Collective Responsibility: Conceptual Clarifications
As discussed elsewhere in this volume, the term responsibility has multiple meanings. Authors on collective responsibility in general, and on collective responsibility in the state in particular, offer various typologies and definitions (e.g.
Goodin 1987; Miller 2007). For the purposes of this chapter I shall use a broad distinction between two meanings of the term. The first denotes culpability or blame (I will use these terms interchangeably). A blameworthy agent is liable to, or deserves to be met with, appropriate reactive attitudes for her transgression: resentment, anger and (in the case of a legal violation) legal punishment. Blame in this sense attaches only to agents who acted (or failed to act) in ways that brought about (or failed to prevent) a wrong; who acted (or failed to act) in a culpable state of mind (i.e. purposely, knowingly, recklessly or negligently), and who had sufficient level of control over their choices and actions (Fischer 1999).The second conception of responsibility is what David Miller (2007) refers to as ‘remedial responsibility’. It concerns the tasks or duties agents need to perform in order to fix a wrong. In the context of state wrongdoing these remedial liabilities are likely to involve the following tasks: (1) to put an end to the ongoing unjust policy (as argued by the Israeli Refusniks),
(2) to compensate those who were harmed by a wrongful policy (as did Germany and Iraq),
(3) to offer remedies that go beyond direct compensation to the victims (as demanded by the CARICOM committee) and perhaps even (4) to take steps to ensure that similar wrongs will not occur again (e.g. by introducing new regulations or new institutions).
This distinction between culpability and remedial responsibility bears some similarity to Iris Marion Young’s influential distinction between ‘backward-looking’ and ‘forward-looking’ responsibility (Young 2004: chapter 4).
Young introduces these terms in her discussion of responsibility for ‘structural injustices’. Such collective injustices (e.g. the appalling working conditions in the global apparel industry) are caused by the uncoordinated interactions of vast numbers of individuals operating under shared practices and norms. Young argues that we should avoid attributing ‘backward-looking responsibility’, which blames specific individuals for their past contributions to these wrongs, and instead focus on the forward-looking ‘political responsibility’, which requires agents to engage in a political process of change. I shall return to Young’s cautions against backward-looking responsibility later in the chapter, but for now it’s important to note that culpability and remedial responsibility are both ‘backward’ and ‘forward’ looking: if an agent is culpable for wrongdoing, then most likely she will have some forwardlooking remedial obligations to compensate the victim, to offer an apology and perhaps even to incur punishment (Tadros 2011). Furthermore, as David Miller (2001) points out, like culpability, remedial responsibility can be grounded in backward-looking factors (i.e. factors that relate to facts that happened in the past): for example, people can be responsible for putting a wrong to the right because they have caused that wrong, because they have benefited from it or indeed because they are morally responsible for it.I now turn to examine what collective responsibility means. A useful distinction here is between ‘corporate’ and ‘shared’ (or collective) responsibility. Corporate responsibility describes the responsibility of a group, over and above that of the members. For example, public international law holds states (rather than their individual citizens or members of cabinet) liable to pay compensation for their wrongdoings (Crawford 2007). Shared (or collective) responsibility refers to the responsibility of individuals for what they do together in groups, in light of their contributions for the collective wrong.
The extent and scope of each member’s share of responsibility depends on her position in the group and her relation to the collective harm. Sometimes, each member of the group plays such a pivotal role that each shares responsibility for the collective wrong itself. Consider for example a gang of three criminals, who co-plan a bank robbery and divide the task between them: A is the lookout, B is the getaway-car driver and C opens the safe. In this case, given their respective roles as co-planners and executors of the crime, we would commonly think that A, B and C all share responsibility for the bank robbery itself (cf May 1992: 38). But in other cases, such as wrongdoings committed by very large or highly hierarchical groups (like the typical state), some members play a much less pivotal role in the planning and execution of the wrongdoing. As we shall later see, in such cases it is far less clear that each member is fully responsible for the wrongdoing itself. Precisely these cases raise concerns about holding people unjustly responsible for things that are beyond their control.27.2