Dr Margaret Shea

Event details

Moral Responsibility for Moral Requirements

It is widely held that acts must be wrong to be blameworthy. But sometimes an agent’s culpable conduct explains why she is morally required to do something. In such cases, I argue, she may be blameworthy for the required act she performs – even though it is not wrong. On my view, an act is blameworthy only if it is wrong or would have been wrong absent the agent’s performance of another blameworthy act. This thesis has a number of interesting implications. In addition to shedding light on the conditions of ‘lesser-evil’ justifications and suggesting an attractive thesis about praiseworthiness, it also preempts a natural objection to ‘perspectivism’ – roughly, the view that what an agent ought to do depends on what evidence is available to her.