Moral agents

References and further reading

Although they involve intricate argument, none of these items is particularly technical. All except the Kant are fairly easy to follow.

	Bentham, J. (1817) Plan for Parliamentary Reform, in J. Bowring (ed.) The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 3, Edinburgh, 1843. (Proposes that the setting up of the right institutions, such as representative democracy, and sanctions, such as punishment, would lead all members of the public, including the rulers, to see that contributing to the common good would be in their own best interests, and therefore that rulers who acted against the public interest would be unlikely to be re-elected.)
	Bradley, F.H. (1894) ‘Some Remarks on Punishment’, International Journal of Ethics; repr. in Collected Essays, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1935, vol. 1, essay 7. (Advocates Darwinism and social surgery against nonmoral agents.)
	Bradley, F.H. (1927) Ethical Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927, ch. 1. (Outlines some of the conditions of moral responsibility.)
	Campbell, C.A. (1957) Selfhood and Godhead, London: Allen & Unwin, 376–385. (A Kantian defence of free will and moral agency.)
	Edwards. J. (1758) ‘Original Sin’, in C.A. Holbrook (ed.) Works of Jonathan Edwards, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970, part IV, ch. 3. (Argues in favour of collective moral accountability.)
	Haksar, V. (1964) ‘Aristotle and the Punishment of Psychopaths’, Philosophy 39: 323–340; repr. in J. Walsh, and H. Shapiro (eds) Aristotle’s Ethics, Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1967, 80–101. (Discusses whether psychopaths are morally accountable for their actions and examines Aristotle’s views on moral agency.)
	Haksar, V. (1991) Indivisible Selves and Moral Practice, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, chaps 2 (section 2), 9 and 10. (Examines the analogy between individuals and collectives.)
	James, W. (1907) Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals, London: Longman’s Green and Co., 265–301. (Discussion of what makes life significant.)
	Kant, I. (1785) Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, trans. with notes by H.J. Paton, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (originally The Moral Law), London: Hutchinson, 1948; repr. New York: Harper & Row, 1964. (Advocates ‘strong’ interpretation of conditions required for moral agency.)
	Malcolm, N. (1966) L. Wittgenstein, A Memoir, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Includes Wittgenstein’s views on G.E. Moore’s ‘innocence’.)
	Murphy, J. (1972) ‘Moral Death: A Kantian Essay on Psychopathy’, Ethics 91: 284–298. (Discussion of psychopathy from a Kantian standpoint.)
	Rawls, J. (1971) A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, ch. 8. (Expounds the view that a moral personality must have the capacity to act from a sense of justice.)
	Taylor, C. (1976) ‘Responsibility for Self’, in A. Rorty (ed.) The Identities of Persons, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 281–299; repr. in G. Watson (ed.) Free Will, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982, 111–126. (Suggests moral agency consists in the capacity to choose one’s values in accordance with one’s authentic nature.)