CHARACTER AS NARRATIVE: MORAL RESPONSIBILITY IN CONTEXT

Abstract

In this dissertation, I propose a theory of moral responsibility for character, understood as a kind of narrative. Narratives of character give evaluative and emotional coherence to the judgments and choices of others understood within context. In Chapter 1, I set the stage for the project by arguing that Gary Watson’s (1996) notion of accountability, properly understood, requires some reference to the particular person, rather than merely roles or rules. In Chapter 2, I push back against R. Jay Wallace’s (1994) view of responsibility that makes us out to be responsible only for our choices or the things we can directly control. In Chapter 3, I argue that T. M. Scanlon’s (1998) view rightly captures responsibility for judgment-sensitive attitudes but wrongly underplays the distinct importance of choice and control. In Chapter 4, I consider Susan Wolf’s (1990) and Fischer and Ravizza’s (1998) historical requirements on responsibility and conclude that the former too quickly removes agency and responsibility from those who have chosen to go down evil paths while the latter isn’t something we have access to in our everyday moral practices of accountability. In Chapter 5, I draw on Peter Goldie’s (2012) work on narratives to create a novel view of character, understood not as a stable disposition but as an actively constructed narrative built from a number of elements we care about, including our choices, our judgments, our history and context, as well as other features of what we’re like. These narratives often draw out patterns that have interpersonal import, and they can range from very small character studies to narratives that span a person’s life. Finally, in Chapter 6, I argue that constructing a taxonomy that clearly delineates who is responsible from who is not is a project that is doomed from the start, and I consider what my broadly Strawsonian approach can tell us about the excuses and exemptions.