Accountability, Autism and Friendship with God

David Shoemaker has argued that autistic persons cannot be held accountable and are not members of the moral community. Arguing against this conclusion, this article both corrects the view of autism contained in Shoemaker’s paper and resituates his theory of accountability within a Christian virtue ethic based on the gift of friendship. The call to be accountable to God for one’s life contains within it the gift of God’s friendship and does not require the capacity for empathy ( contra Shoemaker) or joint attention ( contra Pinsent) as a prerequisite. Instead, the inclusion of autistic people within the moral community created by the call of God highlights that accountability is a grace given for the flourishing of all persons.

Moral and Criminal Responsibility

Drawing on Gary Watson’s seminal work on responsibility, this chapter focuses on what he calls accountability. It distinguishes (in section 8.1), answerability from liability, and then concentrates on answerability, which operates, it argues (contra David Shoemaker), analogously in both moral and legal contexts. It discusses (in section 8.2) the way in which answerability requires us to attend to the capacities of the person whom we hold responsible, not just at the time of the conduct for which he is now being held responsible, but at the time of the holding. In section 8.3, it then attends to some implications of the requirement that when we hold someone answerable, we must be ready to listen to their answer. Finally, in section 8.4, it tackles the issue of standing: what gives us the right to call another person to account; and what can undermine that standing—with what implications?

Answerability Without Answers

The classical ethical questions of whether and to what extent moral criticism is a sort of rational criticism have received renewed interest in recent years. According to the approach that I refer to as rationalist, accounts of moral responsibility are grounded by explanations of the conditions under which an agent is rationally answerable for her actions and attitudes. In the sense that is relevant here, to answer for an attitude or action is to give reasons that at least purport to justify it. To hold someone answerable for an attitude or action is thus to hold her rationally liable for it. T. M. Scanlon’s view is perhaps the most well-known example of this approach. The rationalist approach has recently been attacked by David Shoemaker for being too narrow: the charge is that attitudes exist for which an agent is responsible even though she cannot, in the relevant sense, answer for them. If there are morally significant attitudes that are attributable to an agent even though she cannot answer for them, then it would seem incomplete, misguided, or worse to treat morality as fundamentally a matter of demanding and giving reasons. By developing some remarks based on G. E. M. Anscombe’s Intention, I defend the rationalist approach against this critique. I show how an agent may be answerable for an attitude even though she cannot answer for it. The objective of this paper is thus twofold: to contribute to the discussion of the connection between rational liability and ethical responsibility, and to provide an example of the broad relevance of Anscombe’s thought to contemporary practical philosophy.

Report from Holstebro: Odin Teatret's ‘Talabot’

In previous issues, NTQ has paid close attention to the theoretical work of Odin Teatret founder and director Eugenio Barba, publishing several of his articles relating to the actor's scenic presence and the manipulation of his or her performing energies. Indeed, as a result of his work with ISTA, the International School of Theatre Anthropology, Barba is perhaps better known today as a theatre scholar than as a director: but he insists that virtually all of his research originates in his work with the actors of Odin Teatret. Here, David Shoemaker, who is completing a doctoral dissertation at the University of California, Berkeley, on the relationship between Barba's work as theoretician and practitioner, describes his encounter with the Odin's most recent performance piece, entitled Talabot.