Unconditional responsibility and practical caution

System responsibility has drawn attention to the fact that our ability as individuals and actors to assume responsibility in complex social and technological systems has its limits. Admittedly as individuals or groups we can act responsibly in systemic contexts by influencing the rules or refusing to continue participating in established processes. However, we inevitably reach the limits of what we can be expected to take responsibility for individually. Nevertheless, it can happen in systemic contexts and appear acceptable from the perspective of responsibility theory that we are responsible for the failure of our efforts. We may have to accept the blame for this failure without being causally responsible for it.

Example

Imagine for instance that a CEO of a mining company has to step down because of a severe environmental damage caused by the misconduct of his company’s operations department, even though the CEO themselves were not at fault.

When it comes to the question of responsibility, we should always take into account what we cannot be held responsible for and what therefore lies within the realm beyond our responsibility. But this should not be an excuse or a blanket apology. In ambivalent and complex situations of responsibility, the main issue is how to deal with responsibility, not how best to escape the burden of responsibility. The boundaries of responsibility are fluid, fleeting and in need of justification. Both with regard to the system and with regard to the individual person in the system.

Responsibility cannot be circumvented. This applies to both people and systems. If we take the systemic approach further, we arrive at a holistic way of thinking in which nature or the world as a whole is the big system. We are all interwoven into this great whole as parts. From this interconnectedness, we can derive an unconditional responsibility for each and every one of us. According to systemic logic, my behaviour as one part of the system in principle changes the possibilities of all other parts of this system. I change the scope of possibilities for everyone in the system. This means that I change their room for manoeuvre in concrete terms, but without knowing whether this happens in a positive or negative way.

Recognising and acknowledging unconditional responsibility means that we should initially orientate ourselves towards a kind of regulative non-permission, as our activities encroach on others' scopes of possibilities. This means refraining from acting rashly and exercising a well-considered and reflected practical caution in our decisions and actions. After all, we do not immediately know whether these interventions in the structure will be positive or negative. This practical caution in our decisions and actions is not to be understood as a foot on the brake of our lives. Rather it should be seen as an attitude that arises from the knowledge of systemic connections and complex modes of action, whose autonomy - once triggered - can hardly be contained. Such an attitude is similar to the so-called "heuristic of fear". This is derived from the imperative of responsibility discussed above and geared towards a defensive – cautious – approach to anticipated and unforeseeable distant effects of our actions and our technological possibilities.

This attitude has three implications for mining:

1. Firstly, the knowledge of the complexity, global interwoveness and internal dynamics of mining makes clear its crucial position of mining for institutions and society in general. To a certain extent, mining is a prerequisite for the secure progress of our technologies.
2. Secondly, this practical caution as a fundamental ethical attitude is a guideline for the handling of mining activities from discovery off raw materials to mine closure.
3. Last but not least, this attitude can, thirdly, serve as a guide for individual mining experts in their specific professional tasks and duties in their day-to-day work.