Relations of Responsibility

Abstract

This draft contrbution to a fothcoming Festschrift for Antony Duff challenges his justly famous account according to which criminal responsibilty is doubly relational. It is relational in the sense that it is owed to someone; it is also relational in the sense that an existing relationship (citizen-country, guest-host, etc.) figures in justifying its being owed to that someone. I discuss the connection, in Duff's writings, between these views about responsibility and someof his views about authority. I suggest that, even according to Duff in less guarded moments, the normal justification for authority, and hence for criminal responsibility, is non-relational.

Keywords: Responsibility, authority, criminal law, citizenship, Antony Duff, Joseph Raz