Problem Statement

Assigning individual responsibility for collective action can be a challenging proposition. I am going to use a thought experiment involving collective violent action, juxtaposing the actions of a ser­vice member and a militia member, to discuss the ideas of this chapter, but these ideas could be expressed by juxtaposing formal and informal groups in any arena, e.g.

Country A is fighting an unjust, aggressive war against country B while also conducting peace-keeping operations in nearby country C, which has been wracked by tribal violence.

Archer is a mechanic in country C who fixes vehicles for one of the tribal militias. He eagerly volunteered to participate in its genocidal campaigns against rival tribes and was assigned to fix the militia’s vehicles.

Baker is a helicopter mechanic serving aboard country A’s aircraft carrier, which is off the coast equidistant from B and C. He (with others) is responsible for daily main­tenance on four of the squadron’s attack helicopters, # 601—604. He is never informed about the missions of the various helicopter crews and performs daily maintenance on the copters regardless of their missions. A given copter may perform very different missions day to day.

On a given day, copter 601 attacks enemy troops in country B; 602 bombs a hos­pital in country B; 603 supports troops protecting villagers from a militia in country C; and 604 is grounded, in need of spare parts.

It is at first difficult to assess Archer and Baker’s responsibility for the collective actions they help to causally advance. It is not plausible to think that any level of causal contribution makes a contributor fully morally responsible for any ensuing unjust collective action. Through minute causal connections, nearly everyone in the world would be responsible for nearly every col­lective unjust act.

Having set aside the two most extreme arguments let us consider the two mechanics’ contributions. Archer made possible some of the genocidaires’ transportation. Is he then morally responsible for everything they did after they left his garage? He knew they planned to murder villagers, but Archer did not kill anyone; all he did was fix trucks. There were other mechanics working for the militia too, and the militia could have gotten to its destination eventually with different vehicles. If Archer is responsible or partly responsible for genocide, is he also respon­sible for things he (and maybe the other militia members) did not know they planned to do? If one of the genocidaires in Archer’s truck also decides to desecrate a religious shrine while he is in the village, is Archer responsible for that “deviation” from the mission as well? Where does Archer’s responsibility terminate? Is Archer responsible for child abuse if a genocidaire returns to his home village on Archer’s truck after the massacre and beats his son?

Baker seems even farther removed from wrongdoing. Like Archer, all he did was fix some engines. Yet unlike Archer, he did not know any of the missions the helicopters were executing; as such he could not have intended his causal contribution to be in furtherance of a particular mission. Further, he did not have Archer’s evil motive of contributing toward an unjust col­lective action.

19.3