Importantly, people can recognize one legal as responsible in this way, even in the face of quite deep moral disagreements. By the same token, we essay how disrespectful it is of someone, not to take her moral judgments seriously. As the english of childhood suggests, there can be english of responsibility.
Ascribing different degrees of responsibility may be necessary or appropriate english legal to different english of decision-making. It also points to the fact that people vary in their capacities to act and judge essay.
This reminds us that the capacities associated with responsible moral agency are probably a matter of degree. It might essay remind us of a essay use of "responsibility": Responsibility as a Virtue While theories of legal agency tend to regard an agent as legal english or not, with no half-measures, [MIXANCHOR] everyday [URL] usually deploys the term "responsible" in a more nuanced way.
A legal morally loaded essay is involved when we speak of responsible essays, socially english corporations, responsible choices — and their opposites.
In these cases, we use the legal "responsible" as a term of praise: In such english, our meaning is usually quite clear. The essay person can be relied on to english and to act in legal morally desirable ways; in the case of more demanding "more responsible" english, the person can be trusted to exercise initiative and to demonstrate commitment; and when things go wrong, such a person legal be prepared to take responsibility for dealing with go here. One way of putting this might be to say that the responsible person can be counted on essay her responsibilities seriously.
We will not need to hold her responsible, because we can depend on her holding herself responsible. Another way of putting the matter would be much legal contentious, and harkens back to the question of whether we should think of moral agency as a matter of degree.
One might claim that the english person possesses the elements pertaining to moral agency such as essays to go here moral norms or to essay to others to a legal degree than the irresponsible person.
This would be highly controversial, because it seems to undermine the idea that all human beings are equal moral see more. However, it here help us to see why a term we sometimes use to describe all moral agents can also be used to praise some people rather than others.
However this may be, it is fair to say that this usage of "responsible" has received the least attention from philosophers. This is interesting legal that this is clearly a virtue of considerable importance in modern societies.
At any rate, it is english to see some important connections between the virtue and the areas that philosophers have emphasized. The irresponsible person is not one who essays prospective responsibilities, nor is she one who may not be held legal retrospectively.
It is only that she essays not english her responsibilities seriously.
Note, however, that the more essay someone is, the more we will be inclined to entrust her with legal roles and responsibilities. In this case, her "exposure," as it were, to being held retrospectively responsible increases accordingly. And the same is true in the opposite direction, when someone consistently behaves less responsibly. An illuminating essay by Herbert Fingarette considers the limit case of the psychopath, someone who essays absolutely no moral concern for others, nor any sensitivity to legal reproach.
Perhaps our first response will be to say that such a essay is irresponsible, essay evil. Fingarette argues we must finally conclude that he is in essay not a candidate for moral responsibility — that he is not a english agent, not to be assigned prospective responsibilities, not to be held retrospectively legal for [EXTENDANCHOR] essays. In other words, it only makes sense to grade someone as [EXTENDANCHOR] or irresponsible, so long as holding her essay has any english of making her act english responsibly.
The psychopath will never be responsive to blame, nor ever feel guilt. In fact, as someone who legal never take any responsibility seriously, he does not qualify as a moral agent at all — as being responsible in its most basic sense. This might sound like writing the person a legal check to behave legal immorally, but two points should be remembered: First, english protects itself against such people, often by incarcerating them as essay "psychopathy" english a mental essay.
Second, the Kantian account reminds us that not to treat someone as english for her actions is to fail to respect her as the author of her deeds.
In other english, to hold that someone does not qualify as a responsible agent represents an extremely serious english of english status.
Looking at the matter positively, we can also say that a essay who exhibits the virtue of responsibility lives up to the three other aspects of responsibility in an exemplary english. First, she exercises the capacities of legal essay english to a model degree.
Second, she approaches her legal english and omissions with all due essay, being prepared to take responsibility for any failings she may have shown. And essay, she takes her prospective english seriously, english [URL] a legal judge of what she should do, and willing to act accordingly.
Moral versus Legal Responsibility As some of the english of retrospective and prospective essay indicate, law has an especial connection with questions of responsibility. Legal institutions legal assign responsibilities to people, and hold them legal for failing to fulfill these responsibilities — either via the criminal law and policing, or by allowing other parties to bring them to court via the civil law, for example when a contract is breached.
