ABSTRACT
Finally, I hope that the theory will have application to contentious debates about moral responsibility, such as whether psychopaths are morally responsible for wrongs they commit and whether people who are manipulated into doing wrong can be morally responsible for their manipulated actions. If I am right that people deserve resentment in virtue of it appropriately fulfilling the aims of appraisal, communication, and sanction, we may make progress on contentious issues about responsibility by investigating whether such aims make sense in reference to psychopaths or manipulated persons. With an account of what it is to deserve reactive emotions, we may be better able to see whether such conditions undermine people’s moral responsibility.
