Alle radici della responsabilità: l’imputabilità morale

The essay aims to focus on certain aspects of moral imputability and of the declinations of conscience. First of all, it gives some preliminary hints on radical freedom, which is at the root of actions and omissions. Then it reflects on the conditions of the moral imputability of an act and of an omission, that is awareness and voluntariness. At that point it then focuses on the objects of unconsciousness-ignorance (for what is ethically relevant), and its forms: vincible ignorance, invincible ignorance, guilty ignorance, innocent ignorance. At that point, the essay then considers the situations in which ignorance excuses, that is it removes moral guiltiness from an act that the subject aware of its identity, of its elements and of its morality should not choose, and the situations in which ignorance aggravates or attenuates it. Finally, it argues that one must always follow one’s own conscience, even when it is erroneous, and that this sometimes makes us morally good, sometimes evil.