Character, Choice and Moral Agency: The Relevance of Character to Our Moral Culpability Judgments

Abstract

Should a person who cannot appreciate the moral significance of legal norms qualify as a blameworthy actor simply because he has the capacity to comply with them for non-moral reasons? Such a person may lack any empathy for other human beings and view moral norms as arbitrary restraints on his self-interested behavior: does he nevertheless deserve moral blame when he makes an instrumentally “rational choice” to breach a norm governing his action? Should our answers to these questions depend on whether we believe that the actor is morally responsible for lacking these moral emotions and understandings? In short, must we concern ourselves with those aspects of the agent's character – his goals, desires, values, emotions, and perceptions of what courses of action are available to him – that motivate his rational choices? Or are questions about what motivates the actor to exercise his capacity for rational choice irrelevant to our judgments concerning his moral culpability for violating some governing norm?One way of thinking about such questions is to ask what attributes a person must possess to qualify as an appropriate addressee of moral norms and a suitable object of moral blame. Must a moral agent have the capacity to respond to moral norms as a reason for his choices? Must he also be able to control those aspects of his character that impair his capacity to make moral choices?Most legal theorists insist that moral agents do not need such capacities to be fairly blamed for violating the minimal moral restraints that the criminal law imposes on their self-interested acts.

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“…The next theory for consideration is character theory, the main proponents being Aristotle, 98 Hume, 99 Bayles, 100 Pincoffs 101 and Arenella. 102 Here, criminal culpability is based on the subjective character traits of the individual moral agent, reflecting the principle that only 'bad people' should be punished. 103 For Hudson, '[m]oral virtues and vices .…”

To what extent should expert psychiatric witnesses comment on criminal culpability?

“…Character theory 25 treats someone as culpable for their criminal acts insofar as they are a product of their character traits, which are relatively stable patterns of thought and behaviour. Character theory explains why people are given lesser sentences if they are of previously good character.…”

Criminal Culpability, Criminal Attempts and the Erosion of the Choice Theory

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