Deliberative Entitlement

In other work, I have defended what I call a “deliberative account of moral complicity,” according to which an agent can become complicit in the wrongful conduct of another agent by failing in a deliberative obligation that they have to help that other agent deliberate correctly about what to do. The possibility of deliberative complicity raises a problem: should the deliberative agent focus her attention on fulfilling her deliberative duty and risk causal complicity? In this paper, I articulate this pressing difficulty and defend a default entitlement to engage with other agents in what I call the deliberative mode. Assuming that the default entitlement is in place (or than an agent is justified in thinking it is in place), an agent who causally contributes to the wrongful action of another will not be morally complicit in that wrongful action if she fulfills her deliberative duty.