engleski

Moral agency, identification and the capacity for mental time travel

According to a philosophical tradition two main conditions have been assumed to be necessary for deeming an agent morally responsible for an action: the agent should have control over the action and the agent should know the nature of the action. Several authors have argued convincingly that the control that is required for moral responsibility involves the agent’s ownership of her motives that stems from her identification with them. (Velleman 2006, Frankfurt 1988). The notion of identification with one’s reasons has been expanded in various ways and has generated alternative accounts of moral responsibility (Watson 1982 ; Wolf 1990 ; Fischer and Ravizza 1998 ; Velleman 1989, Velleman 2006). In this paper I will explore the role that the capacity for mental time travel, a form of controlled activity undertaken by an agent usually for the purpose of evaluating the past or planning the future (Kennett & Matthews 2009), plays in the process of identification and consequently in the process of attribution of moral responsibility. I will critically explore how impairments in this capacity might create problems in the constitution of our self-image. Finally, I’ll examine how this notion can be applied as a reply to one specific form of luck objection that emerges within the free will debate: the disappearing agent objection.

Moral responsibility, mental time travel, identification

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