Dr Anneli Jefferson

Children provide an interesting borderline case for theories of moral responsibility, because very young children are generally considered exempt from responsibility and older children not yet fully responsible. This poses a prima facie challenge for influenceability accounts of responsible agency, which claim that the key ingredient to responsible agency is the propensity to be morally influenced by being held responsible (McGeer 2019, Jefferson 2019). If influenceability is what matters, shouldn’t young children be more responsible than adults, as they are very susceptible to moral and other influences because they are still developing? In my talk, I address this challenge.