Abstract

This paper assesses two accounts of what it means to have a moral responsibility. According to the desert account, moral responsibility amounts to deserving credit or blame for doing or failing to do things. According to an alternative theory, the demand account, moral responsibility amounts to being subject to a moral requirement, such as an obligation or duty. On this account, moral responsibility identifies the presence of a moral demand that may or may not be accompanied by desert. Experiments are conducted to test these accounts in ordinary moral judgment. Results indicate that moral judgment has both a demand and a desert function, that responsibility can pattern with the demand function, and that responsibilities are attributed without blame, criticism, or punishment when several determinants of moral judgment, such as conscious awareness, intention, belief, and neurodeterminism are manipulated. Results also suggest that having a responsibility is distinguished from being responsible for something, that the latter can pattern with the desert function, and that paradoxically, one can have a responsibility that one is not responsible for. These findings advance our understanding of moral responsibility, the processes underlying moral judgment in moral psychology, and conceptual clarity in moral philosophy.