Philosophy Now Forum

I am puzzled that so many writers assume – usually with no attempt at justification – that moral responsibility has something to do with determinism, or more specifically with being an “ultimate cause”. What makes this puzzling is that it seems to be almost universally accepted in common usage that the possibility of being morally responsible is confined to conscious beings. An earthquake, for example, may be “responsible” (in another sense) for much suffering, but (aside from animism) the earth is never held responsible in a moral sense. So a sound theory of moral responsibility has to be founded on the role of consciousness.

How would that work? Firstly, let us clear up an obvious source of confusion here, because “responsibility” is used in two different senses, a binary (yes/no) sense and a sense that is a matter of degree. For convenience I will confine the term “responsibility” to the former sense, and refer to the “how much?” sense as "culpability" (or “praiseworthiness” as the case may be). The courts have long distinguished between the verdict and the sentence, so philosophers should have no problem distinguishing the fact of responsibility for a bad act, from the degree of culpability for it. A person may be clearly responsible for an act but with such strong mitigating circumstances that they can hardly be regarded as culpable.

Initially, the fact of responsibility has to be defined in the first person, since that is where consciousness is first identified. If I am conscious of choosing an act, from among other acts that would be possible given that I chose them, then I have a relationship to that act, and that is the relationship that we call “responsibility”. So networks of causes do not have to be traced back any further than the point at which consciousness of this relationship entered into the process by which the act was chosen.

Once we have a concept of moral responsibility in the first-person, the third-person meaning can be derived from it, by virtue of our ability to recognize and thus to identify with consciousness in others. I hold another person responsible for an act if I believe that he chose it while conscious that he was making a choice.

So now let us briefly look at “culpability”: the fact of responsibility but with mitigation taken into account. Without going into further detail, we can acknowledge that mitigation typically stems from any of three things: lack of competence to make the choice, psychological pressures of many kinds, and genuine repentance. What is relevant here is that all of these involve consciousness. If we could read a perpetrator’s mind perfectly, there would be no need to enquire further. However, psychological identification is not the same as being psychologically identical: I can mentally step into another’s shoes, but not see life through her eyes, so to speak. Hence we have to use proxies to provide pointers to the relevant features of another person’s mind, namely the objective circumstances which gave rise to her conscious experience. Nothing in this, however, provides any grounds for metaphysical enquiries into original causation or the like.

This is necessarily an extremely compressed account of the theory I am advocating: for example, the social construction of responsibility has to be added to the picture. (Chapter 8 of my e-book “New Thoughts on Free Will” provides a more comprehensive account.)

RogerSH wrote: ↑Wed Aug 18, 2021 7:41 pm ... If I am conscious of choosing an act, from among other acts that would be possible given that I chose them, then I have a relationship to that act, and that is the relationship that we call “responsibility”.

But wait.

Is this "consciousness" accurate, or is it only what Determinists call an "epiphenomenon" of material processes? Is there any reality to what that consciousness is telling us, or is it a false consciousness, an ignis fatuus, a weird side-effect of material causaility that has no bearing on what is actually the case?

If we say that being "conscious of choosing an act," would have to prove first that it was not merely consciousness of a falsehood.

So networks of causes do not have to be traced back any further than the point at which consciousness of this relationship entered into the process by which the act was chosen.

That would only seem to follow IF "consciousness" itself can be the actual initiator of a chain of action. If it cannot, then "consciousness" is not an actual explanation for any action, and we'd have to look again for a prior material cause.

But if we believe consciousness can initiate a chain of causes, then we are not Determinists at all. So yes, there's moral responsibilty, then; but only because we've denied Determinism first.

I hold another person responsible for an act if I believe that he chose it while conscious that he was making a choice.

Right. But if prior material circumstances actually chose it for him, so that he could not have possibly done other than exactly what he did, then he wasn't responsible at all, no matter how it might look. Rather, the true cause of his apparent "choice" was something in his biology, or behind that, something at the Big Bang, or prior to that, something else.

