REFLECTIVE APPLICATION OF THE SHARED FEATURES OF RESPONSIBILITY

What exactly does it mean to apply responsibility reflectively? It can certainly mean many things, not all of which can be analysed here. For our purposes it should be enough to emphasise the three main characteristics of responsibility and check whether the use of the notion does in fact lead to openness, proximity to action, and the consideration of consequences. The leading question for this self-application may be: Can we approve of the use of the term responsibility and its results from the point of view of a theory of responsibility? ^[14] Another similar question might be: Is it an act of responsibility to speak of responsibility and what does the speaker have to do to make sure it is?

These questions are probably easier to answer with regard to given applications. To give a specific answer, one would need to choose a certain realisation of responsibility and then check whether or not this application adheres to the underlying logic of responsibility. This will be done later on with regard to different aspects of business information technology. In order to do this, however, it is helpful to consider the reflective properties of responsibility from a theoretical perspective first.

The first point, the openness of responsibility, does not seem to pose too much of a problem. Openness of responsibility is almost guaranteed by its communicative nature. As we have seen before, responsibility is by its very definition a concept that relies on the inclusion of the affected parties. The subject, usually the agent responsible for an act, a decision, etc., has to answer to the instance because of what happened or may happen insofar as the rights of others are concerned . This should include the hearing of everybody involved. Otherwise it would be impossible to know exactly what the object of responsibility is and what makes it something that is ascribed to somebody. From a practical point of view, this poses relevant problems, as it may prove impossible to even find out who or what exactly is affected. Even if this is known, it may prove impossible to hear all affected parties. Theoretically, however, the use of the notion of responsibility as an attempt to address moral matters is consistent in this regard since it points in the direction of the openness of the answer. Responsibility goes even further than just a simple discussion of moral questions because it allows the social construction of reality. That means that in the communicative process, which constitutes the ascription of responsibility and the following answer, more than normative rules and morality are discussed and assessed. Communication comprises the agreement concerning reality in a specific case and its relevance to moral questions.

While the use of the term responsibility clearly seems to be responsible in that it conveys a sense of openness, which is characteristic for the term, the reflective application is less clear-cut where it comes to the second feature, the affinity to action. As mentioned, the appeal of the term in many circumstances seems to result from the fact that it promises some kind of stalwart result ”that actions be taken as a consequence. In fact, the use of responsibility often seems to lead the other way. Many are the times that the ascription of responsibility ” especially the reflective ascription of responsibility as in I take full responsibility for ”does not seem to lead anywhere . This observation differs for different sorts of responsibility. There are some forms for which action is a defining feature such as legal responsibility. If a judge or a jury ascribes responsibility, that usually has serious consequences. For moral responsibility on the other hand that seems to be far less certain. It is L ¼bbe s (1990, p. 206) critique of responsibility that it is nothing but the attempt to hide its own inaction. It can therefore be said that the reflective application of responsibility in the field of its perceived closeness to action leads to ambiguous results. While it is not exactly contradictory to use responsibility, it does not necessarily lead to the realisation of the aims either. A reflected and reflective use of responsibility would therefore have to pay attention to the question of whether or not it leads to results.

Result is the key word that leads us to the last feature of responsibility which we have to take into account. Responsibility is a consequentialist concept, which uses the results of actions as the basis for their moral evaluation. What does this mean for the concept of reflective responsibility? The first point here is that the notion of responsibility must be used under consideration of its consequences. The results of an ascription of responsibility need to be taken into account with regards to their nature and their potential use as feedback for the notion of responsibility itself.

This in turn leads to several problems concerning epistemology, metaphysics, and other philosophical fields. If responsibility is to be used reflectively, the question has to be asked whether the consequences of an action can be taken into consideration at all. In order to answer this question, there are numerous problems that need to be addressed. One is whether the consequences are known and if they can be known at all. This question again has two aspects depending on the temporal dimension of responsibility. For responsibility ex post, the problem is the determination of facts and the corresponding evaluations of these facts. Even though this is certainly no easy task, it is the classical problem of morality and therefore can be done in many instances. The assessment of results in the case of responsibility ex ante on the other hand is much more complicated, due to the fact that by definition the results in this case are unknown.

