John Gardner

(1965 - 2019)

This paper tackles three common misconceptions about responsibility. The first misconception is that it is against our interests to be responsible for our actions. The second is that our responsibility for our actions is fixed at the time when we act. The third is that we can only be responsible to someone in particular, not responsible full stop. The three misconceptions turn out to be related, and disabusing ourselves of them helps us to rediscover the most fundamental point of the courtroom trial

Jeff McMahan rejects the relevance of desert to the morality of self-defense. In Killing in War he restates his rejection and adds to his reasons. We argue that the reasons are not decisive and that the rejection calls for further attention, which we provide. Although we end up agreeing with McMahan that the limits of morally acceptable self-defense are not determined by anyone’s deserts, we try to show that deserts may have some subsidiary roles in the morality of self-defense. We suggest that recognizing this might help McMahan to answer some unanswered questions to which his own position gives rise.

Michael Moore and I agree about the moral importance of how our actions turn out. We even agree about some of the arguments that establish that moral importance. In Causation and Responsibility, however, Moore foregrounds one argument that I do not find persuasive or even helpful. In fact I doubt whether it even qualifies as an argument. He calls it the “experiential argument.” In this comment I attempt to analyze Moore's “experiential argument” in some detail and thereby to bring out why it does not help. In the process I raise some problems about the rationality of the emotions, which may be where Moore and I part company. We both believe that emotions should be taken more seriously by moral philosophy. But apparently we have radically different views about what this means.

In a recent paper in the Yale Law Journal, Malcolm Thorburn argued that to enjoy a justificatory defence in the criminal law is to have a normative power that is exercised in the circumstances which give rise to the justification. He also argued that where such powers are conferred on private citizens, those citizens should be understood as acting as public officials pro tempore when they exercise them. In this extended reply, I resist both propositions and reply to some of the criticisms that Thorburn makes of my own rival views. I also take the opportunity to explore, philosophically, some of the criminal law relating to consent, self-defence and arrest, and to discuss the connections between the debate over the nature of criminal-law justifications and the debate over the nature of law

In this article we consider and cast doubt on two doctrines given prominence and prestige by the utilitarian tradition in ethics. According to the interest theory of value, value is realized only in the advancement of people's interests. According to the well-being theory of interests, people's interests are advanced only in the augmentation of their well-being. We argue that it is possible to resist these doctrines without abandoning the value-humanist doctrine that the value of anything has to be explained in terms of its potential to contribute to human lives and their quality. (Published Online November 24 2006).

Sometimes emotions excuse. Fear and anger, for example, sometimes excuse under the headings of (respectively) duress and provocation. Although most legal systems draw the line at this point, the list of potentially excusatory emotions outside the law seems to be longer. One can readily imagine cases in which, for example, grief or despair could be cited as part of a case for relaxing or even eliminating our negative verdicts on those who performed admittedly unjustified wrongs. To be sure, the availability of such excuses depends on what wrong one is trying to excuse. No excuse is available in respect of all wrongs. Some wrongs, indeed, are inexcusable. This throws up the interesting question of what makes a particular emotion apt to excuse a particular wrong. Why is fear, for example, more apt to excuse more serious wrongs than, say, pride or shame? This question leads naturally to another. Why are some emotions, such as lust, greed, and envy, apparently not apt to furnish any excuses at all? Can one not be overcome by them? Can they not drive one to wrongdoing as readily as fear and grief? Or is that not the point?

This paper takes some first steps in a study of the thesis that “ought” implies “can.” Considerable attention is given to the proper interpretation of the thesis, including the interpretation of “ought,” the interpretation of “can,” and the interpretation of “implies.” Having chosen a particular interpretation of the thesis to work on—in some ways its broadest interpretation—the paper tries to bring out some considerations that bear on its truth or falsity. After an excursion into the general theory of value, this paper finds it false. The paper concludes with the suggestion that part of its allure comes of confusion with another thesis, namely the thesis that “ought to try” implies “can succeed.” Suitably qualified, this last thesis is true, and the false thesis that “ought” implies “can” basks in the reflected glory. Left for another day are narrower interpretations of “ought” implies “can” which may protect it against my objections