Needless to say, that brings in the infinite regress problem that, conclusively and with mathematical certainty, defeats the idea of strictly material causality, so all of that can't be right.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Aug 22, 2021 11:12 pm

RogerSH wrote: ↑Wed Aug 18, 2021 7:41 pm ... If I am conscious of choosing an act, from among other acts that would be possible given that I chose them, then I have a relationship to that act, and that is the relationship that we call “responsibility”.

But wait.

Is this "consciousness" accurate, or is it only what Determinists call an "epiphenomenon" of material processes? Is there any reality to what that consciousness is telling us, or is it a false consciousness, an ignis fatuus, a weird side-effect of material causaility that has no bearing on what is actually the case?

If we say that being "conscious of choosing an act," would have to prove first that it was not merely consciousness of a falsehood.

So networks of causes do not have to be traced back any further than the point at which consciousness of this relationship entered into the process by which the act was chosen.

That would only seem to follow IF "consciousness" itself can be the actual initiator of a chain of action. If it cannot, then "consciousness" is not an actual explanation for any action, and we'd have to look again for a prior material cause.

But if we believe consciousness can initiate a chain of causes, then we are not Determinists at all. So yes, there's moral responsibilty, then; but only because we've denied Determinism first.

I hold another person responsible for an act if I believe that he chose it while conscious that he was making a choice.

Right. But if prior material circumstances actually chose it for him, so that he could not have possibly done other than exactly what he did, then he wasn't responsible at all, no matter how it might look. Rather, the true cause of his apparent "choice" was something in his biology, or behind that, something at the Big Bang, or prior to that, something else.

Needless to say, that brings in the infinite regress problem that, conclusively and with mathematical certainty, defeats the idea of strictly material causality, so all of that can't be right.

In this OP, I am leaving it open how consciousness is interpreted. I didn't say here that consciousness can initiate a chain of causes - that's a separate debate - and in fact the whole point is that initiating a chain of events is not what the concept of moral responsibility is about. I am saying that awareness of the relationship that we call moral responsibility can be an immediate contributory cause of how a decision is made, whether that "awareness" is a feature of some mental world or of a sort of simulation in the brain. (As it happens, I have very little sympathy for the epiphenomenon theory, which is only popular among a minority of physicalists as far as I know.)

RogerSH wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 12:42 am In this OP, I am leaving it open how consciousness is interpreted. I didn't say here that consciousness can initiate a chain of causes - that's a separate debate

Oh, I don't think so, Roger.

If a decision and action cannot be activated by "consciousness," then there's no hope for the argument that anybody is "responsible." The prior material causes are all that can be said to be the cause, and 'consciousness" doesn't actually cause anything.

(As it happens, I have very little sympathy for the epiphenomenon theory, which is only popular among a minority of physicalists as far as I know.)

Only if the majority of Physicalists refuse to admit that "mind" is even a real thing. If it is, and is not just some sort of mistaken description, then they have to resort to something like the "epiphenomenalist" dodge, or give up their Determinism.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 12:47 am

RogerSH wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 12:42 am In this OP, I am leaving it open how consciousness is interpreted. I didn't say here that consciousness can initiate a chain of causes - that's a separate debate

Oh, I don't think so, Roger.

If a decision and action cannot be activated by "consciousness," then there's no hope for the argument that anybody is "responsible." The prior material causes are all that can be said to be the cause, and 'consciousness" doesn't actually cause anything.

OK, not entirely open, just open as between dualism and monism that accepts consciousness as being as real and effective as, say, the genetic code. Actually, consciousness doesn't "cause" anything, but it does provide a set of capabilities that can be used to initiate actions.

(As it happens, I have very little sympathy for the epiphenomenon theory, which is only popular among a minority of physicalists as far as I know.)

Only if the majority of Physicalists refuse to admit that "mind" is even a real thing. If it is, and is not just some sort of mistaken description, then they have to resort to something like the "epiphenomenalist" dodge, or give up their Determinism.

