Building Better Beings: A Theory of Moral Responsibility - Softcover

Vargas, Manuel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0198709366 ISBN 13: 9780198709367

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2015

Synopsis

• WINNER OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION BOOK PRIZE (2015).

Building Better Beings presents a new theory of moral responsibility. Beginning with a discussion of ordinary convictions about responsibility and free will and their implications for a philosophical theory, Manuel Vargas argues that no theory can do justice to all the things we want from a theory of free will and moral responsibility. He goes on to show how we can nevertheless justify our responsibility practices and provide a normatively and naturalistically adequate account of responsible agency, blame, and desert.

Three ideas are central to Vargas' account: the agency cultivation model, circumstantialism about powers, and revisionism about responsibility and free will. On Vargas' account, responsibility norms and practices are justified by their effects. In particular, the agency cultivation model holds that responsibility practices help mold us into creatures that respond to moral considerations. Moreover, the abilities that matter for responsibility and free will are not metaphysically prior features of agents in isolation from social contexts. Instead, they are functions of both agents and their normatively structured contexts. This is the idea of circumstantialism about the powers required for responsibility. Third, Vargas argues that an adequate theory of responsibility will be revisionist, or at odds with important strands of ordinary convictions about free will and moral responsibility. Building Better Beings provides a compelling and state-of-the-art defense of moral responsibility in the face of growing philosophical and scientific skepticism about free will and moral responsibility.

About this title

About the Author

Manuel Vargas is Professor of Philosophy and Law at the University of San Francisco. His principal areas of research include responsibility, moral psychology, and Latin American philosophy. He received his joint-PhD in philosophy from Stanford University. He is the co-author of Four Views on Free Will (Blackwell, 2007) with John Fischer, Robert Kane, and Derk Pereboom, and co-editor of Rational and Social Agency: On Themes in the Philosophy of Michael Bratman (OUP, forthcoming) with Gideon Yaffe.

Review

"Indispensable. The state of the art--and the state of the art to be--from one of the most insightful philosophers working on agency and moral responsibility."      -- John M. Doris, Washington University in St. Louis

"The book is impressive in its vision and its thorough treatment of the massive literature surrounding the topics of free will and moral responsibility. Vargas offers the best assessment to date of the normative landscape as it bears on our actual moral responsibility practices, and he offers a visionary and compelling proposal for how we ought to proceed."     -- Michael McKenna, The University of Arizona

"[D]etailed, intricate, and nuanced. Every chapter contains arguments that are interesting, novel, and worthy of attention . . . . a worthwhile and compelling book"     -- Kevin Timpe, Ethics

"Manuel Vargas is one of the most prominent members of the younger generation of philosophers who are currently revitalizing the debate over free will and moral responsibility. His revisionist view is already influential, but its impact was limited by the absence of a definitive and comprehensive defense of the position. This book provides us with that defense, and it has been worth the wait. With characteristic wit, Vargas sets out and defends a subtle and powerful view"     -- Neil Levy, Philosophical Quarterly

"Vargas masterfully cooks up a brilliantly refined account to be savored as much for its readable presentation as its very satisfying philosophical flavor."     --V. Alan White, Philosophy in Review 

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0198709366
• ISBN 13: 9780198709367
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 356