For example, I've chosen initially to restrict my focus to morally significant actions (and possibly other items e.g., traits—subject to moral evaluation) and have assumed that moral responsibility involves both positive and negative reactions like praise and blame.
Unlike animals or natural disasters, human beings in these traditions can be the originators of morally significant actions, as they can freely choose to act in one way rather than another way and deliberate about the consequences of this choice.
To lead a morally significant life, one's actions must express a self-consciously asserted will.
They might hold that the Cliffordian view applies, say, to the beliefs formed by a military pilot about the location of a legitimate bombing target in the midst of a residential area, or the beliefs formed by a government health official regarding the efficacy of a pharmaceutical trial, at least insofar as these beliefs lead to morally or prudentially significant actions.
Generally speaking a person or a group of people is morally responsible when their voluntary actions have morally significant outcomes that would make it appropriate to blame or praise them.
List options for action and their morally significant features e.g best interests, fairness Ascertain what legal or professional guidance exists Identify moral arguments for and against the options listed Choose an appropriate treatment option Identify the strongest ethical argument against its use, can it be rebuffed?
Finally, there is the possibility that the action has no unknown morally significant properties.
Moral responsibility is, thus, not only about how the actions of a person or a group of people affect others in a morally significant way; it is also about how their actions are shaped by technology.
For better or worse, we have to learn to live together in larger social units, and we cannot be intimate or even acquainted with every human being whose actions and fate are morally significant for us.
