Moral responsibility is the status of morally deserving praise, blame, reward, or punishment for an act or omission, in accordance with one's moral obligations. Deciding what if anything is morally obligatory is a principle concern of ethics.
People who have moral responsibility for an action are called moral agents. Agents are capable of reflecting on their situation, forming intentions about how they will act, and then carrying out that action. Free will is an important issue in the debate on whether individuals are ever morally responsible for their actions—and, if so, in what sense. Incompatibilists think that determinism is at odds with free will, whereas compatibilists think the two can coexist.
Moral responsibility is not necessarily the same as legal responsibility. A person is legally responsible for an event when it is that person who is liable to be penalised in the court system for an event. Although it may often be the case that when a person is morally responsible for an act, they are also legally responsible for it, the two states do not always coincide.
Read more about Moral Responsibility: Philosophical Stances, Experimental Research, Collective Moral Responsibility, Lack of Sense of Responsibility of Psychopaths
Famous quotes containing the word moral:
“The moral qualities are more apt to grow when a human being is useful, and they increase in the woman who helps to support the family rather than in the one who gives herself to idleness and fashionable frivolities.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)