The 'intelligent' Capacitarian approach to responsible agency

Abstract

On a standard compatibilist view of moral responsibility, agents are fit to be held responsible so far as they have a capacity for responding to moral reasons-that is, they have a capacity to understand and be motivated by such reasons. This chapter endorses this basic picture but resists one straightforward way of vindicating its naturalistic bona fides-viz., by modelling agential capacities on the dispositional properties of (non-agential) objects. While this 'dispositionalist' approach is naturalistically attractive, it encounters a fatal normative objection and so fails to provide a fully adequate account of responsible agency. An alternative is proposed by way of emphasizing the distinctive nature of 'intelligent' capacities. Such capacities are inherently dynamic features of agents, requiring feedback and reinforcement from the environment to develop and sustain. The capacity for responding to moral reasons is one such capacity. Notably, by the argument of this chapter, it is a capacity developed and sustained through feedback from other agents delivered in the guise of reactive attitudes and practices. These insights are sufficient, so the chapter concludes, to find the 'intelligent' capacitarian view both naturalistically attractive and normatively satisfying.