Characterising Responsibility in Organisational Structures: The Problem of Many Hands

Abstract

Sometimes it is impossible to attribute responsibility to individuals when something goes wrong, or right, especially when many different agents are involved. Moral norms may dictate that certain events are not to happen, but responsibility can only be attributed to an agent if this agent was able to do the right thing, she knew what she ought to do, and she did not accidentally fail in completing her task. The fact that we cannot attribute responsibility for certain unfortunate events due to the absence of these conditions is called the problem of many hands. This contribution presents a logical analysis of the problem of many hands in the framework of XSTIT with intentions, as developed by Jan Broersen. The problem of many hands is analysed in terms of an inference from the existence of a norm and the fact that all agents are acting responsibly to the conclusion that the norm is obeyed. To make that inference valid, additional assumptions are necessary, to ensure that the fairness conditions are met. As the formal analysis shows, tasks can be distributed so as to minimize the gap in this inference, but it cannot be completely bridged: at some point we have to acknowledge that moral responsibility falls short of guaranteeing moral norm fulfilment.