Moral Responsibility and the Problem of Many Hands

Ibo van de Poel, Lambèr Royakkers, Sjoerd D. Zwart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317560296
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Ethics & Moral Philosophy

When many people are involved in an activity, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint who is morally responsible for what, a phenomenon known as the 'problem of many hands.' This term is increasingly used to describe problems with attributing individual responsibility in collective settings in such diverse areas as public administration, corporate management, law and regulation, technological development and innovation, healthcare, and finance. This volume provides an in-depth philosophical analysis of this problem, examining the notion of moral responsibility and distinguishing between different normative meanings of responsibility, both backward-looking (accountability, blameworthiness, and liability) and forward-looking (obligation, virtue). Drawing on the relevant philosophical literature, the authors develop a coherent conceptualization of the problem of many hands, taking into account the relationship, and possible tension, between individual and collective responsibility. This systematic inquiry into the problem of many hands pertains to discussions about moral responsibility in a variety of applied settings.

1
Moral Responsibility

Ibo van de Poel

1.1 Introduction

What do we mean when we say that someone is responsible for something? This question is remarkably hard to answer. Or better, it does not have one correct answer. Sometimes, by saying that some agent i is responsible for some state-of-affairs φ, we mean to express that it would be appropriate to blame or praise agent i for φ being the case (depending on whether φ is desirable or not); sometimes we, however, mean to say that i should bring about φ, or at least do everything in i’s power to bring about φ. We also might also intend to say that i is to account for φ being the case (or not being the case), or—if the occurrence of φ has caused damage to another agent j, is to pay damages to j.

Responsibility, then, has a multiplicity of meanings. These meanings are, however, not unrelated. An agent i may be responsible-as-blameworthy for φ because that same agent i did not properly fulfil her responsibility to avoid φ from occurring. A shipping company may be responsible (as-blameworthy) for a shipping disaster because it did not fulfil its responsibility to take measures to avoid a disaster, such as having qualified personnel, good equipment, inspection schemes, et cetera. Although the various meanings of responsibility are related to each other, these relationships are not straightforward or simple, as we will see in this chapter.

Therefore, it is useful to investigate the meanings of responsibility and the relation between these different meanings. This chapter develops a conceptualization of moral responsibility. By doing so, it lays the ground for the other chapters in this book, especially the next chapter, in which we try to understand and conceptualise the so-called problem of many hands with respect to moral responsibility. The focus in this chapter will be on notions of moral responsibility, i.e., responsibility that is grounded in moral considerations, rather than legal or organisational considerations and rules.

The approach in this chapter is conceptual in nature, i.e., it will proceed by distinguishing and clarifying different meanings of responsibility and their relations. In doing so, we will build on accounts of responsibility that have been offered by other thinkers and that can be found in daily language. At some points, we will make choices with respect to how we understand the relevant terms and their relations that are substantial or even normative. Such choices seem inevitable if one wants to sketch a coherent picture. Nevertheless, we have tried to provide an account that is general and abstract enough to apply to different, more substantive notions of responsibility.

This chapter is structured as follows. We start with an overview of different meanings of responsibility, suggesting five major normative meanings of responsibility, three of which are primarily backward-looking (accountability, blameworthiness, and liability), and two which are primarily forward-looking (virtue and obligation). In section 1.2 we provide an account of responsibility as a relational concept and we discuss different reasons one might have for attributing responsibility. Sections 1.3 and 1.4 propose conceptualisations of respectively backward-looking and forward-looking responsibility. Section 1.5 discusses the relation between forward-looking and backward-looking responsibility. The final section concludes with some conceptual relations between the different meanings of responsibility that follow from the chapter.

1.2 The Concept of Responsibility

In section 1.2.1, we introduce a taxonomy of meanings of responsibility that list four descriptive and five normative meanings of responsibility. In the remainder of this chapter, and the book, we will focus on the normative meanings of responsibility. (We give more precise definitions of all these meanings of responsibility in sections 1.3 and 1.4.) In section 1.2.2., we discuss responsibility as a relational concept, and in section 1.2.3, we pay attention to the reasons we may have for attributing the various normative meanings of responsibility.

1.2.1 Meanings of Responsibility

The term ‘responsibility’ has different meanings. It is therefore useful to distinguish some of the main meanings of the concept.¹ Table 1.1 lists, to this end, various meanings of responsibility. The first four meanings are more or less descriptive: responsibility-as-cause, role,² authority,³ and capacity describe something that is the case or not. The other five are normative. They imply a normative evaluation, as in responsibility-as-virtue and responsibility-as-blameworthiness, or a prescription, as in responsibility-as-obligation and in responsibility-as-liability (to pay damages, offer excuses, put the situation right, et cetera). Responsibility-as-accountability seems to imply both an evaluation as well as a prescription; the agent is supposed to account for something because an action or outcome can be laid at her feet.⁴ Our focus here will be on the normative meanings of responsibility.

The first two normative meanings are primarily forward-looking (prospective) in nature. This is most obvious for responsibility-as-obligation; it relates to something that is—usually—not yet the case. Responsibility-as-virtue is often primarily understood as being forward-looking (e.g Ladd 1991, Bovens 1998); it relates to responsibilities an agent actively assumes and to a certain attitude, rather than to blame (or praise). Nevertheless, one could well argue that a responsible person is one who is willing to account for his actions and who accepts blame and liability where that is due (Williams 2008).

