2

Taking responsibility is distinguished from being morally responsible in that, if one takes responsibility for a particular outcome it does not follow that one is morally responsible for that outcome. One can take responsibility for many things, from the mundane to the vitally important. For example, one can take responsibility for teaching a course, organizing a conference, or throwing a birthday party. The responsibility taken, however, is profoundly different from the moral responsibility that would justify blame and punishment, praise and reward (Waller 2011: 105; Pereboom 2001: xxi).

While some philosophers may claim (or assume) that taking responsibility entails being morally responsible (e.g., Smilansky 2012), this seems to conflate a very important distinction. To take responsibility for, say, organizing a conference, is to agree to put forth the effort needed to achieve a certain set of goals or tasks—e.g., inviting speakers, putting out a CFP, reserving the space, etc. If the conference were to fail for reasons completely outside the control of the agent—say there was a major snowstorm that day and several of the speakers could not make it—it would remain a separate and open question whether the agent who took charge for organizing the conference was deserving of blame for the failure. For many, the intuition is rather strong that she is not, especially in cases where the reasons for failure are external to the agent (e.g., a snow storm, canceled flights, etc.). But skeptics would contend that the same remains true when the failure is due to the agent’s own flaws (e.g., their laziness) since in a naturalistic world devoid of miracles these too are the result of factors outside the control of the agent (e.g., determinism, chance, or luck).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-moral-responsibility/

It semes to me an important aspect of moral obligation. If I cannot take charge of something - plan to attend the party - then my obligation to do it is different.

Can we take responsibility without moral responsibility (I am somewhat unnconvinced that the example shows we can, rather than the two not being identical, because the agent is potentially blameworthy for something), and is taking responsibility threatened by determinism?

I'm also intersted in whether it interfaces with the answerability sense of responsibility, whether we need to be answerable to ourselves to take charge.

I know no convincing reason to think that the control involved in taking charge of something never suffices for the agent to be responsible for e.g. a succesful conference and the intrinsic goods associated with that, in which case we are morally responsible for some things. What have I missed (that I could understand)?

Improve this question
4
  • 1
    "Responsibility is a Myth" | Robert Sapolsky's Determinism - Unsolicited advice youtu.be/z2OJz1uxC1o Responsibility in law is the idea that each person who is conscious of their actions intends their actions and is responsible for the intended and unintended harmful consequences of their actions. This is moral responsibility imposed by the community independent of the agent's state of mind called taking responsibility. But we do try to read the mind of the agent in the context of their actions. We decide whether or not the agent should be held responsible in the dramatic context.
    – SystemTheory
    Commented Apr 30 at 17:41
  • 1
    Good question! If I organize a conference and someone dies on the way to it, I might feel really bad about it, but deciding to never do anything useful because someone somewhere might die in connection with it would bring about more harm than good. Given that we are not omniscient, we can be excused for doing reasonable things that have unforseen negative consequences. We don't want to assert the contrary here.
    – Scott Rowe
    Commented May 1 at 1:11
  • Take-charge responsibility is not an account of moral responsibility, and both Waller and SEP explicitly separate the two. Nor is it an aspect of moral obligation. If you cannot (or do not) take charge your obligation will, indeed, be different, but only because the take-charge part will be lacking, not because anything changes morally. Taking charge is apparently consistent with determinism, but in a Pickwickian sense. One becomes "responsible" in virtue of their own consent, but without acquiring any real control and without even having control to give the consent in the first place.
    – Conifold
    Commented May 1 at 4:24
  • anyway, i am reluctant to agree that the two are entirely separable, and i explain why in the question, despite not having read the philosopher who may agree with me @Conifold i agree that a skeptic of moral responsibility need not be swayed by the claim that they take charge of some things in their lives, but i don't think it's just an equivocation on phrases using 'responsible' to think maybe we can be in "control" of whatever we take responsibility for
    – user71399
    Commented May 1 at 4:50

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
3

Can we take responsibility without moral responsibility

I fail to see the significance of that distinction. "Taking responsibility" is about one's own actions: e.g. in an unjust society it is to behave justly or to at least admit to behaving unjustly, it is not about taking the societal burden on one's own shoulders. But even "taking responsibility of" something, which does involve the responsibility of getting it accomplished, is the same idea of one's own commitment: indeed, in other words, "taking responsibility for" means not denying one's own commitment and/or involvement or lack thereof, not to others and not to oneself.

is taking responsibility threatened by determinism?

That question is frequent and has several answers on this site: determinism vs free will vs accountability, etc. Allow me a joke here: try and use that argument in court... Determinism (IMO) is simply beside the point here.

I'm also intersted in whether it interfaces with the answerability sense of responsibility

I think you mean accountability: lack of accountability may be taken as a license for otherwise immoral (in the broadest sense) action, it does not entail lack of responsibility though, not any more than it entails lack of immorality.

Improve this answer
3
  • i think your answer is helpful, even-though it may not engage with the specifics of the question in quite the way i would have wanted (such is stack exchange)
    – user71399
    Commented Apr 30 at 17:48
  • 1
    @user66697 If you have anything specific in mind, feel free to shoot. Anyway, I am sure there may be other takes: will keep reading...
    – Julio Di Egidio
    Commented Apr 30 at 17:55
  • Not all decisions have moral salience. If I'm at a bar and decide to have 5 glasses of orange juice before driving home, that's not the same as deciding to have 5 glasses of beer. Perhaps there should be some kind of moral arithmetic where, for example orange juice has basically a zero value relative to driving a car, and a glass of beer would be somewhere between zero and a drug that would make one barely able to move coherently. We could try it.
    – Scott Rowe
    Commented May 1 at 1:07

You must log in to answer this question.