Responsibility : the epistemic condition /

Aristotle argued that moral responsibility requires awareness and control. Much of the contemporary discussion of moral responsibility has turned on the latter requirement, with philosophers disagreeing about what constitutes freedom and whether freedom and responsibility are compatible with either universal causal determinism or local indeterminism. Responsibility: The Epistemic Condition is an engaging collection of essays that investigate the earlier requirement, exploring the epistemic prerequisites for moral responsibility. The collection includes 16 essays on a variety of topics, including akrasia (weakness of will), when and if ignorance excuses or absolves moral responsibility, and the role of knowledge in moral responsibility. Unlike metaphysical investigations of responsibility, these discussions admit more nuance, as the question is not merely whether an agent is responsible but to what degree. This text is in the analytic philosophical tradition and written primarily for an academic audience; however, apart from some technological terminology, the essays are relatively accessible to all audiences. This is not an introductory book; the essays included offer substantive, often competing, views on the epistemic condition for moral responsibility with vivid examples and rigorous analysis. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above. --William Simkulet, Cleveland State University