RESPONSIBILITY.

The term responsibility has several related meanings.

First, there is causal responsibility. To say that the short circuit is responsible for the fire is simply to say that the short circuit caused the fire.

Second, there is personal responsibility. This comes in two forms, prospective and retrospective. To say that the lifeguard is responsible for the swimmers' safety is to say that the lifeguard has a responsibility (a duty or obligation) to see to it that the swimmers remain safe. This is a prospective matter, since it points toward the future. In contrast, to say that the lifeguard is responsible for the swimmers' deaths is to say that the lifeguard bears responsibility for something that has already happened; it is to attribute a sort of blameworthiness to the lifeguard for having failed to fulfill a duty. Attributions of retrospective responsibility need not always be negative, though. To say that the generous donor is responsible for the charity's success is to attribute a sort of praiseworthiness to the donor.

Third, there is collective responsibility. This may also be either prospective or retrospective. Sometimes collections of individuals (such as corporations or nations) are said to have duties or obligations, and on such occasions they may also be held to account for fulfilling or failing to fulfill these duties. It is controversial whether collective responsibility is reducible to personal responsibility (so that all statements about the former can be translated into statements about the latter) or rather constitutes a distinct type of responsibility.

Noncausal responsibility, whether personal or collective and whether prospective or retrospective, may be either moral or nonmoral (as when it is legal or professional) depending on whether the duties in question are moral or nonmoral. Furthermore, retrospective responsibility, whether positive or negative, constitutes a susceptibility to reactions that may vary in kind. The most basic kind of reaction consists simply in an evaluation of the person (or collection of individuals) to whom (or which) the attribution of responsibility is made. Thus, to hold the lifeguard responsible, in this basic way, for the swimmers' deaths is to make a negative evaluation of him or her in light of the deaths. A more robust kind of reaction involves treating the person (or group) in some way—for example, by handing out reward or punishment. It is frequently held that justification for the more robust kind of reaction presupposes justification for the basic kind (so that, for example, punishment is warranted only if the person punished warrants a negative evaluation), but this is not universally accepted.

This article will concentrate on responsibility that is personal, retrospective, moral, and basic. Philosophers have concerned themselves with what is needed and what suffices for such responsibility. Aristotle (384–322 b.c.e.) suggested two distinct conditions, and his discussion has shaped all subsequent treatment of the matter.

The First Condition: Freedom

A common assumption is that, to be responsible (personally, retrospectively, morally, and basically) for something, one must enjoy freedom of will or action. Just what the relevant sort of freedom consists of is controversial, but the central idea is that one's behavior must be within one's control.

There is a venerable argument to the effect that this condition of responsibility is impossible to satisfy, and hence that responsibility is never incurred. The argument involves the thesis of determinism (roughly, the view that every event has a cause) and may be put as follows:

1. If determinism is true, no one is ever in control of what happens.

2. If determinism is false, no one is ever in control of what happens.

3. Determinism is either true or false.

Hence,

4. No one is ever in control of what happens.

5. One is responsible for what happens only if one is in control of it.

Hence,

6. No one is ever responsible for what happens.

Premise 5 states the precondition for responsibility that is at issue. Premise 3 is taken to be a logical truth. The rationale for premise 1 is this: if something is caused to happen, then it is, under the circumstances, inevitable; and if it is inevitable, then no one is in control of it. The rationale for premise 2 is this: if something occurs uncaused, then it occurs at random and if it occurs at random, then no one is in control of it.

Some philosophers have accepted this argument, but it is surely hard to do so. (Others, such as Immanuel Kant [1724–1804], have insisted that the idea that individuals never act freely is, practically speaking, impossible to accept.) Among those who have rejected the argument, some have done so by explicitly disputing one or another of its premises. So-called compatibilists deny the first premise; their number includes such major historical figures as Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John Locke (1632–1704), David Hume (1711–1776), and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). So-called libertarians deny the second premise; among major historical figures, perhaps the most uncompromising proponent of this view was Thomas Reid (1710–1796), although both Aristotle and Kant also flirted with it at times.

More recently, premise 5 has been challenged. Robert Adams has argued that certain sins, for which one is to blame, are involuntary and hence such that one is not free with respect to them. Examples include the vices of bigotry, cowardice, cruelty, and so on, where these are understood not as a matter of behaving in a certain way (something that may well be under one's control) but of being a certain way, that is, of having certain inclinations, desires, or beliefs (something that may well not be under one's control). Adams's point is that, whether or not these phenomena are under one's control, one is certainly to blame for them.

One way to resist Adams's conclusion is to deny that the phenomena in question are never under one's control. Aristotle took this tack, claiming that, even if individuals have now reached a point in their lives at which certain of their virtuous or vicious traits are beyond their control (not in terms of acting on them, but in terms of ridding ourselves of them or of acquiring them), still there was a time when they could have acted in such a way as to prevent their having them (if they are vices they now have) or to produce them in themselves (if they are virtues they now lack). Another way to resist Adams's conclusion is to acknowledge that individuals may be to praise or blame in some way for such traits, but to deny that such praise or blame constitutes an attribution of responsibility. (Peter Abelard [1079–1142] at times suggested this position.)

Another challenge to premise 5 involves granting the traditional idea that responsibility requires freedom but denying the traditional idea that freedom requires control. Harry Frankfurt has recently pressed this line of thought, urging that the inability to behave differently does not compromise the freedom required for responsibility when this inability does not serve to explain one's behavior. His discussion of this issue has generated a vigorous, subtle, and often complex debate.