If your argument was sound, 90% of the physical & biological sciences would be trading mistaken descriptions! You are confusing epiphenomena with emergent phenomena, which is what the whole of the everyday world comprises. It is not unknown for emergent phenomena to be described (and even attributed wrongly to non-material causes) long before the reductionist material explanation was discovered - like genetic inheritance, or indeed, "life" itself. The point is that one can believe that the world behaves very much as though it was a dualist world, and should be treated accordingly in ordinary human activities like morality, at the same time as expecting (based on precedent) that eventually the apparent "mental world" will be explained by material causes and will become no more than an essential metaphor. (Note I'm NOT suggesting this of consciousness itself, only of the additional "mental world" - I am writing this post, therefore I am conscious, nothing metaphorical about that.) In this topic, I'm following up some of the implications of assuming that the world behaves very much as though it was a dualist world, so dualists, once they get over over the shock of finding that not all monists are eliminative materialists, should be quite sympathetic to the analysis!

RogerSH wrote: ↑Wed Aug 18, 2021 7:41 pm I am puzzled that so many writers assume – usually with no attempt at justification – that moral responsibility has something to do with determinism, or more specifically with being an “ultimate cause”. What makes this puzzling is that it seems to be almost universally accepted in common usage that the possibility of being morally responsible is confined to conscious beings. An earthquake, for example, may be “responsible” (in another sense) for much suffering, but (aside from animism) the earth is never held responsible in a moral sense. So a sound theory of moral responsibility has to be founded on the role of consciousness.

How would that work? Firstly, let us clear up an obvious source of confusion here, because “responsibility” is used in two different senses, a binary (yes/no) sense and a sense that is a matter of degree. For convenience I will confine the term “responsibility” to the former sense, and refer to the “how much?” sense as "culpability" (or “praiseworthiness” as the case may be). The courts have long distinguished between the verdict and the sentence, so philosophers should have no problem distinguishing the fact of responsibility for a bad act, from the degree of culpability for it. A person may be clearly responsible for an act but with such strong mitigating circumstances that they can hardly be regarded as culpable.

Initially, the fact of responsibility has to be defined in the first person, since that is where consciousness is first identified. If I am conscious of choosing an act, from among other acts that would be possible given that I chose them, then I have a relationship to that act, and that is the relationship that we call “responsibility”. So networks of causes do not have to be traced back any further than the point at which consciousness of this relationship entered into the process by which the act was chosen.

Once we have a concept of moral responsibility in the first-person, the third-person meaning can be derived from it, by virtue of our ability to recognize and thus to identify with consciousness in others. I hold another person responsible for an act if I believe that he chose it while conscious that he was making a choice.

So now let us briefly look at “culpability”: the fact of responsibility but with mitigation taken into account. Without going into further detail, we can acknowledge that mitigation typically stems from any of three things: lack of competence to make the choice, psychological pressures of many kinds, and genuine repentance. What is relevant here is that all of these involve consciousness. If we could read a perpetrator’s mind perfectly, there would be no need to enquire further. However, psychological identification is not the same as being psychologically identical: I can mentally step into another’s shoes, but not see life through her eyes, so to speak. Hence we have to use proxies to provide pointers to the relevant features of another person’s mind, namely the objective circumstances which gave rise to her conscious experience. Nothing in this, however, provides any grounds for metaphysical enquiries into original causation or the like.

This is necessarily an extremely compressed account of the theory I am advocating: for example, the social construction of responsibility has to be added to the picture. (Chapter 8 of my e-book “New Thoughts on Free Will” provides a more comprehensive account.)

Your analysis is actually on the theme of freedom, of which responsibility is an important subsection. Mitigating circumstances , for a true determinist, become infinite. In practice obviously nobody can be as forgiving as God is reputed to be because He knows all the mitigating circumstances.

