4 - Who is morally responsible in the chain of causation? The problem of interdependence

Summary

Who is complicit? This chapter deals with identifying the subject of accountability. It looks to tort jurisprudence for insights and methods in the attribution of individual responsibility for distant harms or collective ills.

DISENTANGLING THE WEB OF CAUSATION

One of the more demanding issues to resolve in blameworthy material cooperation (moral complicity) is the question of where to draw the limits of moral responsibility for collective or distant harms. Consider the following difficulty posed for moral theory and practice by the nature of the market.

The first principle of morality is indeed to do good and avoid evil … But [the person] cannot be obliged to avoid any and every bringing about of evil at his own hands, even if unintended, for the simple reason that there is very little people do in the ordinary course of their lives which does not involve their bringing about evil effects, even as a consequence of wholly good actions. Hence, if morality is not to reduce people to virtual inaction, it has to permit the bringing about of evil effects in some circumstances …

(Oderberg 2004, 210, emphasis original)

This dilemma is particularly acute for the marketplace. As already noted in chapter 2, division of labor is at the heart of economic life. And with this comes a tight web of economic interdependence.