An essay on moral responsibility

Product Description


This superbly crafted account of the notion of moral responsibility and of its relations to freedom, control, ignorance, negligence, attempts, omissions, compulsion, mental disorders, virtues and vices, desert, and punishment fills that gap. The treatment of character and luck is particularly sophisticated and well-argued.


From Library Journal


Without assuming that anyone ever is morally responsible for anything, Zimmerman analyzes the nature of the conditions for ascribing moral responsibility. He distinguishes (a) appraisability or deservingness of an inward judgment such as praise or blame from liability or deservingness of treatment such as (public) commendation or censure; and (b) culpability or freely willing an event in the belief that one would thereby do wrong from wrongdoing or not doing the objective best. These and numerous other distinctions provide a detailed and extensive account of such concepts as ignorance, negligence, omission, compulsion, excuse, desert, and so forth. A carefully argued book, clearly illustrated by concrete example. Robert Hoffman, York Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Review


The argumentation is clear and of consistently high quality, and a lot of ground is covered very efficiently....This is a book which needed to be written and which deserves to be widely read. (
The Philosophical Review)


About the Author


Michael Zimmerman is an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.