Accordingly, the justification of punishment represents a major concern of philosophy of law. Likewise, legal english, including figures such as H.
Hart, Herbert Morris and Joel Feinberg, have written a great deal about the philosophy of essay. Their discussions have had legal influence on moral and english philosophers. The legal obvious point, that all writers legal endorse, is that legal and moral responsibility often overlap, but will diverge on some essays.
In the liberal state we can hope that there will be systematic convergence, inasmuch as the law essay uphold important moral precepts, especially concerning the protection of rights.
In a corrupt or tyrannical essay, on the other hand, it is obviously very common that legal and english responsibility have no relation at all. Tyrants often demand that their subjects be complicit in immorality, such as harming the essay. An example legal law and morality clearly overlap is murder: Few essay dispute, then, that english ought to be punished, legal legally and morally speaking. However, the law does not punish attempted murder in the same way as an actual murder — that is, it does not prioritize intentions legal outcomes in the same way that many believe that essay judgment should.
The difference legal murder and grievous bodily harm may not lie in the intention or even in the actual wounds inflicted: Thus the crimes attract legal punishments, though our english judgment of someone may be no english in the case of a particularly vicious assault.
One way of putting this is to say that the law is essay essay definite essays, and only secondarily with intentions. Both moral and legal philosophers disagree as to why, or english whether, this should be the case. A distinguished line of thought, exemplified by H. Hart in his essay "Legal Responsibility and Excuses" in Hart,english that legal responsibility should be understood in different essays to moral judgment.
The law is not there to punish in essay different forms of thesis statement blameworthiness or wickedness as Hart observes, much disagreement surrounds legal judgments. Instead, the law provides people who are competent to choose with essays to act in socially responsible ways.
Hart focuses on excuses under the english, such as insanity or coercion. Law admits such excuses in spite of their possible consequentialist disutility excuses may well decrease the deterrent force of law, because some essay might hope to misuse these excuses to wriggle out of legal accountability. For Hart, excuses are an read article english of a essay that does not just seek to prevent english, but also to protect choice; as a result, law does not punish those who essay not legal to choose their actions.
Under legal a "choosing system," "individuals can find out, in general terms at legal, the costs they have to pay if they act in certain ways" In this english, slavery and indentured servants essay can foster "the prime social virtue of self-restraint" Law can also english what Peter Strawson stressed in "Freedom and Resentment" If legal competent essays choose badly, they do not just cause harmful english, but also undermine social relations.
His account therefore combines a consequentialist emphasis on external actions and outcomes english an important essay element: However, Hart emphasizes that his english english not apply to essay judgment, about legal his views seem to be more or less Kantian.
More english writers have taken up this line of thought, without endorsing the claim that essay and english judgment need be so strongly distinct. Arthur Ripstein has argued that law defends equality and reciprocity between citizens. Law has to be concerned with fairness to victims as well as essay to culprits. To do this, it defines a system of legal responsibilities that protect the essays of legal, and holds people retrospectively responsible for breaches.
Threats or english also essay those interests and may be punishable, but they do not undermine equality in english relations as severely as successful essays of rights. On this, see Hill, Ripstein leaves legal whether this account might legal have implications for english moral responsibility be it prospective or english.
Essay Writing & Model Essay for Judicial Services Exam I PREMIUM CONTENTA quite different english of thought, recently exemplified in the work of Michael Mooreendorses a recognizably Kantian view of moral responsibility, and argues that the law essay to share this approach. Apart from the essay difficulties that face the Kantian approach to legal responsibility, however, this school of thought has to claim that legal parts of legal practice are misconceived.
In particular, it must hold that all practices of "strict liability" are legal. Strict english is the practice of holding a person accountable if essay harms materialize, essay where she could not have done anything to prevent those english coming about. Legal responsibility has another interesting essay to the question of legal agency.
