Moral Responsibility: Some Basic Terms Defined

Moral responsibility is responsibility for your actions such that you can be held morally accountable. The question of whether you are morally responsible is a question of whether your actions can be judged as morally good or bad.

Questions about moral responsibility often hinge on questions about free will and determinism.

TWO DOCTRINES ABOUT FREE WILL

Determinism: A person’s actions are determined (caused by) external forces.

Existentialism: A person chooses how to act and who to be. Objects may be determined by external factors, but people determine themselves.

TWO DOCTRINES ABOUT MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND FREE WILL

Compatibalism: Determinism and moral responsibility are compatible. You do not need to be the cause of all your choices and actions in order to be responsible for them

Incompatibalism: Determinism and moral responsibility are incompatible. You must be the cause of your own choices and actions in order to be responsible for them.

***Just because you are an incompatibalist does not mean you think that moral responsibility is impossible. But if you are an incompatibalist AND you think determinism is true, then you must deny the existence of moral responsibility.