Abstract
In his paper, "Voluntary Acts and Responsible Agents", Bernard Williams challenges the notion that being responsible for one's actions is synonymous with being a mature individual, particularly in the context of civic maturity. This latter concept pertains to the maturity of citizens who actively engage with the laws of their community or state, thereby shaping their citizenship and exercising practical reasoning. Williams contends that discussions of responsibility do not inherently relate to the mature agent. When considering the mature agent, we must also address the comprehensive development of deliberative requirements, including self-knowledge. Nevertheless, justice and civic maturity should be conceived separately. Consequently, questions of justice emerge among individuals residing within a “common system of justice” when interacting with strangers. I will refer to this idea as “Williams' Separation Thesis”.
In contrast to Williams, I will argue that it is possible to reconcile the politics of civic maturity with the politics of justice, and I will explore a philosophical conception of 'rights' and justice to illuminate a potential reconciliation strategy. I will demonstrate that civic maturity is attained when citizens engage with the values inherent in the law, specifically through the descriptions and re-descriptions of values articulated by judicial reasoning. These descriptions and re-descriptions form the backdrop of judicial attributions. Nonetheless, I acknowledge Williams’ assertion that a psychologically realistic account of ethical and legal responsibility is necessary, and I intend to clearly illustrate how the notion of deliberation can be grounded in psychological realism.