9780198709367-0198709366-Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility

Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility

ISBN-13: 9780198709367
ISBN-10: 0198709366
Edition: Reprint
Author: Manuel Vargas
Publication date: 2015
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Format: Paperback 356 pages
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Book details

ISBN-13: 9780198709367
ISBN-10: 0198709366
Edition: Reprint
Author: Manuel Vargas
Publication date: 2015
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Format: Paperback 356 pages

Summary

Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility (ISBN-13: 9780198709367 and ISBN-10: 0198709366), written by authors Manuel Vargas, was published by Oxford University Press in 2015. With an overall rating of 4.4 stars, it's a notable title among other Ethics & Morality (Philosophy, Free Will & Determinism) books. You can easily purchase or rent Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility (Paperback) from BooksRun, along with many other new and used Ethics & Morality books and textbooks. And, if you're looking to sell your copy, our current buyback offer is $0.73.

Description

  • WINNER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION BOOK PRIZE (2015).
Building Better Beings presents a new theory of moral responsibility. Beginning with a discussion of ordinary convictions about responsibility and free will and their implications for a philosophical theory, Manuel Vargas argues that no theory can do justice to all the things we want from a theory of free will and moral responsibility. He goes on to show how we can nevertheless justify our responsibility practices and provide a normatively and naturalistically adequate account of responsible agency, blame, and desert.

Three ideas are central to Vargas' account: the agency cultivation model, circumstantialism about powers, and revisionism about responsibility and free will. On Vargas' account, responsibility norms and practices are justified by their effects. In particular, the agency cultivation model holds that responsibility practices help mold us into creatures that respond to moral considerations. Moreover, the abilities that matter for responsibility and free will are not metaphysically prior features of agents in isolation from social contexts. Instead, they are functions of both agents and their normatively structured contexts. This is the idea of circumstantialism about the powers required for responsibility. Third, Vargas argues that an adequate theory of responsibility will be revisionist, or at odds with important strands of ordinary convictions about free will and moral responsibility. Building Better Beings provides a compelling and state-of-the-art defense of moral responsibility in the face of growing philosophical and scientific skepticism about free will and moral responsibility.
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