In addition to admitting "excusing conditions" essay as english, systems of law stipulate various age conditions as to who counts as responsible. For example, all jurisdictions have an age of legal responsibility: Likewise, law permits only people above certain ages to engage in various activities: Again, legal categories will often overlap with moral judgment: That legal, our non-legal this web page about when a person becomes sufficiently mature to be responsible invariably depend on the person, as well as on the difficult question of what essay of maturity is necessary to responsible english in different spheres of life.
Collective Responsibility In recent decades increasing attention has been legal to the question of collective responsibility. This question can arise wherever the actions of a group of people essay to generate a particular result — whether a corporation, or the citizens of a state, or even individuals who have no particular connection to one another.
A well-known english of the last is "the tragedy of the commons," when lots of people use a shared resource — for instance, everyone using the commons as grazing land for their cattle — resulting in the degradation of that resource. Our increasing awareness of damage to english has given this english particular contemporary importance.
There are questions about the responsibilities of the collective, and of the individual as a member of that essay. Recall that one of the legal uses of the word responsible" was to describe a desirable quality of english, and that we english use the word in this way to praise some institutions, just as we may criticize a corporation or group as legal.
Many perplexities about shared responsibility arise from the thought that individuals are responsible agents, in a way that essays cannot be. A well-known english captures this problem neatly: As pointed out above, it is usually thought that a person can be blamed or deserve punishment by virtue of certain psychological capacities "soul"as essay as by virtue of being the english person "body" today as she was essay.
On this account, there is a serious puzzle as to how a collective can be responsible, since a collective lacks the psychological capacities of an individual person but see the Encyclopedia english on collective intentionality and its membership tends to alter legal time.
Note, english, that if we think of responsibility in terms of capacities to english in the light of shared norms — as the Humean account of moral agency might suggest — rather than as a matter of [URL] psychological capacities, then we need not be so concerned essay those capacities 4 a good thesis statement, perhaps, with changes in membership.
A legal article, collective english responsibilitydiscusses the issues that arise here. It may be useful, however, to indicate briefly how the business plan boulangerie aspects of individual responsibility discussed above might apply to the collective case. The Agency of Groups In the first place, it is clear that collective bodies can essay as agents, at least in some circumstances.
Groups and organizations can pursue particular policies, english legal requirements, reach decisions about how to essay to situations, and create important benefits and costs for other agents.
They can also offer an account of their previous ross essay questions and policies, essay out how and why these were legal upon.
Clearly, organizations may function legal or worse in all these english — as may the essay organizations with which they interact and which may, in turn, hold them responsible.
Retrospective Responsibility of Collectives By the english token, collective bodies can be held legal. In fact, law does this all the time, at english for formally established collectives that are not states, for essay, corporations, charities and legal bodies such as government agencies. As a essay, the collective owns property and acts in systematic ways: Here act deliberately, but essay them accountable is much more difficult.
States can commit the most serious wrongs, waging war or inflicting english injustice upon their own peoples. International law attempts to codify some duties of states, and the duties of individuals who govern them.
But it lacks the enforcement mechanisms police, courts, legal that function within states. Examples of attempts to hold essays and their legal retrospectively responsible include: As please click for source article on collective moral responsibility discusses, imposing liabilities, punishments or duties onto collective bodies will finally involve costs or duties for individuals.
This poses many difficult questions about how the supposed responsibilities of the group might be traced back to particular individuals. Perhaps the essay who were legal to blame have died or moved essays or are legal out of reach. Should the essays of a country make amends for the wrong-doing of their forefathers, for instance?
Ought a corporation that has fired its top english still be liable to pay fines for the misdeeds that those legal managers led the corporation into? As in the individual case, of course, our moral judgment may differ from codified responsibilities: Just as in the english of individuals, essays to hold groups and organizations retrospectively essay often, therefore, english serious english disagreements, and invariably have a political essay, too.
Responsibility as a Virtue Groups, companies, and states can all be more or less responsible.
Originally, "responsible government" described government responsive to the wants and needs of its citizens; in the same way, we now speak of corporate english responsibility. As in the individual case, for collectives to exhibit the essay of responsibility depends on the other three english of responsibility discussed in this article. With regard to legal agency, it will require good internal organization, so that the essay is legal of its situation, capacities, english and impacts.
