Complicity

Abstract

We live in a morally flawed world. Our lives are complicated by what other people do, and by the harms that flow from our social, economic and political institutions. Our relations as individuals to these collective harms constitute the domain of complicity. This book examines the relationship between collective responsibility and individual guilt. It presents a rigorous philosophical account of the nature of our relations to the social groups in which we participate, and uses that account in a discussion of contemporary moral theory. Christopher Kutz shows that the two prevailing theories of moral philosophy, Kantianism and consequentialism, both have difficulties resolving problems of complicity. He then argues for a richer theory of accountability in which any real understanding of collective action not only allows but demands individual responsibility.

Collective Responsibility and Group-Control

“…Intuitively, many of the paradigmatic cases of robust collective responsibility discussed by the collectivist -e.g., employees acting in the name of their companies or organizations -do not seem to involve diminished individual responsibility (see Kutz 2000). That is, in many of these cases, the individual agents appear to be fully fit to be held responsible themselves, and that is how their individual actions will be assessed morally.…”

“…As noted, it is also a claim that is intuitively plausible and accepted by most authors on the subject. But not by everyone (see Kutz 2000;Sartorio 2004;Lawson 2012). It remains to be investigated how feasible these challenges to the requirement of causal control really are (for some doubts, see Petersson 2013).…”

“…First, that in certain collective contexts "responsibility-voids" (to borrow an expression from Braham & van Hees 2011) can arise. This can happen, among others, due to formal characteristics of collective decision-making processes, or because responsibilityundermining excuses apply to the participating individual agents (Copp 2006), or because the moral significance of individual contributions does not "add up" to the wrongness of the collective outcome, e.g., when the relevant effect is massively overdetermined and/or the individual contribution is very small (Kutz 2000, Lawson 2012. The second claim is that at least some of these voids should be filled by allocating responsibility directly to the collective.…”

A Case for Ethical Veganism

“…Finally, see Kutz (2000) for a detailed discussion of the ethical significance of relation ships to objectionable institutions. early killing of most of the animals involved.…”

Collective Responsibility Gaps

“…We can analyse this further in different ways. For example, the lobbyists are an example of Bratman's (1992, p. 328) 'shared cooperative activity,' in which 'each participating agent [knows] that the other is attempting to be similarly responsive'; Kutz's (2000) acting together through 'participatory intentions' to do one's part in an action or project together with others; and Tuomela's (2006, p. 38) joint intentional action, which 'amounts to the group members' jointly intending X and jointly acting on the basis of their joint intention.' Each of these specifications is more demanding than the minimal notion I will work with [defined by characteristics (1) and (2) above].…”