There are two overlapping topics in this piece by Hart (a postscript to a collection of his essays on punishment and responsibility). The first is the distinctions among four senses of the term “responsibility” as it occurs in the law. You can regard this as analogous to Hohfeld’s effort to distinguish ways that “right” is used. A good exercise in applying these distinctions (and one we’ll probably do in part in class) is to work through the passage (about a sea captain, see p. 405) and identify the sense in which each occurrence of “responsible” or a related term is used.

The second topic is an extended discussion of the most important of these senses, which Hart refers to as “liability responsibility.” Hart devotes over half of the postscript to a discussion of this as it applies to the law and morality (pp. 407-415). Pay special attention to Hart’s survey of the criteria for the legal side of liability responsibility (pp. 409-412). (If the term mens rea is new to you, check the glossary in the Culver anthology, p. 557. And also note that Culver has brief introduction to Hart’s postscript in his introduction to this section of the anthology, pp. 397-398.)