Whose fault is it? An account of complicity in unstructured collective harms

25 Pages Posted: 18 Jun 2021

See all articles by Bengt Brüld

Bengt Brüld

University of Gothenburg - Department of Philosophy, Linguistics & Theory of Science

Martin Persson

Chalmers University of Technology

Lina Eriksson

University of Gothenburg - Department of Political Science

Fredrik Hedenus

Chalmers University of Technology - Department of Space, Earth and Environment

Date Written: March 30, 2021

Abstract

Many of the major challenges facing global society can be characterized as unstructured collective harms (for example, global warming and structural discrimination).These harms are collective in the sense that they arise as the result of the actions of, or interactions between, multiple agents, where no single agent can control the outcome, and they are unstructured in the sense that there is no coordination or intention to cause harm among the agents involved. But it is not clear how we should determine who is morally responsible for these harms. In this paper, we propose an answer to the question of who is complicit in an unstructured collective harm. Our answer builds on but develops existing proposals by drawing together literatures that speak to different aspects of the question. First, we argue that the notion of causal contribution needs to be broadened to include the idea of causation as production. Second, we draw on the literature on moral taint in order to introduce additional objective (external) grounds for complicity in unstructured harms, such as benefitting from harm. Third, we discuss how the voluntariness and foreseeability conditions are best interpreted in this context.

Keywords: unstructured collective harms, complicity, co-responsibility, moral taint

Suggested Citation

Brüld, Bengt and Persson, Martin and Eriksson, Lina and Hedenus, Fredrik, Whose fault is it? An account of complicity in unstructured collective harms (March 30, 2021). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3864052 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3864052

Bengt Brüld

University of Gothenburg - Department of Philosophy, Linguistics & Theory of Science ( email )

Box 200
Gothenburg, 40530
Sweden

Martin Persson

Chalmers University of Technology ( email )

Gothenburg
SE-412 96 Goteborg
Sweden

Lina Eriksson (Contact Author)

University of Gothenburg - Department of Political Science ( email )

Box 711
Göteborg, S-405 30
Sweden

Fredrik Hedenus

Chalmers University of Technology - Department of Space, Earth and Environment ( email )

Gothenburg, SE-412 96
Sweden

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