The man who learns from knowledge of facts along with fine judgement i.e. mitigating circumstances is more free than the man who willy- nilly reacts to circumstances. One of the tenets of a liberal democracy's ethics is to aim at enabling all individuals to know facts and know how to judge soundly. The freedom that comes with reflecting on facts before reacting to some some emotional stimulus is inevitably partnered with responsibility for choices, or should be.

If I am conscious of choosing an act, from among other acts that would be possible given that I chose them, then I have a relationship to that act, and that is the relationship that we call “responsibility”. So networks of causes do not have to be traced back any further than the point at which consciousness of this relationship entered into the process by which the act was chosen.

I disagree with voluntarism because a person is caused to be conscious of his choices and these causes are also mitigating circumstances. For instance such mitigating circumstances with regard to voluntary acts may be that the man is what we call weak -willed, maybe because he is a drug addict, or maybe he has never been taught how to make sound decisions.

Regarding original causation--I don't believe in ghosts either! Freedom is great and good and is also relative to the individual's ability to be free of stultifying causes.

RogerSH wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 5:24 pm Actually, consciousness doesn't "cause" anything, but it does provide a set of capabilities that can be used to initiate actions.

It's hard to understand how "cause" and "used to initiate actions" might be distinct, Roger. The one could be merely another way of saying the same thing, unless you mean to suggest that consciousness is a sort of inert potential. But that's not how we experience consciousness at all, is it? If consciousness were inert, there would be no "us" to "experience" anything, in fact.

One of the remarkably features of consciousness that philosophers have pointed out is what they call its "aboutness." That is, consciousness refers to things in a way that, say salt or electricity do not. Electricity is not "about" anything in particular, nor is salt. But we are always conscious "about" things, passing judments, making assessments, evaluating situations, deciding to change outcomes...all of that.

Now, material-causal things have no "aboutness." Fault lines in ice pack, plus random sound waves may cause avalanaches; but neither fault lines nor random sound waves, nor even avalanches themselves are "about" anything. They just happen, materially-causally, and without consciousness of anything.

How is that an adequate account of human consciousness? How can that even be an analogy for something so importantly distinct?

Only if the majority of Physicalists refuse to admit that "mind" is even a real thing. If it is, and is not just some sort of mistaken description, then they have to resort to something like the "epiphenomenalist" dodge, or give up their Determinism.

If your argument was sound, 90% of the physical & biological sciences would be trading mistaken descriptions!

No, not "the sciences." Because Physicalism is not scientific. It's a pre-scientific presumption, and one not at all taken for granted by the vast majority of scientists.

Like Determinism, Physicalism is simply taken for granted by some, and seriously questioned by others. But it has nothing at all to do with science.

You are confusing epiphenomena with emergent phenomena

No, I know the distinction. But neither is an adequate description of consciousness. "Emergentism," as a mind theory, has serious problems, such as the "Downwards Causality" problem. But "epiphenomenon" as a descriptor of consciousness, is really just a placeholder for "We have no clue how X happens."

I can't help but wonder myself, Roger, if maybe you haven't confused "emergent" with "evolutionary," and "Determinism" with "scientific." But feel free to say you don't, if you do indeed understand that "evolution" is not evidence of "emergence," and that "science" is not at all confined to Deterministic accounts of phenomena.

I am writing this post, therefore I am conscious, nothing metaphorical about that.

That's the point, Roger: "YOU" are writing this post. There's a "YOU," distinct from me and from all your material surroundings, who is capable of deciding that you will write: and there is indeed nothing metaphorical about that. It's literally true.

I'm following up some of the implications of assuming that the world behaves very much as though it was a dualist world,

Yes, I see that. But I think it's ultimately reductional, and ultimately has to end in some sort of Eliminativist Materialist faith (for that is all Eliminative Materialism always is, so long as we have not actually confirmed that every phenomenon in the entire universe and in all of history conforms exclusively to Materialism: a speculation, a wish, a hopeful projection out of those various areas in which Materialist explanations have so far proved a bit useful. It's not a known fact; and that much is admitted by the word "eliminative," since what is hoped to be "eliminated" into Materialist explanations eventually is especially things like mind, consciousness, rationality, intellection, personhood, free will, and so on).

