# Towards Formal Definitions of Blameworthiness, Intention, and Moral Responsibility

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.05903 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.05903/

## Key facts

- Cited by 32 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 13 Oct 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 32)

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- [Agent-Specific Effects: A Causal Effect Propagation Analysis in Multi-Agent MDPs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.11334/) (2023)
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## Abstract (arXiv)

We provide formal definitions of degree of blameworthiness and intention relative to an epistemic state (a probability over causal models and a utility function on outcomes). These, together with a definition of actual causality, provide the key ingredients for moral responsibility judgments. We show that these definitions give insight into commonsense intuitions in a variety of puzzling cases from the literature.
