Reasons and Responsibility*

The idea that moral responsibility is crucially connected to the capacity to respond to reasons is a natural one. It is not an accident that the ‘‘age of reason’’ appears to coincide with the age of responsibility. But this connection has been defended and developed in very different ways. The most detailed and widely known recent formulation of the idea is due, jointly and individually, to John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza.1 In Responsibility and Control, Fischer and Ravizza gather together and extend many of their earlier arguments in an effort to present a comprehensive theory that is informed by criticisms of their previous publications. Although many of the notions and strategies employed in the book are familiar from these previous publications, Responsibility and Control is an important contribution to the subject for several reasons. For one thing, it is good to have the ideas set out systematically. Whereas most discussions are confined to responsibility for actions, for example, this work presents a framework for analyzing responsibility for consequences, responsibility for omissions, and responsibility for character as well. More important, Responsibility and Control moves beyond the previous theory in two significant ways. First, it provides a more nuanced and multidimensional account of ‘‘reasons-responsiveness’’ than before. Second, the authors no longer take reasons-responsiveness, however refined, to be sufficient, for actions with that property still might not ‘‘belong’’ to the individual in the right way. Chapters 7 and 8 argue that responsibility is