دانشگاه تبریز مجله پژوهش های فلسفی 2251-7960 20 54 2026 01 21 Responsibility-Internalism Collapses: Conceptual, Normative, and Relational Challenges Responsibility-Internalism Collapses: Conceptual, Normative, and Relational Challenges 427 438 19922 10.22034/jpiut.2025.66324.4035 FA الهه صادقیان دانشجوی دکتری فلسفه اخلاق دانشگاه قم، قم، ایران. احمد فاضلی دانشیار گروه اخلاق، دانشگاه قم، قم، ایران. Journal Article 2025 03 11 Moral responsibility is a fundamental component of ethics, shaping our understanding of accountability, blame, and praise. Responsibility-internalism, which holds that moral responsibility is grounded in some internal mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, represents a novel yet radical departure from traditional frameworks that focus on the outcome, circumstances, and interpersonal relationships to draw the moral line. While this theory presents a simple, self-contained picture of moral responsibility, it faces serious theoretical problems that challenge its coherence and practical utility. It specifically cannot adequately explain cases of negligence, culpable ignorance, and the relational aspects of moral responsibility that are central to human interactions. This paper offers a critical-analytic examination of responsibility-internalism and its theoretical and practical shortcomings. It examines positions that would incorporate both internalist assumptions, emphasizing the control agents possess over their actions, and externalist and interpersonal factors, aiming to offer a more complete and nuanced conception of moral liability. Some of the paper is devoted to discussing case studies in which the limitations of responsibility-internalism relative to its alternatives are illustrated. And it concludes that although responsibility-internalism offers a novel take and a new tool in the discussions of moral responsibility, such an internalist approach ultimately fails to provide a full and usable theory of moral responsibility. Moral responsibility is a fundamental component of ethics, shaping our understanding of accountability, blame, and praise. Responsibility-internalism, which holds that moral responsibility is grounded in some internal mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, represents a novel yet radical departure from traditional frameworks that focus on the outcome, circumstances, and interpersonal relationships to draw the moral line. While this theory presents a simple, self-contained picture of moral responsibility, it faces serious theoretical problems that challenge its coherence and practical utility. It specifically cannot adequately explain cases of negligence, culpable ignorance, and the relational aspects of moral responsibility that are central to human interactions. This paper offers a critical-analytic examination of responsibility-internalism and its theoretical and practical shortcomings. It examines positions that would incorporate both internalist assumptions, emphasizing the control agents possess over their actions, and externalist and interpersonal factors, aiming to offer a more complete and nuanced conception of moral liability. Some of the paper is devoted to discussing case studies in which the limitations of responsibility-internalism relative to its alternatives are illustrated. And it concludes that although responsibility-internalism offers a novel take and a new tool in the discussions of moral responsibility, such an internalist approach ultimately fails to provide a full and usable theory of moral responsibility. https://philosophy.tabrizu.ac.ir/article_19922_4ac6d4e5c93a5431a7600acc7e2f9fe6.pdf