This paper examines the structure of moral responsibility for outcomes. We apply game theory to model the anatomy of such responsibility. A central feature of this anatomy is a formal condition that we term the ‘avoidance potential’, which gives precision to the idea that moral responsibility implies a reasonable demand that an agent should have acted otherwise. We show how this theory can allocate moral responsibility to individuals in complex collective actions problems, an issue that sometimes goes by the name of ‘the problem of many hands’. We also show how this theory allocates moral responsibility in the classic Frankfurt style example. The paper closes with a brief indication of the implications of the theory for moral obligations. 1.
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