Conversation & Responsibility

Michael McKenna is Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University

• Preface ; Introduction: Moral Responsibility, Conversation & Meaning ; Chapter 1: Responsibility: A Conceptual Map ; 1. Kinds of Responsibility ; 2. Morally Responsible Agency ; 3. Moral Responsibility for Conduct ; 4. Holding Morally Responsible ; 5. Moral Responsibility, Entailment, and the Concept of Moral Responsibility ; Chapter 2: Reorienting Strawson's Theory of Moral Responsibility ; 1. Variations on Strawson's Theory ; 2. Embracing and Developing Wallace's Principle (N) ; 3. A Normative Interpretation versus an Extreme Metaphysical Interpretation ; 4. Two Distinctions ; 5. Resisting a Strawsonian Theme: The Explanatory Role of Holding Responsible ; 6. A Modest Metaphysical Interpretation ; Chapter 3: Moral Responsibility & Quality of Will ; 1. A Strawsonian Quality of Will Thesis ; 2. The Morally Reactive Attitudes and their Attendant Practices ; 3. Pleas: Reasons to Modify the Reactive Attitudes ; 3.1 Excuses and Justifications ; 3.2 Exemptions ; Chapter 4: Conversation & Responsibility ; 1. The Intimate Link of

"Conversation and Responsibility is simply a terrific book that repays multiple readings. Michael McKenna offers a rich and subtle exploration of a whole host of issues, takes a highly original and interesting approach of his own, and does it all in a most impressively judicious and open-minded way." Philosophical Studies"McKenna has managed to turn the spotlight on an absolutely fundamental question--Just what is responsibility, anyhow?--that has received far less direct attention than it should, and his treatment of that question is informed by a command of the contemporary literature that is at once deep and synoptic. The book is a tour de force, and everyone should read it." George Sher, Rice University"Michael McKenna's Conversation and Responsibility is a very important book, one that must now take pride of place in any philosophical conversation about moral responsibility for years to come." Criminal Law and Philosophy"Michael McKenna's Conversation and Responsibility is an ambitious and impressive statement of a new theory of moral responsibility. EL Conversation and ResponsibilityEL is meticulously erected and defended. The fundamental analogy employed is both illuminating and stimulating of further reflection and debate. Conversation and Responsibility belongs on the top shelf of any set of readings devoted to the contemporary discussion of moral responsibility." Philosophical Review