibilities 265–299 (Widerker, D. & McKenna, M. eds., 2003)Google Scholar.

3. Donald Davidson, Agency, in Essays on Actions and Events 43–61 (1980).

4. Cf. Chisholm, Roderick, Human Freedom and the Self, in Free Will 24–35 (Watson, G. ed., 1982)Google Scholar; Richard Taylor, Action and Purpose (1966); Clarke, Randolph, Toward a Credible Agent-Causal Account of Free Will, in Agents, Causes and Events: Essays on Indeterminism and Free Will 201–215 (O'Connor, T. ed., 1995)Google Scholar; O'Connor, Timothy, Agent Causation, in Agents, Causes and Events: Essays on Indeterminism and Free Will 173–200 (O'Connor, T. ed., 1995)Google Scholar.

5. McCann, Hugh, Volition and Basic Action, in 83 Philosophical Review 451–473CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6. Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations (Blackwell Press, 2001)Google Scholar, at 136 sec. 621.

7. Gardner, John, Moore on Complicity and Causality, 156 U. Pa. L. Rev. 433–434 (2008)Google Scholar.

8. Moore, supra note 1, at 7.

9. Kadish, Sanford, Complicity, Cause and Blame: A Study in the Interpretation of Doctrine, 73 Calif. L. Rev. 323–410 (1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10. Moore, supra note 1, at 10–11.

11. Id. at 298.

12. Joel Feinberg, Action and Responsibility, in Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility 119–151 (1970).

13. John Perry, Identity, Personal Identity and the Self (2002), at 192.

14. Butler, Joseph, Of Personal Identity, in Personal Identity 9 (Perry, John ed., 2008)Google Scholar.

15. For this proposal and discussion, see John, Perry, Personal Identity, Memory and the Problem of Circularity, in Personal Identity 135–158 (Perry, John ed., 2008)Google Scholar.

16. Kadish, Sanford, Causation and Complicity: A study in the interpretation of doctrine, in 73 California Law Review (1985) 323–410CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17. Moore, supra note 1, at 298–299.

18. Id. at 298.