Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

This is the specific name for a process of social cognition by which moral accountability is assigned to a person believed to have produced a socially disapproved behavior or effect. Although in everyday language “responsibility” can refer to liability for either praise or condemnation, in social psychology the term is used almost exclusively to mean liability for condemnation.Four different senses of the term, “responsibility,” have been identified by the philosopher H. L. A. Hart (1968). The first of these, role responsibility, requires that people be bound to perform whatever duties are attached to their “distinctive place or office in a social organization” (Hart, 1968, p. 212). This is the sense in which parents are responsible for the behavior of their children or the president of a company is responsible for illegal activities of employees. The second sense, causal responsibility, refers merely to the production of effects. Not only human beings, but also physical forces, can be causally responsible. This is the sense in which a devastating storm or flood is responsible for destroying a town. A third sense, capacity responsibility, refers to the person's ability to understand and behave according to the dictates of law or morality. This is the sense presumed to be lacking in an individual found not guilty by reason of insanity. Finally, there is liability responsibility, ... log in or subscribe to read full text