Historical Moral Responsibility: Is the Infinite Regress Problem Fatal?

Some compatibilists have responded to the manipulation argument for incompatibilism by proposing an historical theory of moral responsibility which, according to one version, requires that agents be morally responsible for having their pro‐attitudes if they are to be morally responsible for acting o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPacific philosophical quarterly Vol. 98; no. 4; pp. 533 - 554
Main Author Barnes, Eric Christian
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.12.2017
Subjects
Historical analysis
Knowledge
Libertarianism
Morality
Philosophy
Regression analysis
Responsibilities
Social responsibility
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Summary:Some compatibilists have responded to the manipulation argument for incompatibilism by proposing an historical theory of moral responsibility which, according to one version, requires that agents be morally responsible for having their pro‐attitudes if they are to be morally responsible for acting on them. This proposal, however, leads obviously to an infinite regress problem. I consider a proposal by Haji and Cuypers that addresses this problem and argue that it is unsatisfactory. I then go on to propose a new solution inspired by the libertarian theory of Robert Kane.
ISSN:0279-0750
1468-0114
DOI:10.1111/papq.12139