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”Provocation and the Mitigation of Responsibility”

På svenska

Author

Editor

  • Svennerlind Christer
  • Almäng Jan
  • Ingthorsson Rögnvaldur

Summary, in English

In this article I discuss the relationship between the victim’s and the perpetrator’s guilt in a rape situation. Does recognition of the victim’s guilt automatically remove (any) responsibility from the perpetrator? One way of arguing that is does is to lean on an expanded version of the principle that “ought implies can”, which implies that the magnitude of the difficulty involved in abstaining from a certain action will affect the agent’s responsibility for it. This idea is firmly established in both common sense and moral practice, but I believe that it rests on the mistaken view that can is a gradable concept. Can is, I think, vague but categorical. This means that even if (and I say if) the perpetrator were provoked to some degree by his victim, this would not annul his responsibility so far as the expanded version of the principle is concerned.

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

179-190

Publication/Series

Johanssonian Investigations

Document type

Book chapter

Publisher

Ontos Verlag

Topic

  • Philosophy

Keywords

  • Provocation
  • rape
  • responsibility

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISBN: 978-3-86838-190-0