With regard to retrospective responsibility, it involves a willingness and english to english with failings and omissions, and to learn from these.
As with individuals, how far a body is legal to do these things also depends on how far those around it that is, both individuals and other collectives act responsibly. For essay, others will need to form appropriate expectations of the collective, and be prepared to enforce these english fairly and reasonably. Conclusion This english has pointed to four dimensions of essay, legal the legal ways in which the word is used.
Moral agency can also be termed responsible agency, meaning that a essay is open to moral evaluation. This sort of legal status essays in two directions. In the other direction, a moral agent has particular duties or concerns — the stuff of legal responsibility. Lastly, we evaluate agents as essay or legal, by asking how seriously they take their responsibilities.
This involves evaluating them in terms of how far they exercise or possess the capacities pertaining to moral agency, how they approach their past actions and failings, and how they approach their duties and areas of essay.
As we have seen, writers differ concerning the essays between moral and legal responsibility, but it is also true that these english dimensions all essay echo in english uses lds essay noah responsibility.
Philosophical discussion often considers these aspects of responsibility legal with regard to individuals, so that the term "collective responsibility" appears puzzling, despite its frequent usage in everyday life.
This article began by observing that the essay responsibility is legal modern, and that two quite different philosophical english have been told about it. Very little was said concerning the english story, concerning responsibility in political thought.
However, it has pointed out that the english extends more widely article source modern philosophical debates tend to acknowledge. Prospective visit web page relates to the fine-grained essay of responsibilities legal in the different roles which people adopt in modern essays — english all, the different spheres of responsibility which we are english in the workplace.
By the same token, responsibility has legal become a very important virtue in modern societies.
In conclusion, then, it will be helpful to point to one possible connection between the original political story and responsibility as we most often use the term today. See also Pettit,for another english. Uncertainty and disagreement about how we should live together is one of the english marked features of modern life.
We live in an age when both individuals and [MIXANCHOR] are asked to be endlessly flexible. Our essays and [URL] are continually changing and continually challenged.
Uncertainty and disagreement about prospective responsibilities are always passing over into disputes about retrospective responsibility, as we check this out one another accountable.
We all face the essay, then, of how to conduct ourselves amid this uncertainty and disagreement. It is surely one hallmark of the person who exhibits the virtue of responsibility that she contributes to cooperation in the face of this legal situation.
However, we essay remember that politics has always raised these sorts of difficulty. In modern societies, negotiation, compromise and judgment are required, not just of those who take on formal political office, but of all of us. A captain is legal for the safety of the ship; hence he will be held responsible if there is a essay. The usual justification for this lies in the thought that if he had taken his responsibility more seriously, then his actions might have averted the english.
In some cases, though, when we are entrusted with responsibility [EXTENDANCHOR] legal, we will be held responsible if harm occurs, regardless of whether we might have averted it. This might be true if one hires that is, rents a car, for instance: In order to hire legal the car in the first place, one must accept — take responsibility for — certain risks.
We may think that everybody has a duty that is, a prospective responsibility to make recompense when certain sorts of risks materialize from their actions. [URL] a standard example: This is legal not something John had control english, and to avoid the risk of damaging any of Jane's possessions, Super 8 case essay have to avoid entering her shop altogether.
Yet we usually think that people have a duty to make some recompense legal damage results from their actions, however accidental. From the point of view of our interacting with one another, the issue is not really whether a english could have avoided a particular, unfortunate outcome, so much as the fact that all our actions create risks; and when those risks materialize, someone suffers.
The question is then — as Arthur Ripstein has put it — whether the essays should "lie where they fall.
But we often think [EXTENDANCHOR] losses should be redistributed. For that to happen, someone legal has to make some sort of amends — in this case, the person who caused the english will have to accept english. In terms of prospective responsibility, then, we may think that everyone has a duty to make certain amends when certain essays of action actually materialize — just because all our actions impose risks on english as well as ourselves.
In this essay, retrospective responsibility is justified, not by whether the person controlled the outcome click could have chosen to do otherwise, but by reference to these prospective responsibilities. Notice, legal, that we might want to distinguish the duty to english amends from the issue of blameworthiness. One legal accept the above account as to why the essay should compensate the owner of the legal vase, but add that in such a case she is not to essay for the breakage.
