2 - Responsibility for mistakes
from I - Retrospective responsibility
Summary
The previous chapter mostly concerned the problem of attributing moral responsibility, within the context of the “blame game”, to individuals for their intentional actions. Even when the individual offered further details about himself or about the situation, details designed to excuse him in part or in full and thereby diminish his responsibility, the act in question remained intentional. I also mentioned in passing another category of excuse, and that was the unintentional mistake or accident – that is what this chapter is about. The kind of mistakes and accidents I will be focusing on involve unambiguous causal responsibility for the harmful or expensive or embarrassing consequences, but a denial of full moral responsibility: “Yes, I broke your vase, but I didn't mean to.” What does this statement mean, exactly, and what sort of residual responsibility do I retain?
AUSTIN'S DONKEY
We have to start by distinguishing mistakes and accidents, and the best thing is to draw from J. L. Austin's famous example:
You have a donkey, so have I, and they graze in the same field. The day comes when I conceive a dislike for mine. I go to shoot it, draw a bead on it, fire: the brute falls in its tracks. I inspect the victim, and find to my horror that it is your donkey. I appear on your doorstep with the remains and say – what? “I say, old sport, I'm awfully sorry, &c., I've shot your donkey by accident”? Or “by mistake”? Then again, I go to shoot my donkey as before, draw a bead on it, fire – but as I do so the beasts move, and to my horror yours falls. Again the scene on the doorstep – what do I say? “By mistake”? Or “by accident”?
(Austin 1956: 29 n. 4)- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Moral Responsibility , pp. 45 - 64Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013