Moral Responsibility And Blame

LESSON 4: MORAL RESPONSIBILITY AND BLAME When do we hold people Morally Responsible for their Acts and their Effects? When the person KNOWINGLY and FREELY performed or brought about an action/effect which was morally wrong for the person to perform/bring about. When the person KNOWINGLY and FREELY failed to perform or prevent an action/effect which was morally wrong for the person to fail to perform or prevent. Points to be covered in this lecture:

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Moral responsibility Corporate responsibility Subordinate’s responsibility

Moral Responsibility When a person performs or fails to perform a morally signifi- cant action, we sometimes think that he or she is deserving of a particular kind of response. Praise and blame are perhaps the most common forms this reaction takes. For example, one who encounters a car accident may be worthy of praise for having saved a child from inside the burning car, or alternatively, one may be worthy of blame for not having at least used one’s cell phone to call for help. To regard such agents as worthy of one of these reactions is to ascribe moral responsibility to them on the basis of what they have done or left undone. (These are examples of other-directed ascriptions of responsibility. The reaction might also be self-directed, e.g., one can recognize oneself to be blameworthy). Thus, to be morally responsible for something, say an action, is to be worthy of a particular kind of reaction — praise, blame, or something akin to these — for having performed it. Philosophical reflection on moral responsibility has historically relied upon one of two broad interpretations of the concept:

1. The merit-based view, according to which praise or blame would be an appropriate reaction toward the candidate if and only if she merits- in the sense of ‘deserves’ - such a reaction. 2. The consequentialist view, according to which praise or blame would be appropriate if and only if a reaction of this sort would likely lead to a desired change in the agent and/or her behavior. Moral Responsibilty is doing something wrong or for wrongfully injuring someone. A judgement about a person’s moral responsibilty for a wrongful injury is a judgment about the extent to which the person deserves blame or punishment, or should pay restitution for the injury. Here we are discussing ‘Moral Responsibilty’ as a term which is used to express that a person is to blame for an action. A person is morally responsible only for those acts and their foreseen injurious effects which the person knowingly and freely 11.292

performed or brought about and which was morally wrong for the person to perform or bring about; or, which the person knowingly and freely failed to perform or prevent and which it was morally wrong for the person to fail to perform or prevent. Several manufacturers of asbestos, for example, were recently judged responsible for the lung diseases of their workers. The judgment was based in part on the finding that the manufacturers had a special duty to warn their workers of the known dangers of working with asbestos, but that they knowingly failed to perform this duty, and the lung diseases were a foreseen injury that they could have prevented had they acted as they had a duty to act. Two conditions completely eliminate a person’s moral responsibility for causing a wrongful injury: 1. Ignorance 2. Inablity These are called excusing conditions because they fully excuse a person from being held responsible for something. Ignorance of fact generally eliminates moral responsibility completely for the simple reason that a person cannot be obligated to do something over which he or she has no control. Negligently or deliberately created ignorance is an exception to this principle because such ignorance can be controlled. Inability can be the result of either internal or external circumstances that render a person unable to do something or unable to keep from doing something. Inability eliminates responsibility because again a person cannot have any moral obligation to do something over which the person has no control. In addition to the two excusing conditions that completely remove a person’s moral responsibility for a wrong, there are also several mitigating factors that can lessen a person’s moral responsibility depending how serious the wrong is. Mitigating factors include: 1. A person may be fairly convinced that doing something is wrong, yet may still be doubtful about some important facts, moral standards involved or doubts about how seriously wrong the action is. 2. A person may find it difficult to avoid a certain course of action because he or she is subjected to threats or duress of some sort or because avoiding that course of action will impose heavy costs on the person. 3. A person’s responsibility can also be mitigated by circumstances that diminish the person’s active involvement in the act that caused or brought about an injury. The extent to which these three mitigating circumstances can diminish a person’s responsibility for a wrongful injury depends upon how serious the wrong is.

