Responsibility and Social Action

Abstract

This chapter illustrates the different meanings of responsibility and establishes a link between this notion and the concepts of social action and social relation. The etymology of the word responsibility is examined and, by referring to philosophy and legal theory, the semantic complexity of this notion is addressed. The emphasis on action, its consequences and their assessment are considered as the key elements of responsibility. Three “modes of enactment” of responsibility (assumption, ascription, subjection) are distinguished as establishing different links between these elements in social processes. Max Weber’s definition of social action, which is an action oriented to the behaviour of others, is introduced to translate in sociological terms the “orientation to others” that the etymology of the word responsibility suggests. Drawing from Weber’s theory of action, responsibility is then seen as a combination of instrumentally rational and value-rational actions, which are social, in Weber’s sense, because they are oriented, in terms of causal consequences and meanings, to the behaviour of others. Following Max Weber again, “responsibility relations” are then seen as constituted by the mutual orientation of the three modes of enactment.