Even though there is good reason to consider a dog a sentient being capable of making choices and plans ― so that we might suppose ‘it could have conceived of acting otherwise’ ― we’re unlikely to think it is wicked and immoral for attacking a child. Moral responsibility is not some universal concept like entropy or temperature ― something that applies equally, and can be measured similarly, everywhere in the cosmos. It is a notion developed specifically for human use, no more or less than languages are. While sentience and volition are aspects of mind and agency, morals are cultural tools developed to influence social behaviour: to cultivate the desirable and discourage the harmful. They are learnt, not given at birth. It’s possible, indeed likely, that we are born with a predisposition to cooperate with others ― but only within human society do we come to understand this as moral behaviour.
* sentient: 지각력이 있는 ** volition: 의지