When can we be morally responsible for our behavior? Is it fair to blame people for actions that are determined by heredity and environment? Can we be responsible for the actions of relatives or members of our community? In this provocative book, Tamler Sommers concludes that there are no objectively correct answers to these questions. Drawing on research in anthropology, psychology, and a host of other disciplines, Sommers argues that cross-cultural variation raises serious problems for theories that propose universally applicable conditions for moral responsibility. He then develops a new way of thinking about responsibility that takes cultural diversity into account. Relative Justice is a novel and accessible contribution to the ancient debate over free will and moral responsibility. Sommers provides a thorough examination of the methodology employed by contemporary philosophers in the debate and a challenge to Western assumptions about individual autonomy and its connection to moral desert.

This intriguing new work provides a careful examination of how judgments of ourselves and others relate to problems and, in so doing, yields valuable insight into human interactions and motivational processes. Laying out a general theory of social motivation, the author incorporates a number of well-researched areas in social psychology and motivation to elucidate basic principles that guide human conduct across culture and time. Chapters reveal how responsibility inferences are reached, the manner in which such judgments affect emotions, and the role that "cold" judgments of responsibility versus "hot" feelings, such as anger, play in producing both positive and negative behaviors. The author demonstrates that the ways others are perceived influence the behaviors directed toward them, showing how attributions of personal causality are followed by judgments of responsibility. These inferences then give rise to other-directed emotions such as anger and sympathy which, in turn, generate antisocial and prosocial actions. Providing a conceptual system that permits readers a deeper understanding of motivational processes and suggests guidelines for more effective interventions, this book is insightful reading for a wide range of scholars.