Culpability

Culpability, or being culpable, is a measure of the degree to which an agent, such as a person, can be held morally or legally responsible for action and inaction. It has been noted that the word, culpability, 'ordinarily has normative force, for in nonlegal English, a person is culpable only if he is justly to blame for his conduct'. Culpability therefore marks the dividing line between moral evil, like murder, for which someone may be held legally responsible and a randomly occurring event, like earthquakes, for which no human can be held responsible. One formulation of the concept is as follows:A person is culpable if they cause a negative event and(1) the act was intentional;(2) the act and its consequences could have been controlled (i.e., the agent knew the likely consequences, the agent was not coerced, and the agent overcame hurdles to make the event happen); and(3) the person provided no excuse or justification for the actions.From a legal perspective, culpability describes the degree of one's blameworthiness in the commission of a crime or offense. Except for strict liability crimes, the type and severity of punishment often follow the degree of culpability. 'Culpability means, first and foremost, direct involvement in the wrongdoing, such as through participation or instruction', as compared with responsibility merely arising from 'failure to supervise or to maintain adequate controls or ethical culture'.