Abstract

In the long-running dispute about the sort of freedom required for responsibility, participants have tended to assume that they were concerned about a shared concept of moral responsibility.   This assumption has come into question recently.  A noticeable divide between “Lumpers” and “Splitters” has emerged.   Lumpers defend the traditional assumption that there is one unified concept of responsibility, whereas Splitters maintain that there are two or more concepts of moral responsibility. Here, I offer an argument on behalf of the Splitters that connects a type of value pluralism in normative ethical theorizing with the Splitter’s contention that there are multiple forms of moral responsibility.  My thesis is conditional.   Insofar as one finds plausible a fragmented picture of the landscape in normative theorizing — what I will refer to as “moral bricolage” — then one has reason to join the Splitters in thinking that the concept of moral responsibility is likewise fragmented.

Keywords: accountability, aretaic, bricolage, pluralism, reactive attitudes, responsibility.