Some Equivocations in the Notion of Responsibility

Abstract

Our discussion of the problem of responsibility was mainly concerned with the question: On what grounds might a person be held answerable or accountable by law or from a moral point of view for something he did or omitted to do? The consequence of responsibility, in this sense, is the affliction of punishment, if we take this term in a sense broad enough to include reprehension, criticism, and censure. But even if used in this sense the notion “to be responsible” may mean two different things: on the one hand, a man is responsible for what he did; on the other hand, he is responsible to someone — the person, the group, or the authority who makes him answerable.