The Epistemic Condition for Character Responsibility

Abstract

If responsibility for character requires (among other things) having knowledge of the quality of one’s character, and this knowledge requires having at least some good aspects of character, we seem to come to startling conclusions. First, as Neil Levy argues, the worse one is morally speaking, the less one is responsible for being morally bad. Second, the truly bad are excused for their bad characters. I present several arguments against Levy’s view. First, I argue that the initial conclusion does not follow. It is not the case that the worse a person is, the less responsible she is for her character. A person may still have other aspects of character that enable her to fulfill this part of the epistemic condition. Further, both Aristotle and empirical research on character indicate that most people have such aspects. Second, I consider the truly morally bad. I show that most people voluntarily develop their characters and so – aside from rare cases of abuse, neglect, or congenital disorders – the vicious become so voluntarily. In this vein, I thirdly show that partial moral understanding is sufficient to meet the epistemic condition for character responsibility and most people have this.