Retributivism, Ultimate Responsibility, and Agent Causalism

“Except for limited forms of omissions liability, Anglo-American criminal law generally requires a criminal defendant, D, to perform a voluntary action before imposing criminal liability. Further, D must be morally responsible for performing the action for D to deserve punishment for doing it. So, a puzzle about moral responsibility connected to longstanding debates about determinism and free will, a puzzle that implies that D is never morally responsible for performing any action, must have a moral-responsibility-preserving solution for any form of retributivism to be true. One compatibilist solution denies that moral responsibility requires what has been termed “ultimate responsibility.” Whether ultimate responsibility is required for moral responsibility is a contested issue.

And, if ultimate responsibility is required for moral responsibility, then the compatibilist solution is unavailable. This article argues that, if ultimate responsibility is required for moral responsibility, then, unless both indeterminism and agent causalism are true, any form of retributivism is false.”