Moral Accountability: Conditions and Responsibility

• Module 5 focuses on moral accountability, which is a byproduct of moral personhood.
• Moral accountability is closely linked to responsibility and involves similarities and differences with legal accountability.
• The module explores incriminating and excusing conditions for moral accountability, enabling a thorough evaluation.

Degree Conditions

• The module examines four degree conditions that affect moral accountability: knowledge, pressure, intensity, and involvement.
• Mitigating conditions decrease accountability, while aggravating conditions increase it.
• This module establishes conditions for moral accountability.

Learning Objectives

• Explain the meaning of moral accountability.
• Discriminate between accountability and responsibility.
• Explain the difference between moral accountability and legal accountability.
• Appraise the conditions for moral accountability.
• Identify the kinds of degrees of conditions.

Moral Accountability and Responsibility

• Accountability arises from rationality (intelligence and freedom).
• Accountability entails responsibility for actions, resulting in deservingness of praise or blame.
• Reason helps in discerning right from wrong, while free will enables action selection.
• Blame is warranted for knowingly choosing wrong actions or abstaining from known right actions.
• Praise is merited for voluntarily choosing right actions or refraining from known wrong actions.
• Moral accountability has two dimensions: the moral agent's deservingness of praise and the deservingness of blame.

Moral Agents and Patients

• Moral agents possess both sentience and rationality.
• They perform morally evaluable actions.
• Not all human beings are moral agents.
• Moral patients or recipients are the targets of morality, e.g., children or persons with mental disabilities.
• Targets of moral actions can include non-human beings, with applied ethics addressing these concerns.

Moral Persons, Rights, and Duties

• The minimum requirement for being considered a moral person is to bear rights.
• Rights are inherent entitlements or privileges related to permitted interests or authorized actions.
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights speaks of "The Right to Education" and mentions that the individual may or may not pursue it.
• Duties are actions we are obligated to fulfill, analogous to commands or laws.
• Not fulfilling duties can incur sanctions, while not exercising a right does not.
• Rights and duties are interconnected.

First Classifications of Rights

• Rights imply duties, or duties imply rights.
• Possession of a right imposes an obligation on others.
• A baby's right to life imposes a duty on parents to provide necessary conditions (positive right).
• A baby's right to life imposes a duty to the parents to supply necessary conditions (provision/positive right).
• All rights impose negative rights(a duty of non-interference), while some impose positive rights (duty of provision).

Second Classification of Rights

• The rights impose a duty of non-interference in individuals right's such as a baby's right to life.
• Individuals obtain contractual rights through agreements.
• Individuals acquire rights through a legal right.
• Moral rights are contingent on sentience and rationality.
• Human rights are moral rights intrinsic to all humans.
• Moral rights hold a higher position than legal and contractual rights.

Moral and Legal Accountability

• Moral accountability aligns with responsibility when it means duty towards others.
• Moral accountability equates to responsibility when it means duty to other people.
• There are two types of responsibility that emerge: prospective (directed toward what will/may happen) and retrospective (directed toward what has already happened).
• Legal accountability relies on legal measures, while moral accountability uses moral/ethical principles.
• Legal accountability may not always align with moral accountability due to flawed laws or inconsistent enforcement.
• Legal sanctions involve external punishments (imprisonment), while moral sanctions encompass internal suffering (guilt).

Conditions for Moral Accountability

• Attribution conditions determine the extent of moral accountability.
• Incriminating conditions establish moral accountability, while excusing conditions absolve it.
• Three incriminating conditions: agency (person is the cause), knowledge (understanding actions' ethical nature), and intentionality (conscious and free choice).
• Accountability requires convergence of all incriminating conditions.
• Excusing conditions are the absence of one of the incriminating conditions.
• Excusing conditions include the lack of agency, knowledge, and voluntariness.

Blameless and Blameful Ignorance

• It can occur an individual cannot be held accountable for their lack of knowledge.
• Blameless ignorance occurs when an individual cannot be held accountable for lack of knowledge.
• Blameful ignorance occurs when someone could have known but failed to acquire relevant knowledge.
• Blameful ignorance does not serve as an excuse.

The Degree Conditions

• The level of involvement in a collective act of moral wrongdoing directly impacts the degree of moral accountability.
• A greater involvement in a collective act of moral wrongdoing raises the individual's degree of accountability.
• A lesser involvement in a collective act of moral wrongdoing lowers the individual's degree of accountability.
• The circumstances, knowledge, and intentions surrounding actions influence moral accountability.
• First initial factor influencing the degree of moral accountability is the degree of knowledge regarding the moral wrongness of the action.
• The degree of pressure or difficulty in life influences moral accountability.
• The intensity of harm correlates with the level of moral accountability.
• The greater the intenstity of caused harm inflicted, the higher the moral accoutability; conversely, the lesser the intensity of damage caused, the lower the degree of moral accountability.

Explore moral accountability, a byproduct of moral personhood, and its connection to responsibility. The module differentiates moral accountability from legal accountability. Evaluate incriminating and excusing conditions, and examine degree conditions like knowledge and pressure that influence accountability.