Abstract

The ground of the pragmatic approach to moral concepts and conceptions is its belief, that the moral concepts are rooted in social praxis and that they reflect the tensions, problems and crises present in social life. For the American philosopher Marion Smiley the category approving this approach is responsibility. Unveiling the social and historical moments, which determine our understanding of the subject of responsibility, as well as the very judgments on causal responsibility question the universalistic conceptions of moral responsibility. At the same time Smiley tries to create a unified methodological frame in which the controversial problems of judging the responsibility of individual subjects