Sher, George. Who Knew?: Responsibility Without Awareness.

Quirk, Patrick

SHER, George. Who Knew?: Responsibility Without Awareness. Oxford University Press, 2009. 157pp. Paperback $24.95--Sher's book is an exploration of the epistemic dimensions of moral psychology and responsibility, prior to considerations of free will and control. His goal is to show that "because philosophers have not taken the knowledge requirement [of moral responsibility] seriously, a certain familiar way of understanding it has not received the scrutiny it deserves." Sher then sets out to give the knowledge requirement of moral responsibility an extended and lucid treatment, and to offer his own composite version.

According to Sher, an agent is only generally responsible for acts of which he is aware according to the full epistemic condition (FEC) a complicated (or sophisticated) test for human responsibility. On page 143 we receive the fullest expression of Sher's thesis: When someone performs an act in a way that is voluntary, he is morally responsible if (but only if) he either, "(1) is consciously aware that the act has that feature (that is, is wrong or foolish or right or prudent) when he performs it; or else (2) is unaware that the act is wrong or foolish despite having evidence for its wrongness or foolishness his failure to recognize which (a) falls below some applicable standard, and (b) is caused by the interactions of some combination of his constitutive attitudes, dispositions, and traits; or else (3) is unaware that the act is right or prudent despite having made enough cognitive contact with the evidence for its rightness or prudence to enable him to perform the act on that basis."

In the opening chapters Sher is critical of what he calls the "searchlight view," according to which, humans are responsible only for those actions that are undertaken while they are "aware" of what they are doing. Thus Sher's FEC is to be contrasted with the view that an agent "is responsible only for those acts he consciously chooses to perform, only for those omissions he consciously chooses to allow, and only for those outcomes he consciously chooses to bring about." The responsibility extends not to the acts or omissions simpliciter, but only to "those aspects of it and its outcomes of which he is aware."

Sher argues that such a view can be strongly counter-intuitive and provides examples to prove his point: take the case of Father Poteet, an otherwise good driver, who makes a split-second yet fatal error while merging on to a highway thus causing a massive accident. (This is scenario six of nine and bears the case name Jackknife). The good Father, we intuit, should indeed be held responsible for his actions despite the searchlight view's opposition. His lack of awareness, arising from the split-secondness of the decisions and events, is no useful defense. Put another way, the (objectively) reasonable person should or would have known of their error. Sher's other examples cover a range of interesting cases involving involuntary actions (distracted, daydreaming, sleeping), voluntary but negligent acts, voluntary but mistaken acts, and acts arising from various forms of lack of insight. Examples in the latter class are the over-empathetic college professor with an erratic grading pattern, and the nonmalicious but self-absorbed storyteller who offends every audience with inappropriate tales.

Sher spends two chapters exploring the reasons used to support the searchlight view (practicality and fairness) and rejects them because they conflate "inside" (engaged) and outside" (detached) perspectives that we hold when acting. In Sher's own words, "My reason for thinking that the searchlight view conflates these perspectives is that it draws on a conception of the agent that derives its plausibility from the first perspective while purporting to specify a necessary condition for the applicability of a concept--responsibility--whose natural home is the second."

The book is a thought-provoking exploration of questions about our responsibility for and awareness of our own actions, and what it means for such actions to be attached to, or grow out from, the individual's attitudes, dispositions or traits. In legal terms, this butts up against a range of concepts: strict liability, mens rea, culpability, etc. Those concerned with the law may ask: Where does this (philosophical) discussion leave strict liability offences such as bigamy, and statutory rape? How does it affect areas like robbery and murder where means rea is critical? All these would be interesting to explore at greater length.

Certainly, the law is quite used to manipulating rough and ready adages such as "the state of a man's mind is as much a fact as the state of his digestion," the "reasonable man" test, and offensive elements like "knowingly and willingly." Sher's analysis may in the long term be most helpful to judges and juries who are in the business of assigning blame in both the criminal and civil courts. (See also his earlier work In Praise of Blame (OUP, 2006)). If there is a concluding concern, it is to ask how the law might adopt and put into practical use Sher's complex (overcomplicated?) vision of responsibility as expressed in the FEC.--Patrick Quirk, Ave Maria School of Law.