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Corporate Responsibilty

In the present scenario responsibility for a corporate act is often distributed among a number of cooperating parties. Corporate acts normally are brought about by several actions or omissions of many different people all cooperating together so that their linked actions and omissions jointly produce the corporate act. One team of managers, for example may design a car, another team tests it, and a third team builds it; one person orders, advises, or encourages something and others act on these orders, advice, or encouragement; one group knowingly defrauds buyers and another group knowingly but silently enjoys the resulting profits; one person contributes the means; and another person accomplishes the act; one group does the wrong and another group conceals it. The variations on cooperation are endless. Who is morally responsible for such jointly produced acts? The traditional view is that those who knowingly and freely did what was necessary to produce the corporate act are each morally responsible. On this view, situations in which a person needs the actions of others to bring about a wrongful corporate act are no different in principle from situations in which a person needs certain external circumstances in order to commit a wrong. Critics of the traditional view of the individual’s responsibility for corporate acts have claimed that when an organized group such as a corporation acts together, their corporate act may be described as the act of the group and consequently, the corpo- rate group and not the individuals who make up the group must be held responsible for the act. For example, we normally credit the manufacture of a defective T.V. to the corporation and not to the individual engineers involved in its manufacture; and the law typically attributes the acts of a corporation’s managers to the corporation itself and not to the managers as individuals. The traditionalists’ reply is that although we sometimes attribute acts to corporate groups, this linguistic and legal factor does not change the moral reality behind all such corporate acts individuals had to carry out the particular action that brought about the corporate act. Since individuals are morally respon- sible for the known and intended consequences of their free actions, any individual who knowingly and freely joins his actions together with those of others, intending thereby to bring about a certain corporate act, is responsible for that act. Employees of large-scale organizations follow bureaucratic rules that link their activities together to achieve corporate outcomes of which the employee may not be even aware. So they cannot be said to have “knowingly or freely joined their actions together” to bring about a corporate act or to pursue a corporate objective.

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Moreover depending on the seriousness of the act, the mitigating factors of uncertainty, difficulty, and minimal involvement can also diminish a person’s moral responsibility for a corporate act. Sometimes employees in a corporation go along with a wrongful corporate act although they know that is wrong and although to some extent they have the ability to withdraw their cooperation. They unwillingly go along because of the pressures placed on them. Traditional moralists have argued that a person’s responsibility for unwillingly cooperating with others in a wrongful act should be determined by weighing the various factors that mitigate individual responsibility. That is one must weigh the seriousness of the wrongful act against the uncertainty, the difficulty, and the degree of involvement that were present*. Point to Ponder Students should remember that nobody can run away from their moral duty to prevent the wrong by just pleading that their omission constitutes “minimal involvement”.

Subordinate’s Responsibilty

Corporations usually have a hierarchical structure of authority in which orders and directives pass from those higher in the structure to those at lower levels. People sometimes suggest that when a subordinate acts on the orders of a legitimate superior, the subordinate is absolved of all responsibility for that act only the superior is morally responsible for the wrongful act even though the subordinate was the agent who carried it out. It is clearly a mistake, however, to think that an employee who freely and knowingly does something wrong is absolved of all responsibility when he or she is “following orders”. Moral responsibility requires merely that one act freely and knowingly, in choosing to follow an order. Of course a senior can put significant economic pressures on an employee and such pressures can mitigate the employee’s responsibility but they do not totally eliminate it. Thus, when a superior orders an employee to carry out an act that both of them know is wrong, the employee is morally responsible for that act if he/ she carries it out. At the same time, the superior is also morally responsible, since in ordering the employee, the superior is 11.292

knowingly and freely bringing about the wrongful act using the employee as an instrument. Dear students hope it is very clear to you now that in an organization if a wrongful act takes place then everybody (people from top level to bottom level) is directly/indirectly involved in that act. So, in the near future when you join an organization you have to remember these points. Never do things under pressure, do the things, which your conscience allows you to do.

Overview

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Moral Responsibilty is doing something wrong or for wrongfully injuring someone.

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Those who knowingly and freely did what was necessary to produce the corporate act are each morally responsible (Traditional View).

Activity In 1962 the Atlantic Cement Company began operating a cement plant outside of Albany, New York. The Company employed over 300 local residents and by 1970 had invested $45 million in the plant. The plant emitted large amounts of pollution, however, as well as caused constant vibrations and loud noise. Local residents filed suit against the Company, claiming that the loud noise and the vibrations were harming their health and property. The suit asked that the court issue an injunction that would close down the plant until the pollution and vibrations could be eliminated. The Company was already using the best available technology, which meant that the suit was asking that the plant be closed down indefinitely. The court refused to issue the injunction, reasoning that the costs of closing the plant outweighed the benefits to be gained by the residents. Instead of closing the plant, the court ruled that the cement company should pay residents a one-time fee to compensate them for ongoing harms. This fee was calculated to be a fair market price for what the residents would receive if they were inclined and able to rent their property. Was the decision of the court in this case fair? If so, why? If not, why not? I know what all of you are thinking right now that life will become very easy if all of us start taking responsibility for our actions, but then things have to start from somewhere and you are the budding managers. So, I feel that rather than thinking that who is going to initiate the whole process we all should start our journey towards this goal right now.

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