Who has a moral responsibility in our society?
Are we too quick to blame individuals for doing the wrong thing?
Imagine one evening you are walking home when you witness a car accident. A drunk driver swerves recklessly across the road and his slowed reaction times from the alcohol means he can’t stop in time before hitting a child. Fortunately, the child will survive, although they have suffered severe injuries.
Who is morally responsible here? The answer to this question seems obvious: the driver. He was the one who was driving recklessly and took the decision to drive under the influence of alcohol knowing how dangerous that can be.
But what if the driver was only drunk because he was an alcoholic, who had been left scarred by a troubled childhood with an abusive father. Is the driver still completely responsible for the accident? After all, if it wasn’t for his father’s horrific behaviour, he wouldn’t be an alcoholic, and this accident would have never occurred.
I have started this post with this thought experiment to highlight how moral blame is far more difficult to place than we might expect. People who commit major immoral acts are rarely free from negative external influences like a troubled upbringing or driven to bad choices out of desperation which they have no control over.
In this essay, I want to explore where moral responsibility lies in our society, and where we should place moral blame when so many are exposed to negative external influences on their behaviour that are out of their control.
What is moral responsibility?
In order to work out who has a moral responsibility, we must first work out what moral responsibility is.
Some argue that we are responsible for all of our own actions since we were the ones who completed those actions. However, this theory of responsibility runs contrary to our intuitions on the topic: imagine that there are two people — Smith and Jones. Smith is a serial robber who loves to steal and rob houses for the thrill. Jones hates the idea of robbing houses but is forced into doing it because someone else has kidnapped his family.
Both Smith and Jones have committed the same immoral act (stealing), but it seems counter-intuitive to argue both have the same moral responsibility — as Smith completed his action freely, compared to Jones who was coerced.
Therefore, in order to satisfy our intuitions on responsibility, we must have to freely choose our actions to be morally responsible for them. Aristotle agreed and argued that we are only responsible for voluntary actions, and in order for an action to be voluntary, one must have all relevant non-moral facts about the situation and have full agency.
Though this definition of responsibility works in theory, it is of little help in practice as these criteria can never be met in the real world. It isn’t possible to know every minute detail about a situation, nor is it possible to ever have full agency, as we are always influenced by external factors we have no control over.
Moral Luck
American philosopher Thomas Nagel calls these external factors ‘moral luck’. Nagel argues there are different types of moral luck, including constitutive luck, which refers to our differing dispositions: some of us (by virtue of our DNA) are more inclined to anger, and others more inclined to generosity, which can make doing the right thing easier for some and harder for others.
We can also have circumstantial luck — which refers to how the circumstances of where we grew up and how we were educated can have a massive impact on our moral actions. For example, if one had grown up in a cult that taught killing was always morally right, would they be just as morally blameworthy as someone who had a more normal moral education?
We can also have luck with consequent circumstances, where despite our best intentions, something could go wrong. For example, we may choose to help someone who is lost get to a house with the best intentions, but unbeknownst to us, they wanted to know where to go as they were planning to rob it. Would we be as morally blameworthy as someone who intentionally helped a robber?
Therefore, it is clear that the vast majority of our moral actions are riddled with some kind of moral luck that undermine the agency of our decisions, and under Aristotle’s definition, that would mean no one would ever have moral responsibility.
Who has moral responsibility?
So if no one has full autonomy over their moral decisions, does that mean we are forced to accept that no one can ever have moral responsibility? Some argue the answer to this question is yes: we need full agency in order to be completely responsible for our actions (otherwise we are not fully in control), and since this is not possible, no one has moral responsibility.
However, I do not agree with this argument, as this would only incentivise people to do whatever they want, claiming they are not responsible and leading to further immoral actions.
Instead, I think we need to revise how much freedom is needed to be considered morally responsible. It is impossible to be immune from influences, but that doesn’t mean you still don’t have significant control over your decisions. As long as you are able to think logically and rationally and act on those decisions, I would argue you have enough freedom to be considered responsible for your actions, as you could have acted otherwise, but used your logical and rational capacities to decide not to.
However, this would mean that the driver from the thought experiment at the beginning would still be morally responsible for the accident, as he used his logical and rational capacities to make the decision to get drunk and to drive his car, knowing the risks.
Yet it feels unsatisfactory to pin all the moral blame on the driver when he has so many negative external influences that have clouded his judgement. But if we pin the blame on his father for causing the negative influence, he could then blame his abusive behaviour on something else (perhaps his father was abusive to him also) and we could create an infinite regress of blame that would result in no one taking responsibility for their actions today.
Instead of blaming the past, I believe some of the moral responsibility has to come from society. This is because it is society’s role to protect and care for all of its citizens, especially those who are vulnerable and in need of help. Therefore, society needs to play a role in introducing preventative measures and help schemes that are easily accessible and effective to take on this moral responsibility.
If we place all the responsibility on the individual and ignore the impact negative external impacts have on everyone, then criminal and immoral acts will continue to occur. It is in society’s interest to help those who have lived — or continue to live — through difficult circumstances that may cause one to end up acting immorally, as it is society who will be victim to crimes. Therefore, it is vital that we all see crime and major immoral acts within society as a collective responsibility, by remaining open, empathetic and eager to help when it is asked for.
Significant progress has been made over the last few years that have had an enormous effect on reducing the level of crime — but more still needs to be done.
What do you think? How responsible was the driver for the accident? What responsibility does society have towards its citizens? I would love to know your thoughts in the comments below.
