ASCRIPTION OF ACTION – ASCRIPTION OF RESPONSIBILITY (BASING ON H.L.A. HART’S CONCEPTION OF ASCRIPTIVISM)

Abstract

The article explores a concept of action and its relation to responsibility in the linguistic-analytical conception of a British philosopher and jurist Herbert Hart. It discusses the thinker’s thesis about a social (ascriptive) character of a concept of action, opposed to its interpretation as a description of empirical fact. The article also analyzes Hart’s conception of ascription of responsibility, its limits as well as possibilities of its reformulation through the author’s doctrine of ascriptivism.