Moral Responsibility and Individual Choice

In this paper we analyze within the framework of individual choice theory assignments of moral responsibility. For this purpose we introduce a so-called responsibility function that describes for any choice situation the alternatives for which the agent would be deemed responsible if she were to choose one of them in that situation. We show under which conditions a responsibility function can be rationalized by information about which courses of action constitute reasonable alternatives to other courses of action. After thus having characterized one way of assigning responsibility, we show that it leads to what we call the agency paradox: a rational person will in many cases not be responsible for her actions. It is argued that a decision rule that is formally the same as the ‘never choose the uniquely largest’-rule characterized by Baigent and Gaertner (1996) circumvents the paradox. Turning to a possible counterargument to the analysis presented, we conclude by suggesting that moral responsibility should be seen as a criterion for the assessment of the quality of our choice sets rather than as a consideration that is relevant when making our choices.