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Responsibility is a key concept in our moral, social and political thinking, but is not itself properly understood. In this book J R Lucas elucidates it in terms of answerability - the obligation to answer the question 'Why did you do it?' He develops this account to include negative responsiblity - 'Why did you not do something about it?' - and share responsibility, which together yield the rationale of political responsibility. In disentangling these two strands of argument, he points out potential conflicts between them within our ideal of responsible government. He exposes the flaws in consequentialism generally, and the utilitarian theory of punishment in particular, and argues for the insights of retributive theories but without the vindictiveness. He devotes separate chapters to rewards, money and personal relations, outlines the fundamental principles of business and professional ethics, and finally touches on those issues that go beyond responsibility altogether.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Chapter 1 Why Did You Do It?(p. 5)
• Chapter 2 Free Will(p. 13)
• Chapter 3 Consequences and Negative Responsibility(p. 33)
• Chapter 4 Reasons(p. 57)
• Chapter 5 Shared and Collective Responsibility(p. 75)
• Chapter 6 Punishment(p. 86)
• Chapter 7 Doing and Deserving(p. 124)
• Chapter 8 Money(p. 141)
• Chapter 9 The Responsibilities of Office(p. 182)
• Chapter 10 Responsible Government(p. 204)
• Chapter 11 Responsibility in Personal Relations(p. 235)
• Chapter 12 Beyond Responsibility(p. 258)
• Appendix 1 Aristotle(p. 274)
• Appendix 2 The Which? Guide to Theories of Punishment(p. 280)
• Index(p. 287)

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CHOICE Review

Lucas (Merton College, Oxford) sets out his understanding of responsibility, ordinary language analysis style, by turning to our practices of claiming and denying responsibility, of giving account of why we did or did not perform certain actions. He offers an interesting and detailed social grammar of responsibility, focusing on how our practices relating to responsibility, such as punishment, are structures of meaningful communication. The argument is at moments dull but at others deftly crafted and insightful. His occasional use of the idiom of the Book of Common Prayer complements his way of steering a via media in standard debates, e.g., on free will versus determinism and on retributive versus utilitarian theories of punishment. There is scarcely a feminine pronoun or gender-inclusive usage in the book. (One of the few occurrences is in a specific reference to "the Queen," but later in the same sentence when Lucas refers to "the monarch," he returns to the masculine.) Suspicions born here mature in a later chapter, "Responsibility in Personal Relations." Other chapters discuss responsibility in business, in the professions, and in government. Most of the references to the literature are to works from two or more decades ago. Recommended for complete collections in analytic moral philosophy. Advanced undergraduate; graduate; faculty. D. R. C. Reed; Wittenberg University

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

J. R. Lucas is at Merton College, Oxford.