...dualists, once they get over over the shock of finding that not all monists are eliminative materialists, should be quite sympathetic to the analysis!

No, I don't think they should. Not unless Materialism demonstrates much better efficacy in comprehensively accounting for things like mind and consciousness. And so far, it's doing a pretty wretched job. Like Thomas Nagel (who is a Darwinian and an Atheist), I would argue that the limiting of our descriptions to Materialist sorts is not illuminating but artificially limiting of science, and illegitimately so.

Have you read Nagel? May I suggest that you really should, if you're going to take this topic on? I think you're going to find his objections to your thesis come up early and often in any secular debate over this topic; and in any case, his treatment is accessible, so it would be handy if you want to get a quick familiarity with secular objections. His Mind and Consciousness Is a small book, but is a really good read, and is probably the most heated touchpoint of this debate in recent times.

May I suggest you invest in a copy? You won't find your time wasted, if you care about this issue as much as I think you do. And if you want to publish something on it, well, I'd say overlooking Nagel would be likely to be noted immediately. So you might want to get a handle on that, if only to prepare your own case to deal with secular objections.

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 5:53 pm
Your analysis is actually on the theme of freedom, of which responsibility is an important subsection. Mitigating circumstances , for a true determinist, become infinite.

No, because on this theory the buck always stops with conscious causes, absolute determinism is actually irrelevant, though responsibility might by shared among many minds that are earlier in some chain of causes - the propagandists who encouraged the voters who voted for a government that passed relaxed gun laws, etc. etc.

If I am conscious of choosing an act, from among other acts that would be possible given that I chose them, then I have a relationship to that act, and that is the relationship that we call “responsibility”. So networks of causes do not have to be traced back any further than the point at which consciousness of this relationship entered into the process by which the act was chosen.

I disagree with voluntarism because a person is caused to be conscious of his choices and these causes are also mitigating circumstances. For instance such mitigating circumstances with regard to voluntary acts may be that the man is what we call weak -willed, maybe because he is a drug addict, or maybe he has never been taught how to make sound decisions.

I don't see how that "makes a man conscious of his choices", rather than making some choices harder or easier. Being in a position to make a choice is not the same as finding it easy. That is why I distinguished the fact of responsibility from the degree of praise- or blame- worthiness. (I know the distinction isn't watertight. We arbitrarily regard a young enough child as having "no responsibility" rather than "responsibility with 100% mitigation".)

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 5:53 pm
Your analysis is actually on the theme of freedom, of which responsibility is an important subsection.

It is where moral philosophy and philosophy of freedom of will overlap. On the question of freedom, the significant point is that starting from the premise that moral responsibility is something consciously taken, the definition of freedom of will that is found to be necessary – the ability to “choose an act from among other acts that would be possible given that I chose them” – is precisely that advocated by compatibilists like Hilary Bok.

Mitigating circumstances , for a true determinist, become infinite. In practice obviously nobody can be as forgiving as God is reputed to be because He knows all the mitigating circumstances.

Although this is often said, the interesting point is that it is actually wrong according to the analysis summarised above! Forgiveness, like moral responsibility, should start in the first person: so the first question is, how much can a perpetrator of a bad act forgive himself, in his heart of hearts? Or better, perhaps, how much could he forgive himself in his heart of hearts given ideal insight into what he had done? Then a supposed just God able to see into his heart of hearts should forgive to precisely that extent. Total forgiveness guaranteed in advance would be a dereliction of judgement that no just God should countenance. (If you are generous, you might totally forgive someone for a wrong against yourself, while still judging them adversely from the standpoint of society.) Blanket 100% mitigation must not be confused with empathy, which is something to be directed at each individual. This is important because (as Baggini has pointed out) rehabilitation requires the ability of a wrong-doer to come to judge his own past bad deeds adversely, in order to adversely judge similar anticipated deeds in future before they happen.

