I am not an agent at all, or in any way responsible. Where compulsion exists, there my will, and with it accountability, does not exist. So far the ordinary consciousness is clear, and on this point we must not press it further. To fix the limits of compulsion; to say where force ends, and where will begins; to find the conditions, under which we may say, ‘There was no possibility of volition, and there could have been none’ —[1] is no easy matter, and fortunately one which does not concern us. [See more, Note A.]
Not only must the deed be an act, and come from the man without compulsion, but, in the second place, the doer must be supposed intelligent; he must know the particular circumstances of the case. (Τὸ ἑκόυσιον δόξειεν ἂν εἴναι οὗ ή ὰρχη ἐν αὐτῷ εἰδότι τὰ καθ' ἕκαστα ἐν οἶς ἡ πρᾶξις). If the man is ignorant, and if it was not his duty to know (for, supposing that to be his duty, the act, done in ignorance, is imputed to the will through the ignorance itself, which is criminally imputable), then the deed is not his act. A certain amount of intelligence, or ‘sense,’ is thus a condition of responsibility. No one who does not possess a certain minimum of general intelligence can be considered a responsible being; and under this head come imbecile persons, and, to a certain extent, young children. Further, the person whose intellect is eclipsed for a time—such eclipse being not attributable to himself—can not be made accountable for anything. He can say, and say truly, ‘I was not myself;’ for he means by his self an intelligent will.
Thirdly, responsibility implies a moral[2] agent. No one is accountable, who is not capable of knowing (not, who does not
- ↑ If, through my bad habits, it is my fault, that what presumably would not have been compulsion amounted to it in my case, then I am responsible for what I do under such compulsion. The degree is of course another matter.
- ↑ If there are in fact any adult sane persons, of whom it can be said that (capacity or no capacity) they not only are without any notions of good and bad, but have never had any the smallest chance of having them, and so are incapable; and whose fault it therefore in no sense is that they are what they are, then such persons must be considered as out of the moral sphere, and therefore, in the court of conscience, irresponsible and lunatic (whatever they have to be in law). But what standard a man is to be morally judged by, is quite another question, which we do not discuss.
