Causalism: A Framework for Moral Responsibility
Main Article Content
Abstract
This essay is based on the Gaos lectures given at UNAM in March 2025. The general topic is the metaphysical underpinnings of moral responsibility, both in its basic and non-basic forms. It motivates causalism as a general framework from which to understand both forms of responsibility.
It consists of two parts. The focus of the first part is basic responsibility—in particular, the metaphysical condition for that form of responsibility: free action. It motivates a causalist, compatibilist view of free action as an extension of the mainstream causalist conception of action. The focus of the second part is non-basic responsibility—responsibility for outcomes in the world. It motivates a view of the conditions under which responsibility for outcomes results from responsibility for actions, one that works as an extension of the causalist view of free action.
Some highlights of the paper are the following. It provides a comprehensive, unified account of the phenomena. It highlights the role played by key metaphysical concepts (like causation, grounding, and powers) in a theory of moral responsibility. Finally, it discusses subtle methodological issues that arise when dealing with a mix of moral and metaphysical judgments.
Downloads
Article Details
PLUMX Metrics
References
Beebee, Helen, 2004, “Causing and Nothingness”, in John Collins, Ned Hall, and L.A. Paul (eds.), Causation and Counterfactuals, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 291–308.
Bernstein, Sara, 2015, “The Metaphysics of Omissions”, Philosophy Compass, vol. 10, no. 3, pp. 208–218.
Capes, Justin A., 2023, Moral Responsibility and the Flicker of Freedom, Oxford University Press, New York.
Chisholm, Roderick, 1964, “Human Freedom and the Self”, in Robert Kane (ed.), Free Will, Blackwell, Malden, Mass.
Clarke, Randolph, 2015, “Abilities to Act”, Philosophy Compass, vol. 10, no. 12, pp. 893–904.
Clarke, Randolph, 2009, “Dispositions, Abilities to Act, and Free Will: The New Dispositionalism”, Mind, vol. 118, no. 470, pp. 323–351.
Coates, D. Justin and Philip Swenson, 2013, “Reasons-Responsiveness and Degrees of Responsibility”, Philosophical Studies, vol. 165, no. 2, pp. 629–645.
Cyr, Taylor W., 2017, “Semicompatibilism: No Ability to do Otherwise Required”, Philosophical Explorations, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 308–321.
Davidson, Donald, 1963, “Actions, Reasons, and Causes”, Journal of Philosophy, vol. 60, pp. 685–700.
Dowe, Phil, 2001, “A Counterfactual Theory of Prevention and ‘Causation’ by Omission”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 79, no. 2, pp. 216–226.
Fara, Michael, 2008, “Masked Abilities and Compatibilism”, Mind, vol. 117, no. 468, pp. 843–865.
Feinberg, Joel, 1970, “Sua Culpa”, in Doing and Deserving: Essays in the Theory of Responsibility, Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp. 187–221.
Fischer, John Martin and Mark Ravizza, 1998, Responsibility and Control: A Theory of Moral Responsibility, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Frankfurt, Harry G., 1978, “The Problem of Action”, American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 157–162.
Frankfurt, Harry G., 1969, “Alternate Possibilities and Moral Responsibility”, The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 66, no. 23, pp. 829–839.
Franklin, Christopher Evan, 2018, A Minimal Libertarianism: Free Will and the Promise of Reduction, Oxford University Press, New York.
Goldman, Alvin I., 1999, “Why Citizens Should Vote: A Causal Responsibility Approach”, Social Philosophy and Policy, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 201–217.
Griffith, Meghan, 2017, “Agent Causation”, in Kevin Timpe, Meghan Griffith, and Neil Levy (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Free Will, Routledge, London and New York.
Jaster, Romy, 2022, “The Ability to Do Otherwise and the New Dispositionalism”, Inquiry, vol. 65, no. 9, pp. 1149–1166.
Kaiserman, Alex, 2024, “Responsibility and Causation”, in Maximilian Kiener (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Responsibility, Routledge, New York, pp. 164–176.
Kaiserman, Alex, 2021, “Reasons-Sensitivity and Degrees of Free Will”, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 103, no. 3, pp. 687–709.
Kane, Robert, 1996, The Significance of Free Will, Oxford University Press, New York.
Kelley, Mikayla, 2024, “How to Perform a Nonbasic Action”, Noûs, vol. 58, no. 1, pp. 106–125.
Kelley, Mikayla, (forthcoming), “A Control Theory of Action”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Khoury, Andrew C., 2018, “The Objects of Moral Responsibility”, Philosophical Studies, vol. 175, no. 6, pp. 1357–1381.
Law, Andrew, 2022, “What does Indeterminism Offer to Agency?”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 100, no. 2, pp. 371–385.
