WHAT role do a person’s opportunities to choose play in the justification of social arrangements? We need to answer this question in order to arrive at a theory of substantive responsibility, which tells us the way in which a person’s claims on others, others’ claims on her, and the quality of her situation should depend on the opportunities she has and the choices she makes. To get a handle on...

terms. Tuttle v. Atlantic City Railroad Co. 60 and Mauney v. Gulf Refining Co. 6 involve the foreseeability of a plaintiff's frightened response to a defendant's negligence. In Tuttle, one of defendant railroad's cars 60 66 N.J.L. 327, 49 A. 450 (1901). 61 193 Miss. 421, 9 So. 2d 780 (1942). 1990]

The claim that we have epistemic responsibilities, and that we can be blameworthy for failing to meet those responsibilities, has recently been challenged by a number of theorists on the grounds of nonvolunteerism: the claim that we do not have control over our beliefs. I argue that previous responses to this challenge fail to adequately address the problem and, furthermore, provide ancillary r...

conditions, would they choose to hold on to the concrete judgment that Bill is morally responsible or the abstract judgment that no one can be responsible in a deterministic universe? The results showed no clear majority on either side. Approximately half of the subjects chose to hold onto the judgment that the particular agent was morally responsible, while the other half chose to hold onto th...

Many contemporary forms of oppression are not primarily the result of formally organized collective action nor are they an unintended outcome of a combination of individual actions. This raises the question of collective responsibility. I argue that we can only determine who is responsible for oppression if we understand oppression as a matter of social practices that create obstacles for socia...

The notion of "consent" is frequently referred to as "informed consent" to emphasise the informational component of a valid consent. This article considers aspects of that informational component. One misuse of the language of informed consent is highlighted. Attention is then directed to some features of the situation in which consent would not have been offered had certain information been di...

An agent’s responsibility for action has critical importance in both criminal and civil law. In a liberal society that favors negative liberty, the law permits maximum liberty and autonomy only to responsible agents.1 Generally unencumbered by legal regulation, they are free, for example, to make foolish, irrational and even dangerous life choices, such as refusing potentially life-saving medic...

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