5 (WIP)SRR - Basic structure and relevance of the concept of responsibility

by Matthias Schmidt, Anna S. Hüncke and Nina Küpper

Last updated: 2025/03/26

This learning unit deals with a central concept of ethics: responsibility. In the previous learning units on ethics we have already seen that ethical challenges and conflicts can be very complex and that their solutions are by no means obvious. The same applies to responsibility, which has an inherent ethical dimension, especially when it comes to ethical or moral issues.

Learning­objectives

Learning objectives

After working through this learning unit, you should be able to:

• Distinguish between different types of responsibility.
• Outline the basic structure of responsibility and distinguish it from the concepts of guilt and liability.
• Recognise and describe the responsibility mining personnel can bear in different situations.

outline

Outline

The basic structure of responsibility and its distinction from the concepts of guilt and liability are outlined in this learning unit. Some different types of responsibility are then presented. This know-how can be helpful in answering the question of what responsibility raw material personnel may have in different situations. Types of responsibility can be for example:

• Legal responsibility
• Responsibility for roles and tasks
• Responsibility to act
• Moral responsibility
• Retrospective and prospective responsibility
• Positive and negative responsibility
• Individual and collective responsibility

You will need approx. 120 minutes to work through the learning unit and approx. 150 minutes to complete the exercises.