RogerSH wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 12:06 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 5:53 pm
Your analysis is actually on the theme of freedom, of which responsibility is an important subsection.

It is where moral philosophy and philosophy of freedom of will overlap. On the question of freedom, the significant point is that starting from the premise that moral responsibility is something consciously taken, the definition of freedom of will that is found to be necessary – the ability to “choose an act from among other acts that would be possible given that I chose them” – is precisely that advocated by compatibilists like Hilary Bok.

Mitigating circumstances , for a true determinist, become infinite. In practice obviously nobody can be as forgiving as God is reputed to be because He knows all the mitigating circumstances.

Although this is often said, the interesting point is that it is actually wrong according to the analysis summarised above! Forgiveness, like moral responsibility, should start in the first person: so the first question is, how much can a perpetrator of a bad act forgive himself, in his heart of hearts? Or better, perhaps, how much could he forgive himself in his heart of hearts given ideal insight into what he had done? Then a supposed just God able to see into his heart of hearts should forgive to precisely that extent. Total forgiveness guaranteed in advance would be a dereliction of judgement that no just God should countenance. (If you are generous, you might totally forgive someone for a wrong against yourself, while still judging them adversely from the standpoint of society.) Blanket 100% mitigation must not be confused with empathy, which is something to be directed at each individual. This is important because (as Baggini has pointed out) rehabilitation requires the ability of a wrong-doer to come to judge his own past bad deeds adversely, in order to adversely judge similar anticipated deeds in future before they happen.

I agree. It is true to life, that forgiveness originates in the subject who forgives and is therefore an affect not a concept. But this is a forum for mainly philosophers not psychologists. As philosophers but not as psychologists most of us can see that forgiveness involves not blaming another for what they did.

Determinism shows how blaming pertains to the originator of the act. If the originator is ultimately the universe (or 'nature', or existence itself) then blaming makes no sense.

RogerSH wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:09 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 5:53 pm
Your analysis is actually on the theme of freedom, of which responsibility is an important subsection. Mitigating circumstances , for a true determinist, become infinite.

No, because on this theory the buck always stops with conscious causes, absolute determinism is actually irrelevant, though responsibility might by shared among many minds that are earlier in some chain of causes - the propagandists who encouraged the voters who voted for a government that passed relaxed gun laws, etc. etc.

If I am conscious of choosing an act, from among other acts that would be possible given that I chose them, then I have a relationship to that act, and that is the relationship that we call “responsibility”. So networks of causes do not have to be traced back any further than the point at which consciousness of this relationship entered into the process by which the act was chosen.

I disagree with voluntarism because a person is caused to be conscious of his choices and these causes are also mitigating circumstances. For instance such mitigating circumstances with regard to voluntary acts may be that the man is what we call weak -willed, maybe because he is a drug addict, or maybe he has never been taught how to make sound decisions.

I don't see how that "makes a man conscious of his choices", rather than making some choices harder or easier. Being in a position to make a choice is not the same as finding it easy. That is why I distinguished the fact of responsibility from the degree of praise- or blame- worthiness. (I know the distinction isn't watertight. We arbitrarily regard a young enough child as having "no responsibility" rather than "responsibility with 100% mitigation".)

Regarding

I don't see how that "makes a man conscious of his choices", rather than making some choices harder or easier. Being in a position to make a choice is not the same as finding it easy.

Because consciousness is not simply on/off like an electronic switch that is easy or hard to press. Consciousness relates to levels or states of consciousness ; for instance there are mind-altering drugs, or someone may be slipping into a diabetic coma. Consciousness also relates to a man's or an animal's span of ideas to which he can respond.

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 24, 2021 12:59 pm

RogerSH wrote: ↑Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:09 pm

Regarding

I don't see how that "makes a man conscious of his choices", rather than making some choices harder or easier. Being in a position to make a choice is not the same as finding it easy.

Because consciousness is not simply on/off like an electronic switch that is easy or hard to press. Consciousness relates to levels or states of consciousness ; for instance there are mind-altering drugs, or someone may be slipping into a diabetic coma. Consciousness also relates to a man's or an animal's span of ideas to which he can respond.

