Omission Impossible?: It Depends

• Other Authors: Stigall, John C. (author)
• Format: Others
• Language: English; English
• Published: Florida State University
• Subjects: Philosophy
• Online Access: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/2018_Su_Stigall_fsu_0071E_14779

Suppose I don’t give this dissertation a title. In such a case am I responsible for not giving my dissertation a title? Does my responsibility for not giving my dissertation a title require that I could have given my dissertation a title? Would I still be responsible if some villain opposed to ironically not giving dissertations titles were prepared to see to it that I did not give my dissertation a title if I were to show some sign of doing so? In any case, what exactly is it to not give a dissertation a title? What might have caused this behavior? Is my not giving my dissertation a title the sort of thing that can be caused at all? The preceding questions concern whether I am responsible for omitting to give my dissertation a title. In my dissertation I want to show that because of certain peculiarities about the metaphysics of omissions and causation, the first three questions cannot be adequately answered without investigating the last three questions. More specifically, I want to argue for the thesis that moral responsibility requires a morally salient causal relationship between an agent and an outcome, and I want to argue further for a unique asymmetry thesis about responsibility for omissions and positive actions. The thesis will explain why Frankfurt cases differ when they describe an agent doing a positive action from when they describe an agent omitting to perform some action. If my thesis is correct, it will do the following things: (1) Give a systematic explanation of the success of Frankfurt cases. (2) Provide theoretical guidelines for evaluating Frankfurt-style omission cases independently of intuitions about moral responsibility. (3) Show why Frankfurt-style omission cases are often more problematic than positive action Frankfurt-style cases. In short it will account for the prima facie plausibility of asymmetry theses such as the following: (AT) responsibility for positive actions does not require the ability to do otherwise, but responsibility for omissions does require the ability to do otherwise. === A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Philosophy in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. === Summer Semester 2018. === July 19, 2018. === Includes bibliographical references. === Randolph Clarke, Professor Directing Dissertation; John Kelsay, University Representative; J. Piers Rawling, Committee Member; Stephen Kearns, Committee Member.