Personhood and responsibility
department or school: Arts, Faculty of
department or school: Philosophy, Department of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Topornycky, Joseph Stephen
issued: 2012-08-09T17:02:40Z
issued: 2012
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Understanding human behavior as caused by some combination of genetics, environment, and upbringing is often taken to undermine the belief that human beings can be truly morally responsible. The root of this problem is in an apparent conﬂict between the casual thesis and the idea of human beings as persons that is premised in moral responsibility. I argue that this con- ﬂict is based on two related misunderstandings. Understood properly, moral responsibility is grounded in our aﬀective responses to others modiﬁed by a reﬂective understanding of those responses under the idea of self-government according to standards. It is through a commitment to those standards that we come to be persons, understood as a distinct moral category.
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/42884
note: Personhood and Responsibility by Joseph Stephen Topornycky BFA, The School of Visual Arts, 1999 BA/MA, CUNY Queens College, 2005 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in The Faculty of Graduate Studies (Philosophy) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2012 c© Joseph Stephen Topornycky 2012 Abstract Understanding human behavior as caused by some combination of genetics, environ- ment, and upbringing is often taken to undermine the belief that human beings can be truly morally responsible. The root of this problem is in an apparent conflict between the casual thesis and the idea of human beings as persons that is premised in moral responsibility. I argue that this conflict is based on two related misunder- standings. Understood properly, moral responsibility is grounded in our affective responses to others modified by a reflective understanding of those responses under the idea of self-government according to standards. It is through a commitment to those standards that we come to be persons, understood as a distinct moral category. ii Table of Contents Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii Table of Contents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iii Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v Dedication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi 1 Are We Responsible? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.1 Responsibility, Free Will, and Their Discontents . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1.2 Methodology: The Role of Intuitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 1.3 What Is Moral Responsibility Trying to Accomplish? . . . . . . . . . 11 1.4 What Responsibility is Supposed to Do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 2 The Naturalistic Strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 2.1 The Naturalistic Strategy Reimagined …
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2012-11
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0072960
language: eng
degree discipline: Philosophy
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/
scholar level: Graduate
type: Text
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/42884