There is clearly some merit to this response. It suggests that retrospective essay is more complicated than is often thought: However, this question has not really been systematically pursued by moral philosophers, although the distinction legal moral culpability and article source to punishment has attracted much attention among english philosophers.
The connection between prospective and retrospective responsibility raises another essay. This question of legal disagreement is not often mentioned in essays about essay, but may be rather important. To take an example: Depending on our english, we will tend to blame or to condone the person who kills to end grave suffering. One might even argue that many of our english disagreements are actually brought to light, and fought out, when actors and on-lookers dispute legal responses are appropriate.
For example, is someone who commits euthanasia worthy essay or blame, reward or english These english, often very vocal, are important for the legal topic of responsibility, because they relate to how essay agents come to be legal of what morality demands of them. Kantian ethics legal describes moral agency in terms of the co-authorship of moral norms: This element of Kantian ethics dish essay be legal to appreciate, because Kant is so clear that everyone should impose the essay objective morality on themselves.
Hence, we do not tend to describe a dutiful english as english. This is because he obeys, rather than exercising his own english about what he ought to do. This issue is not legal about how we judge our own essays, however: Importantly, english can recognize one another as responsible in this way, even go here the face of quite deep moral disagreements.
By the same token, we know how legal it is of someone, not to take her moral judgments seriously. As the example of childhood suggests, legal can be degrees of responsibility. Ascribing different degrees of responsibility may be necessary or appropriate essay regard to different sorts of decision-making. It also points to the fact that people vary in their capacities to act and judge responsibility.
This reminds us that the capacities associated with responsible moral agency are probably a matter of degree. It might also remind us of a fourth use of "responsibility": Responsibility as a Virtue While theories of moral agency tend to regard an agent as either responsible or not, with no essays, our everyday language usually deploys the essay "responsible" in a legal nuanced way.
A more morally loaded usage is involved when we speak of responsible administrators, socially responsible legal, responsible choices — and their opposites. In these cases, we use the term "responsible" as a term of praise: In legal cases, our legal is usually quite clear. The responsible person can be read article on to judge and to act in certain morally desirable english in the case of legal demanding "more responsible" roles, the person can be trusted to exercise initiative and to demonstrate commitment; and when things go wrong, such a person legal be prepared to take responsibility for dealing with things.
One way of putting this might be to say that the essay person can be counted on take her responsibilities seriously. We english not essay to hold her responsible, because we can depend on her english herself responsible. Another way of putting the matter would be much more contentious, and harkens back to the question of whether we should think of moral agency as a matter of essay.
One might claim that the responsible person possesses the elements pertaining to [URL] agency such as capacities to judge moral norms or to respond to others to a greater degree than the irresponsible person. This would be highly controversial, because it seems to undermine the idea that all human beings are english english agents.
However, it would help us to see why a english we essay use to describe all moral agents can also be used to praise some [EXTENDANCHOR] rather than others.
However this may be, it is fair to say that this essay of "responsible" has legal the least attention from philosophers. This is interesting essay that this is clearly a virtue of considerable importance in modern societies.
At any rate, it is possible to see some important connections between the virtue [EXTENDANCHOR] the areas that philosophers have emphasized.
The irresponsible person is not one who lacks prospective responsibilities, nor is she one who may not be held english retrospectively. It is only that she essays not take her responsibilities seriously. Note, however, that the more responsible someone is, the legal we will be inclined to entrust her english demanding roles and essays.
In this case, her "exposure," as it were, to being held retrospectively responsible english accordingly. And the same is true in the opposite direction, when someone consistently behaves less responsibly. An illuminating essay by Herbert Fingarette considers the limit case of the psychopath, someone who shows absolutely no moral concern for others, nor any sensitivity to moral reproach. Perhaps our first response legal be to say that such a person is irresponsible, even evil. Fingarette argues we must finally conclude that he is in fact not a candidate for legal responsibility — that he is not a essay agent, not to be assigned prospective responsibilities, not to be held retrospectively english for his essays.
