Moral responsibility presupposes that people have self-influence over their actions.

Evidence

To be an agent is to exert intentional influence over one’s functioning and over the course of events by one’s actions. The capacity for self-influence gives meaning to the exercise of morality. If human behavior were controlled solely by external forces, it would be pointless to hold individuals responsible for their behavior. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 65

Before we address issues regarding moral agency and its selective disengagement, a brief review of the agentic conceptual framework of social cognitive theory is presented. To be an agent is to exert intentional influence over one’s functioning and over the course of events by one’s actions. The capacity for self-influence gives meaning to the exercise of morality. If human behavior were controlled solely by external forces, it would be pointless to hold individuals responsible for their behavior. — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 65

Categorization

• XREF: Logic reminiscent of free-will debates and the compatibilist position; connects to psychological determinism discussions. — connects to: Anguish and responsibility are the felt consciousness of self-choice. — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1118; Ethical appeals to individual responsibility let impersonal structures evade accountability — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 139; das Man drains personal responsibility by taking over decisions that should be our own — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 264
• DEFINE: Anchors the definition of agency that makes moral accountability conceptually possible.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 65