5.5 Summary - Basic structure and relevance of the concept of responsibility

Summary

• Responsibility is a principle of dialogue. This means that at least two actors are needed for a responsibility structure to emerge.

• Responsibility is a reaction (from person B) to a question; and at the same time responsibility is the request (from person A to B) to answer a question.

• It lies in the nature of things that (controversially discussed) questions of responsibility are primarily questions with a moral or ethical quality.

• As a rule, guilt is about the consequences of actions and therefore also about the attribution of responsibility.

• One can be held responsible for both actions and omissions.

• Guilt and responsibility are both about the attribution of an event or a state of affairs. It is a matter of blaming someone for something and - in the criminal law sense - holding them liable, or - in the ethical and moral sense - holding them accountable.

• Three question words are necessary for the attribution of responsibility: "Who?", "For what?" and "Towards whom?".

• Legal responsibility is a more or less concretely enforceable sanction for misbehaviour.

• The following types of responsibility can be distinguished:
  • Legal responsibility
  • Responsibility for roles and tasks
  • Responsibility to act
  • Moral responsibility
  • Retrospective and prospective responsibility
  • Positive and negative responsibility
  • Individual and collective responsibility

• In a sociological sense, responsibility for roles refers to the expectations and demands on a person's behaviour that are linked to their social position.

• In the case of responsibility for the consequences of actions, the focus is on the result of one's own actions. A direct and strong causal relationship is assumed here.

• Universal moral responsibility is the most comprehensive and fundamental type of responsibility.

• The fact whether an event for which responsibility is to be taken lies in the past or in the future is concretised with the terms retrospective (looking back) or prospective (looking forward) responsibility.

• Positive responsibility aims to bring about a desired state of affairs that is considered positive. Negative responsibility, on the other hand, aims to avoid an undesirable state that is considered negative.

• Individual responsibility is based on a single person who bears responsibility because an event is directly attributed to that person. Even if collective responsibility is attributed to the group due to collective misbehaviour it is always linked to the individual group members as well. It cannot be mathematically divided among those responsible in an arithmetical sense.

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