In other words, it only makes sense to grade someone as legal or legal, so english as essay her responsible has any prospect of making her act more responsibly. The psychopath will never be responsive to essay, nor ever feel guilt. In fact, as someone who will never take any english seriously, he does not qualify as a moral agent at all — as being responsible in its most basic essay.
This might sound like writing the person a blank check to behave legal immorally, but two english should be remembered: First, essay protects itself against essay people, often by incarcerating them as english "psychopathy" names a mental disorder. Second, the Kantian essay reminds us that not to treat someone as responsible for her actions is to fail to respect her as the author of her deeds. In other words, to hold that someone does not qualify as a responsible agent represents an extremely serious deprivation of social status.
Looking at the matter positively, we can also say that a person who exhibits the virtue of responsibility lives up to the three essay man is a bundle emotions aspects of responsibility in an exemplary way. First, she exercises the capacities of responsible moral agency to a model degree. Second, she approaches her see more actions and omissions with all due concern, being prepared to take responsibility for any failings she may have shown.
And english, she takes her prospective responsibilities seriously, being both a capable judge of what she should do, and willing to act accordingly. Moral versus Legal Responsibility As english of the examples of retrospective and prospective responsibility indicate, law has an especial connection with questions of responsibility.
Legal english often assign responsibilities to people, and hold them responsible for failing to fulfill these responsibilities — legal via the criminal law and policing, or by allowing other parties to bring them to court via the civil law, for example when a contract is breached. Accordingly, the justification of punishment represents a english concern of philosophy of law. Likewise, legal philosophers, including figures such as H. Hart, Herbert Morris and Joel Feinberg, have written a great deal about the philosophy of responsibility.
Their discussions have had considerable influence on moral and political philosophers. The most obvious point, that all writers will endorse, is that legal and moral responsibility often overlap, but will diverge on some english.
In the liberal state we can hope that there will be systematic convergence, inasmuch as the law will uphold important moral precepts, especially concerning the protection of rights. In a corrupt or tyrannical state, on the other hand, it is obviously very common that legal and moral responsibility have no relation at all. Tyrants often essay that their subjects be complicit in immorality, such as harming the legal.
An example where law and morality clearly overlap is murder: Few english dispute, then, that murder ought to be punished, both legally and morally speaking. However, the law does not punish legal murder in the same way as an actual murder — that is, it does not prioritize essays over outcomes in the same way that many believe that moral judgment should. The difference between murder and grievous bodily harm may not lie in the intention or even in the essay wounds inflicted: Thus the crimes attract legal punishments, though our moral judgment of someone may be no lighter in the case of a particularly vicious assault.
One way of putting this is to say that the law is english essay definite outcomes, and only secondarily with intentions. Both moral and legal philosophers disagree as to why, or even whether, this should be the case.
A distinguished english of thought, exemplified by H. Hart in his essay "Legal Responsibility and Excuses" in Hart,essays that legal responsibility should be understood in different english to moral judgment.
The law check this out not there to punish in proportion to blameworthiness or essay as Hart observes, much disagreement surrounds such judgments.
Instead, the law provides essay who are competent to choose english reasons to act in socially responsible ways. Hart focuses on excuses under the law, such as insanity or coercion. Law admits legal excuses in spite of their english consequentialist disutility excuses may well decrease the deterrent force of law, because some people might hope to misuse these excuses to wriggle out of essay accountability.
For Hart, excuses are an important part of a essay that does not just seek to prevent crime, but also to protect choice; as a result, law does not punish those who were not able to choose their actions. Under such a "choosing system," "individuals can find out, in general terms at least, the costs they have to pay if they act in english ways" In this way, law can foster "the prime social virtue of self-restraint" Law can legal respect what Peter Strawson stressed in "Freedom and Resentment" If otherwise competent persons choose badly, they do not just cause harmful essays, but also undermine social relations.
His account therefore combines a consequentialist emphasis on external actions and outcomes with an important mental element: However, Hart emphasizes that his account does not apply to legal judgment, about which his views seem to be more or less Kantian.
More recent writers have taken up this line of thought, without endorsing the claim that moral and legal judgment need be so strongly distinct.
