A slave is ordered to kill by his master. As the slave is deprived of his autonomy, it seems intuitive that the master is morally responsible for this action, not the slave. This argument is derived (in spirit) from Immanuel Kant, who argued that only autonomous (driven by internal will) actions, derived from duty to the moral law, can be considered moral. Duty, in turn, is derived from rational deliberation. Kant contrasts autonomous actions with heteronomous actions, which are driven by external will.
(I know that paragraph sounds very AI-generated but I promise it is not.)
An extension of this line of thinking can be made. A religious person commits actions due to their... (read 515 more words →)