ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the analysis of attributions suggests that the central and necessary feature of the act was the assertion of someone's liability for sanction or other interference. There are at least two items to justify for any attribution: that what happened to occasion the attribution is the sort of thing for which someone may properly be held liable for sanction or interference; and that the particular person(s) picked out by the attribution are ones properly held liable in the case at hand. Many attributions can be seen as the logical, though not always psychological outgrowth of corresponding deontic responsibilities. The range of possible excuses ruled out by an examination of the terms of the deontic responsibility is significant. The chapter considers two items: the question of cause and the question of responsible agency. The procedures for establishing agency are not at all special to moral philosophy, for there is no valuation involved.
