Seems to me that responsibility is linked to punishment… in the very wide sense of the word, including things like “someone is made to feel bad about something”.
There is a desirable outcome (could be a small specific thing, or could be the entire coherently extrapolated volition of humanity), and you need to specify rules for punishment so that the outcome is satisfied or maximized.
For example, you can reduce murder by saying “the murderers will be executed”. That means, the murderers will be held responsible for their crimes.
Or you could improve the profit of a company by saying “the managers will be responsible for their project being done on time and within the assigned budget”.
Or you could do the heroic responsibility thing to yourself by saying “whenever a bad thing happens in the world, I will feel bad about it”.
Now the choice of who “should” be responsible depends on what are your options for punishing people. Can you establish an actual law that other people will follow? Can you establish a rule in your company? Or are you limited to controlling yourself?
So the debate about responsibility is about two things: what is the best way to assign the punishments in order to maximize the desired outcome, and what punishments are actually available to you in this situation?
(This is not an exact answer, just an attempt to point approximately in the right direction.)
Seems to me that responsibility is linked to punishment… in the very wide sense of the word, including things like “someone is made to feel bad about something”.
There is a desirable outcome (could be a small specific thing, or could be the entire coherently extrapolated volition of humanity), and you need to specify rules for punishment so that the outcome is satisfied or maximized.
For example, you can reduce murder by saying “the murderers will be executed”. That means, the murderers will be held responsible for their crimes.
Or you could improve the profit of a company by saying “the managers will be responsible for their project being done on time and within the assigned budget”.
Or you could do the heroic responsibility thing to yourself by saying “whenever a bad thing happens in the world, I will feel bad about it”.
Now the choice of who “should” be responsible depends on what are your options for punishing people. Can you establish an actual law that other people will follow? Can you establish a rule in your company? Or are you limited to controlling yourself?
So the debate about responsibility is about two things: what is the best way to assign the punishments in order to maximize the desired outcome, and what punishments are actually available to you in this situation?
(This is not an exact answer, just an attempt to point approximately in the right direction.)