Right, that is one of the things I was intending to be covered by "lack of competence to make a choice" (including reduced competence). It is always one of the things I was referring to when speaking of the "extremely compressed account"!

Immanuel Can wrote:

I am writing this post, therefore I am conscious, nothing metaphorical about that.

That's the point, Roger: "YOU" are writing this post. There's a "YOU," distinct from me and from all your material surroundings, who is capable of deciding that you will write: and there is indeed nothing metaphorical about that. It's literally true.

Yes. "This post" is not written ; the fact is Roger wrote it. IC dislikes and distrusts the passive voice for good reason.

RogerSH wrote: ↑Wed Aug 18, 2021 7:41 pm I am puzzled that so many writers assume – usually with no attempt at justification – that moral responsibility has something to do with determinism, or more specifically with being an “ultimate cause”. What makes this puzzling is that it seems to be almost universally accepted in common usage that the possibility of being morally responsible is confined to conscious beings. An earthquake, for example, may be “responsible” (in another sense) for much suffering, but (aside from animism) the earth is never held responsible in a moral sense. So a sound theory of moral responsibility has to be founded on the role of consciousness.

How would that work? Firstly, let us clear up an obvious source of confusion here, because “responsibility” is used in two different senses, a binary (yes/no) sense and a sense that is a matter of degree. For convenience I will confine the term “responsibility” to the former sense, and refer to the “how much?” sense as "culpability" (or “praiseworthiness” as the case may be). The courts have long distinguished between the verdict and the sentence, so philosophers should have no problem distinguishing the fact of responsibility for a bad act, from the degree of culpability for it. A person may be clearly responsible for an act but with such strong mitigating circumstances that they can hardly be regarded as culpable.

Initially, the fact of responsibility has to be defined in the first person, since that is where consciousness is first identified. If I am conscious of choosing an act, from among other acts that would be possible given that I chose them, then I have a relationship to that act, and that is the relationship that we call “responsibility”. So networks of causes do not have to be traced back any further than the point at which consciousness of this relationship entered into the process by which the act was chosen.

Once we have a concept of moral responsibility in the first-person, the third-person meaning can be derived from it, by virtue of our ability to recognize and thus to identify with consciousness in others. I hold another person responsible for an act if I believe that he chose it while conscious that he was making a choice.

So now let us briefly look at “culpability”: the fact of responsibility but with mitigation taken into account. Without going into further detail, we can acknowledge that mitigation typically stems from any of three things: lack of competence to make the choice, psychological pressures of many kinds, and genuine repentance. What is relevant here is that all of these involve consciousness. If we could read a perpetrator’s mind perfectly, there would be no need to enquire further. However, psychological identification is not the same as being psychologically identical: I can mentally step into another’s shoes, but not see life through her eyes, so to speak. Hence we have to use proxies to provide pointers to the relevant features of another person’s mind, namely the objective circumstances which gave rise to her conscious experience. Nothing in this, however, provides any grounds for metaphysical enquiries into original causation or the like.

This is necessarily an extremely compressed account of the theory I am advocating: for example, the social construction of responsibility has to be added to the picture. (Chapter 8 of my e-book “New Thoughts on Free Will” provides a more comprehensive account.)

I'm a bit confused by the gist of this post. It seems like you're wanting to dispute something about standard views of moral culpability, but it's not at all clear to me what you're disputing. Your post reads mostly like a summary of standard views.

RogerSH wrote:

The courts have long distinguished between the verdict and the sentence, so philosophers should have no problem distinguishing the fact of responsibility for a bad act, from the degree of culpability for it. A person may be clearly responsible for an act but with such strong mitigating circumstances that they can hardly be regarded as culpable.

Yes, but the courts are manned by men who are incapable of knowing all the mitigating circumstances that e.g. God would know. For some omniscient being there is no degree of culpability; culpability itself does not exist.
For 'God' read also nature.