Moral responsibility

Moral responsibility is the status of being appropriately accountable for an action or its consequences. It is commonly linked to an agent’s freedom, understanding, and capacity to respond to moral reasons.

Free will: The capacity or condition of acting in ways that are not wholly determined by prior causes or external constraints. Whether agents have the control responsibility appears to require is a central dispute about free will.
Compatibilism: The view that free will and moral responsibility can coexist with determinism. Compatibilists preserve responsibility even if every action has sufficient prior causes.
Blame: A negative moral response that treats someone as answerable for a perceived wrong. Blame is a common response to responsibility, but responsibility need not always result in blame.
Criminal responsibility: Legal liability for a crime based on the defendant’s conduct and legally relevant mental state. Criminal law turns questions about agency and culpability into standards for legal liability.
Moral agency: The capacity to understand moral considerations and act on them. Responsibility generally presupposes the capacities that make someone a moral agent.
Incompatibilism: The view that determinism and free will cannot both be true. Incompatibilists deny that ordinary responsibility survives a fully deterministic world.
Desert: The condition of meriting a response or treatment because of one’s actions or qualities. Desert explains why responsibility may ground praise, blame, or punishment.
Punishment: The intentional imposition of a burden or deprivation in response to an offense. Whether wrongdoing makes someone responsible is central to whether punishment is justified.
Intentional action: An action performed with an aim or under a description the agent understands and intends. Intentions help distinguish deliberate wrongdoing from accidental harm.
Libertarianism: The view that free will exists and is incompatible with determinism. Libertarian accounts seek the freedom needed for responsibility without accepting determinism.

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