An argument similar to, but also importantly different from, the argument concerning determinism has lately garnered considerable attention. The argument ends, as before, with the inference of 6 from premises 4 and 5. The difference lies in the beginning. Now the claim is that 4 (the proposition that no one is ever in control of what happens) is true, not because of any general considerations concerning determinism, but simply because of the fact that luck cannot be eliminated from people's lives. In support of this contention, cases of the following sort are commonly cited: Alf shoots at Bert and kills him. Charlie shoots in like fashion at Dave but, because a bird happens to get in the way of the bullet, fails even to wound him. This case serves to dramatize the fact that, in all one's actions, what one succeeds in doing is in large measure not up to the individual but, as it is often put, up to nature. Or again, it may be that what saves Dave is not a passing bird that intercepts Charlie's bullet but a sudden sneeze that prevents Charlie from even firing his gun. The more one thinks about it (independently of any question of determinism), the more one sees that luck permeates people's lives, eroding the control over, and thereby the responsibility for, their actions that they like to think they have.

The force of such considerations is keenly debated. In light of them, some philosophers appear willing to forgo attributions of responsibility. Others seek to preserve such attributions by rejecting (once again) the traditional idea that responsibility requires control. Still others seek to preserve such attributions by pointing out that lack of complete control over what happens need not amount to lack of any control.

Finally, just what sort of freedom or control might be thought necessary for responsibility has been a subject of some controversy. Some philosophers propose a fairly thin account, involving one's being in some sense the source of one's actions. Others propose richer accounts, involving some form of autonomy or of responsiveness to reasons. Whatever the proper account may be, it is important to note a distinction between two types of freedom, each of which may initially appear necessary for responsibility. This distinction can best be drawn by means of a familiar example. Suppose that Emma goes into a bank, points a gun at Fiona, the teller, and orders her to hand over all the money in her till. Fiona complies. Two questions arise: did Fiona freely hand over the money and is she responsible for doing so? One's initial inclination may well be to answer "No" to both. One may be tempted to add that the negative response to the first question is the ground for the negative response to the second. But on reflection this may seem mistaken. Although there certainly seems to be a sense in which Fiona did not act freely (for she was strongly coerced to do what she did), there is also clearly a sense in which it seems she did act freely; she had a choice in the situation (albeit an unpleasant one) and, one may assume, she made the right choice. Indeed, in light of this, it may well be appropriate to praise her for acting as she did, and this would seem to imply that she is responsible for her conduct after all. It thus seems that the sort of freedom necessary for responsibility (if, indeed, any sort of freedom is necessary) is that which Fiona exemplified rather than that which she failed to exemplify.

The Second Condition: Mentality

Control over one's behavior is not all that is necessary for responsibility. Gwen, a young child, may have control over what she does (for example, she may freely choose to yank the tail of the family cat), but that is no reason to hold her morally responsible for her behavior.

What is it that Gwen lacks? The obvious answer is that she fails to understand the moral character of her action and is thus not to blame for it. This suggests that one is blameworthy (in a way that imputes responsibility for one's behavior) only if one is aware that one is doing wrong. At least three reasons may be given for rejecting this view, however.

First, ever since Plato (c. 428–348 or 347 b.c.e.), philosophers have claimed that it is not possible freely to act in the belief that one is doing wrong, since this requires that one willingly do wrong, which is impossible. (Of course, many philosophers have rejected this claim. Indeed some, such as St. Augustine of Hippo [354–430], have gone so far as to suggest that it is possible to have wrongdoing as one's ultimate objective.) Although this claim may seem at odds with common experience, its plausibility may grow on reflection. For example, many apparent instances of willing wrongdoing may reveal themselves on inspection to be better characterized as cases of doing something that one merely believes that others take to be wrong.

Second, to be aware that one is doing wrong implies that one is indeed doing wrong, but some philosophers have claimed that blameworthiness merely requires the belief, and not the fact, that one is doing wrong.

Third, blameworthiness seems often to be incurred through negligence, which in many cases involves the failure to be aware that one is doing wrong; indeed, it is this very failure that seems to ground the attribution of responsibility.

On these arguments, it is doubtful that awareness of wrongdoing is necessary for blameworthiness. Yet, as the case of Gwen indicates, it seems that one must satisfy some rather sophisticated mental condition to be blameworthy; just what this condition is, however, remains unclear. Similarly, presumably some other rather sophisticated mental condition must be satisfied if one is to be praiseworthy (in a way that imputes responsibility for one's behavior). Again, it is controversial just what this condition is. Some philosophers appear to think that simply having good intentions will do; others, such as Kant, insist that one must have doing one's duty as one's ultimate objective.

Finally, there is the question of the relevance of mental disorders to responsibility. It is commonly said that suffering from a mental disorder relieves one of responsibility for one's conduct. But this is far too sweeping. While kleptomania may provide an excuse for theft, it surely provides no excuse for assault; similarly, pyromania may furnish an excuse for arson but not for theft. There must be some close connection between disorder and offense for an excuse to be in the offing. Even then, whether an excuse is indeed available is debatable. Suppose that Holly is a kleptomaniac; why think she therefore has an excuse for theft? One answer is that she literally cannot help stealing. But this seems dubious. More accurate would seem to be the claim that she finds it abnormally difficult, rather than literally impossible, to resist the impulse to steal. But if there is the possibility of resistance, why excuse her for failing to resist? Perhaps she is not to be excused after all, if she recognizes that it is wrong to steal. Or perhaps the unusual strength of the impulse to steal makes it justifiable for her to succumb to it, so that she is indeed not to blame for doing so. Or perhaps she is not justified in succumbing to the impulse but is still not to blame for doing so because of some aspect of her mental state that has yet to be identified; for it is noteworthy that we tend rather to pity people such as Holly than to judge them wicked.

It is safe to say that the grounds for attribution of moral responsibility are complex and that, despite Aristotle's lasting contributions, the discussion that began with him remains unresolved.

See also Determinism ; Fatalism ; Moral Sense .

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Michael J. Zimmerman