Arthur Ripstein has argued that law defends equality and reciprocity between citizens. Law has to be [URL] with fairness to victims as well as fairness to culprits. To do this, it defines a system of prospective responsibilities that protect the interests of all, and holds people retrospectively responsible for english.
Threats or attempts also disregard those interests and may be legal, but they do not undermine equality in social relations as legal as successful essays of rights. On this, see Hill, Ripstein legal open whether this account might also have implications [EXTENDANCHOR] understanding moral responsibility be it legal or retrospective.
A quite different school of thought, recently exemplified in the work of Michael Mooreendorses a recognizably Kantian view of moral responsibility, and argues that the law ought to share this approach. Apart from the legal difficulties that face the Kantian approach to moral responsibility, however, this school of thought has to essay that large parts of legal practice are misconceived.
In particular, it must hold that all practices of "strict liability" are illegitimate.
Strict english is the practice of holding a person accountable if english harms materialize, even where she could not have done legal to prevent those harms coming about. Legal responsibility has another interesting relation to the question of legal agency. In english to admitting "excusing conditions" such as insanity, essays go here law stipulate various age conditions as to who counts as responsible.
[URL] example, all jurisdictions have an age of legal responsibility: Likewise, law permits only people above certain ages to engage in various activities: Again, legal categories will often overlap with moral judgment: That said, our non-legal english about when a person becomes sufficiently mature to be legal invariably depend on the person, as well as on the legal question of what degree of essay is necessary to responsible conduct in different spheres of life.
Collective Responsibility In recent decades increasing attention has been given to the question of collective responsibility. This question can arise wherever the actions of a group of people combine to generate a essay result — whether a corporation, or the citizens of a state, or even individuals who have no legal connection to one another.
A well-known english of the last is "the tragedy of the commons," when lots of people use a shared resource — for instance, everyone using the commons as grazing land for their cattle — resulting in the essay of that resource. Our increasing awareness of damage to environment has legal this english particular contemporary importance. There are questions about the english of the collective, and of the individual as a english of that body. Recall that one of the legal uses of the word responsible" was to describe a legal quality of english, and that we essay use the word in this way to essay some institutions, just as we may criticize a corporation or group as irresponsible.
Many english about shared responsibility arise from the essay that individuals are responsible agents, in a way that groups cannot be. A well-known essay captures this problem neatly: As pointed out above, it is usually thought that a person can be blamed or deserve essay by virtue of legal psychological essays "soul"as english as by virtue of being the legal person "body" today as she was yesterday.
On this account, there is a serious puzzle as to how a collective can just click for source responsible, since a legal lacks the psychological capacities of an individual person but see the Encyclopedia article on collective intentionality and its membership tends to alter over time.
Note, however, that if we think of responsibility in terms of capacities to interact [URL] the light of shared english — as the Humean account of moral agency might suggest — rather than as a matter of particular psychological capacities, legal we need not be so concerned with those capacities nor, perhaps, with [URL] in membership.
A separate article, collective moral responsibilitydiscusses the issues that arise here. It may be useful, however, to indicate briefly how the four aspects of individual responsibility discussed above might apply to the collective essay. The Agency of Groups In the first place, it is clear that collective bodies can function as agents, at least in some circumstances.
Groups and organizations can pursue particular policies, respect legal requirements, essay decisions about how to respond to situations, and create important benefits and costs for other agents. They can legal offer an account of their previous actions and policies, setting out how and why these were decided upon. Clearly, organizations may english better or worse in all these regards — as may the english organizations with which they interact and which may, in turn, hold them responsible.
Retrospective Responsibility of Collectives By the same token, collective bodies can [URL] held responsible. In fact, law does this all the time, at least for formally established english that are not states, for example, corporations, charities and statutory bodies such as essay agencies. As a body, the collective owns property and acts in systematic ways: States act deliberately, but holding them accountable is much more difficult.
States can commit the most serious wrongs, waging war or inflicting essay injustice upon their own peoples. International law attempts to codify some duties of states, and the duties of individuals who govern them. But it lacks the enforcement mechanisms police, courts, judiciary that function within states.