Distributing Responsibility for State Injustices

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationships of responsibility and complicity within a state, focussing particularly on the citizen, government relationship. I will take the perspective of individual action guidance, outlining what an individual ought to do in situations where they bear responsibility for, or some responsibility to remedy, a harm. Ideas surrounding responsibility and complicity are quickly gaining currency within Political Philosophy and have been very fruitful in dealing with problems surrounding the relationships between the members of wealthy states and the members of poorer states. However, there has been little attention paid to the use of ideas of responsibility as a way to understanding relationships within a single state. Within this thesis I identify two main kinds of responsibility problems within a state: 1) Social Structural Problems, where one group of people seems to be being structurally disadvantaged by the actions of the social collective, and 2) Government Action Problems, where an action of the government, being a representative of its citizens, causes some direct harm. Focussing upon the social connection model of Iris Marion Young, the responsibility model of David Miller, and the complicity model of Robert E. Goodin, I will argue that in 1) all citizens within a state bear some responsibility for remedying structural social harms, and in 2) that where the government is fulfilling a baseline requirement for representation, that all citizens similarly bear responsibility for remedying the harms caused by government actions. I will argue that the basis for this responsibility stems from on-going social and economic interactions, participation in collective decision-making procedures and in collective goalorientated behaviour, as well as from receiving benefit from the activities of the collective. Further, I argue, following Young, that responsibility should be differently allocated between groups within society based on privilege, power, interest in the harm, and collective ability. I conclude that individuals implicated in collective harms ought to leverage their collective ability by joining or forming groups aimed at dissolving privilege and remedying these harms through collective action. In some cases too, individuals ought to act to alter their political institutions to be more representational and better promote justice.