Reasons and Selves: Two Accounts of Responsibility in Theory and Practice

This essay seeks to illuminate both the theory and practice of holding people responsible. It investigates two leading accounts of responsibility, examining some of their implications and certain difficulties that they face. It tests the two accounts by applying them to an illustrative example, which demonstrates how the questions that are decisive in judging an agent's responsibility are notably different on the two accounts. Although both views are variously illuminating, they each face difficulties and arguably depend on, or foster, fictions.