Moral responsibility as the condition of moral value

Abstract

Several moral philosophers argue that being morally responsible for an action is not the precondition for the moral value of an action. This thesis is called the independence-thesis, a position I argue against and falsify here. The paper surveys those arguments for and against the independence-thesis that are based on moral practice. The first part of the paper refutes the only argument in favour of the independence-thesis, and the second part justifies two arguments against it.