Lee, Samuel, 2022, “Collective Actions, Individual Reasons, and the Metaphysics of Consequence”, Ethics, vol. 133, no. 1, pp. 72–105.
Lewis, David, 1973, “Causation”, The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 70, no. 17, pp. 556–567.
McKenna, Michael, 2013, “Reasons-Responsiveness, Agents and Mechanisms”, in David Shoemaker (ed.), Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility, vol. 1, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 151–183.
Mele, Alfred, 2017, Aspects of Agency: Decisions, Abilities, Explanations, and Free Will, Oxford University Press, New York.
Metz, Joseph, (forthcoming), “Causalism and the Grounds of Agency”, Analysis.
Nefsky, Julia, 2019, “Collective Harm and the Inefficacy Problem”, Philosophy Compass, vol. 14, no. 4, e12587.
Nefsky, Julia, 2017, “How You Can Help, Without Making a Difference”, Philosophical Studies, vol. 174, no. 11, pp. 2743–2767.
Nelkin, Dana Kay, 2025, “Moral Luck”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2025 Edition), E. Zalta and U. Nodelman (eds.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2025/entries/moral-luck/
Nelkin, Dana Kay, 2016, “Difficulty and Degrees of Moral Praiseworthiness and Blameworthiness”, Noûs, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 356–378.
O’Connor, Timothy, 2000, Persons and Causes: The Metaphysics of Free Will, Oxford University Press, New York.
Palmer, David, 2021, “Free Will and Control: A Noncausal Approach”, Synthese, vol. 198, no. 10, pp. 10043–10062.
Parfit, Derek, 1984, Reasons and Persons, Clarendon Press, Oxford.
Sartorio, Carolina, 2023, Causalism: Unifying Action and Free Action, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Sartorio, Carolina, 2022, “The Grounds of our Freedom”, Inquiry, vol. 65, no. 10, pp. 1250–1268.
Sartorio, Carolina, 2016, Causation and Free Will, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Sartorio, Carolina, (forthcoming a), “The Structure of Outcome Responsibility”, in Mattias Gunnemyr, Rutger van Oeveren, and Jan Willem Wieland (ed.), The Ethics of Inefficacy, Routledge.
Sartorio, Carolina, (forthcoming b), “Responsibility, Causation, and the Cart-Horse Metaphor”, in Christopher Lumer (ed.), Retrospective Responsibility–Function and Conditions, Springer.
Sartorio, Carolina, (forthcoming c), “Replies to Critics”, Analysis.
Sartorio, Carolina, (Ms), “Basic and Non-Basic Responsibility: Against Unification”.
Schaffer, Jonathan, 2003, “Overdetermining Causes”, Philosophical Studies, vol. 114, no. 1–2, pp. 23–45.
Sehon, Scott, 2016, Free Will and Action Explanation: A Non-Causal, Compatibilist Account, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Smith, Holly, 1983, “Culpable Ignorance”, The Philosophical Review, vol. 92, no. 4, pp. 543–571.
Tierney, Hannah, 2023, “The Future of the Causal Quest”, in Joseph Campbell, Kristin M. Mickelson, and V. Alan White (eds.), A Companion to Free Will, Blackwell, Hoboken, New Jersey.
Tierney, Hannah, 2019, “Quality of Reasons and Degrees of Moral Responsibility”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 97, no. 4, pp. 661–672.
Tuck, Richard, 2008, Free Riding, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass.
Van Inwagen, Peter, 1983, An Essay on Free Will, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Vetter, Barbara, 2019, “Are Abilities Dispositions?”, Synthese, vol. 196, no. 196, pp. 201–220.
Vetter, Barbara and Romy Jaster, 2017, “Dispositional Accounts of Abilities”, Philosophy Compass, vol. 12, no. 8, e12432.
Vihvelin, Kadri, 2013, Causes, Laws, and Free Will: Why Determinism Doesn’t Matter, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Wallace, Robert H., 2023, “A Dilemma for Reductive Compatibilism”, Erkenntnis, vol. 88, no. 7, pp. 2763–2785.
Whittle, Ann, 2010, “Dispositional Abilities”,Philosophers’ Imprint, vol. 10, pp. 1–23.
Wilson, George M., 1989, The Intentionality of Human Action, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Zimmerman, Michael J., 1985, “Sharing Responsibility”, American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 115–122.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Crítica, Revista Hispanoamericana de Filosofía by Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is licensed under a Creative Commons Reconocimiento-NoComercial-SinObraDerivada 4.0 Internacional License.
Creado a partir de la obra en http://critica.filosoficas.unam.mx/index.php/critica.