> Taking responsibility is distinguished from being morally responsible > in that, if one takes responsibility for a particular outcome it does > not follow that one is morally responsible for that outcome. One can > take responsibility for many things, from the mundane to the vitally > important. For example, one can take responsibility for teaching a > course, organizing a conference, or throwing a birthday party. The > responsibility taken, however, is profoundly different from the moral > responsibility that would justify blame and punishment, praise and > reward (Waller 2011: 105; Pereboom 2001: xxi). > > While some philosophers may claim (or assume) that taking > responsibility entails being morally responsible (e.g., Smilansky > 2012), this seems to conflate a very important distinction. To take > responsibility for, say, organizing a conference, is to agree to put > forth the effort needed to achieve a certain set of goals or > tasks—e.g., inviting speakers, putting out a CFP, reserving the space, > etc. If the conference were to fail for reasons completely outside the > control of the agent—say there was a major snowstorm that day and > several of the speakers could not make it—it would remain a separate > and open question whether the agent who took charge for organizing the > conference was deserving of blame for the failure. For many, the > intuition is rather strong that she is not, especially in cases where > the reasons for failure are external to the agent (e.g., a snow storm, > canceled flights, etc.). But skeptics would contend that the same > remains true when the failure is due to the agent’s own flaws (e.g., > their laziness) since in a naturalistic world devoid of miracles these > too are the result of factors outside the control of the agent (e.g., > determinism, chance, or luck). https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-moral-responsibility/ It semes to be a very important aspect of moral obligation. If I *cannot* take charge for something then my obligation to do it is different. **Can we take responsibility without moral responsibility (I am somewhat unnconvinced that the example shows we can, rather than the two not being identical, because the agent is potentially blameworthy for *something*), and is taking responsibility threatened by determinism?** I'm also intersted in whether it interfaces with the *answerability* sense of responsibility, whether we need to be answerable to ourselves to *take charge*. ---------- Personally, I see no reason to think that the control involved in taking charge of something cannot suffice for the agent to be responsible not just for e.g. a succesful conference, but for bringing about etc. intrinsic goods.