Table 1.1 Taxonomy of responsibility meanings

1. Descriptive
Responsibility-as-cause	Being the cause. As in: The earth quake is responsible for the death of 100 people.
Responsibility-as-task	Having the task. As in: The train driver is responsible for driving the train.
Responsibility-as-authority	Having the authority or being in charge. As in: He is responsible for the project, meaning he is in charge of the project.
Responsibility-as-capacity	The ability to act in a responsible way.
	This includes, for example, the ability to reflect on the consequences of one's actions, to form intentions, and to deliberately choose an action and act upon it.
2. Normative
2a Normative and Forward-looking
Responsibility-as-virtue	The disposition (character trait) to act responsibly. As in: He is a responsible person.
Responsibility-as-obligation	The obligation to see to it that something is the case. As in: He is responsible for the safety of the passengers, meaning he is responsible to see to it that the passengers are transported safely.
2a Normative and Backward-looking
Responsibility-as-accountability	The obligation to account for one's actions and their outcomes.
Responsibility-as-blameworthiness	The appropriateness of blame. As in:
	He is responsible for the car accident, meaning he can be blamed for the car accident happening.
Responsibility-as-liability	The obligation to remedy a situation or to compensate for it. As in: He is liable to pay damages.

Responsibility-as-accountability, blameworthiness, and liability are backward-looking in the sense that they usually apply to something that has occurred. Nevertheless, accountability and liability have a forward-looking (prescriptive) element in the sense that the agent is supposed to do something (in the future): to account for his actions, to pay damages, and the like.

Most of the philosophical literature on responsibility tends to focus on backward-looking responsibility and often understands backward-looking responsibility in terms of reactive attitudes (e.g. Wallace 1994, Strawson 1962). That is to say, if it is reasonable to hold someone responsible for something, it is considered reasonable to have certain reactive attitudes to that person in respect of the thing for which the person is held responsible. Although such reactive attitudes may take different forms, the most common denominator seems to be blame. We will, therefore, call this meaning of responsibility ‘responsibility-as-blameworthiness’.

It should be noted that responsibility-as-blameworthiness is not the only meaning of backward-looking moral responsibility. Two other main meanings are responsibility-as-accountability and responsibility-as-liability (Van de Poel 2011, Davis 2012). We will understand accountability basically in the sense of being obliged to account for one’s actions and their outcomes. Moral liability is related to obligations to victims of one’s action, like being obliged to pay damages or to remedy an injustice caused.

Some of the normative meanings of responsibility are related to, or rely on, the descriptive meanings of responsibility. Responsibility-as-virtue is closely related to responsibility-as-capacity. But whereas the latter only refers to the ability to act responsibly, responsibility-as-virtue refers to the actual disposition, also surfacing in actions, to be a responsible person. Similarly, responsibility-as-obligation is closely related to responsibility-as-task.⁵ Tasks are typically formulated in terms of seeing to it that something is the case. The difference is that not every task or role defines a moral obligation. So, whereas it might be said that Eichmann had the task (responsibility) that the Jews were effectively transported to the concentration camps, it does not follow that he had a (moral) obligation to see to it that they were effectively transported. In fact, because the transport was part of an immoral plan, aiming at the extinction of the Jews, he might even have had a moral obligation to see to it that they were not effectively transported.

Although responsibility-as-accountability, responsibility-as-blameworthiness, and responsibility-as-liability are in meaning not directly related to one of the descriptive notions, it is often assumed that responsibility-as-cause and responsibility-as-capacity are preconditions for holding someone accountable, liable, or for blaming someone. Blameworthiness, in turn, is sometimes seen as a condition for moral liability. It is also often believed that responsibility-as-task or responsibility-as-authority may lead to responsibility-as-accountability, especially if the former responsibilities are not properly discharged.

1.2.2 Responsibility as a Relational Concept

In most of its meanings, responsibility refers to a relation between at least two entities. The most basic form this relation takes is:

• (1) i is responsible for φ

In which i is some agent and φ can refer to actions, state of affairs (outcomes), tasks, or realms of authority. Two meanings of responsibility, however, seem to resist this conceptualisation, namely responsibility-as-capacity and responsibility-as-virtue.⁶ Capacity and virtue are better understood as a ‘property’, or characteristic of the agent i, rather than as a relation between an agent i and some φ. This is not to say that it never makes sense to particularise responsibility-as-capacity or responsibility-as-virtue to a particular φ. We might, for example, say that someone is a responsible parent but an irresponsible engineer (both in the virtue sense).⁷ However, for both responsibility-as-capacity and responsibility-as-virtue, it makes sense to say that i is responsible full stop, whereas that appears impossible for all other meanings.

Responsibility can also be understood as a triadic relational concept. Duff (2007: 23–30) argues that normative notions of responsibility are best understood according to the following scheme:⁸

• (2) i is responsible for φ to j

In which j is some agent, usually different from i. In cases of forward-looking responsibility, (2) reflects the fact that we may have specific responsibilities to different people. Professionals like engineers, for example, have different responsib...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Moral Responsibility
• 2 The Problem of Many Hands
• 3 A Formalisation of Moral Responsibility and the Problem of Many Hands
• 4 Responsibility and the Problem of Many Hands in Networks
• 5 A Procedural Approach to Distributing Responsibility
• 6 Responsibility as a Virtue and the Problem of Many Hands
• Conclusions: From Understanding to Avoiding the Problem of Many Hands
• About the Authors
• Index