2 - Obligation and Control

Summary

One cannot perform an act that is morally right, wrong, or obligatory if one does not have appropriate control over that act; deontic acts presuppose control. This is, perhaps, most evident in the case of moral obligation. It is difficult to accept the verdict that Leno, though pinned to his seat, ought to have saved the child, or that the paraplegic ought to have walked across the lawn when ‘ought’ denotes moral obligation or requirement. Again, it is hard to see how Mitch did something that is morally wrong by failing to help the victim of the car crash when he could not have helped the victim. Or it is, minimally, puzzling to see how Zakir did moral wrong by stealing the loaf when he could not but have stolen it. One might, given apt circumstances, reasonably think that Zakir did something bad by stealing the loaf, but this judgment is consistent with Zakir's not having done wrong. Or, again, it is paradoxical to suppose that the mother's not spanking the child was morally right when she literally lacked the ability to spank her child. These enigmas are not merely pragmatic or do not simply have to do with substantive moral claims about what is fair but are conceptual; the verdict about the paraplegic, for instance, seems conceptually inconsistent. Such examples, and numerous others like them, motivate the view that one cannot do what is right, or wrong, or obligatory unless one has appropriate “deontic-grounding control” over what one does.