One can see that the use of responsibility as a moral notion does not ensure the realisation of consequentialism. Reflective responsibility would therefore have to try to find ways of realizing this consequentialism. This again would require several aspects to be taken into account. Firstly, there is the theoretical aspect. Responsibility ascriptions have to be checked for consistency. That means that one has to ask the question whether a certain ascription is feasible . Reflective responsibility would have to make sure that ascriptions are understandable and can be met. One common criticism of responsibility ascriptions is that they are too general, too broad to be of any use. It is often said that where everybody is responsible for everything, the entire notion loses its usefulness (Lenk, 1998, p. 83). It must therefore be possible to delineate the relevant results and make specific ascriptions. ^[15]

Another open question with regard to results is: For which results can responsibility be ascribed? A basic problem here is the question of how to decide which results are relevant for the assessment of an action. If we see the world as a nexus of causality , we recognise that every action has an infinite amount of results, most of which we will never know. Therefore the emphasis of responsibility usually lies on intended results. This is not really convincing, however, since we already know that one of the main reasons for the popularity of the notion are the developments and especially the negative effects of technology. It can safely be said that most technological developments aim at some sort of good. Even the most morally ambiguous technologies such as the atomic bomb were originally intended as morally good. So what we are looking at as the main reasons for many of today s moral problems are unintended results. A notion of responsibility that neglects these side effects can therefore not be complete. On the other hand we have seen that it is principally impossible to take all consequences into account since we can never know them all. Reflective responsibility has to consider this and deal with it in an open way. One possible solution is indicated in the communicative construction of responsibility. The process of ascription can comprise the determination of the results that it can be applied to, making it a reflective process itself. This can easily lead to theoretical and practical problems, but it saves responsibility from becoming just another deontological or casuistic concept.

The conclusion to be drawn from this question about the implications of reflective application on responsibility is that the results of an ascription of responsibility must be taken into consideration. A consistent use of the notion of responsibility has to include the question of whether it is a responsible action to speak of responsibility. Consequentialism should take its consequences seriously.

This first overview of the reflective attributes of responsibility shows that they are hard to realise. As a solution to the problem of unmanageable responsibility that seems to demand more of the agents than they are capable of giving it seems to have failed. Instead of making the ascriptions of responsibility easier, it has added a whole new dimension of problems. In short, the mere attempt to completely fulfil all of these requirements is doomed to failure. This realisation, however, if viewed in the context of the features of responsibility, also opens up a new window of opportunity. As a consequentialist concept aiming for the improvement of social or individual life, responsibility has no need to claim perfection . If the ascription of responsibility leaves the affected parties better off than the lack of it, then it is responsible to ascribe it even if the results may not be perfect or uncontroversial. This is another facet of the reflective use of the term. It can be argued that small results are better than no results, and if one can view responsibility as a concept that has no absolute claims, then it can be used to create incrementally better circumstances.

This is probably one of the reasons for the popularity of the concept. It is intrinsically incremental and thereby appeals to many of today s people for whom the all-encompassing philosophies, the great narratives have lost their credibility. In this sense the reflective use of responsibility can be seen in the tradition of moral theories that attempt the improvement of life on a smaller scale with limited objectives. One example of similar approaches might be Ricoeur s ethical theory which aims at the avoidance of violence without even trying to justify that goal. Once the affected parties can agree on this goal, all steps taken in this direction can be described as morally good. Another example is Popper s social technology (cf. Popper, 1992), which attempts to move toward a better society by taking small manageable steps at a time ”his piecemeal social technology. This is another idea that may claim a high plausibility because it best describes the way a modern democratic government can try to achieve (moral) goals.

The next step before the application of the concept to IS will be to take a closer look at the consequences that result from the reflective turn.

^[14] The analogous question in the case of scepticism would have been: Can we approve of the use of the term scepticism and its results from the point of view of a theory of scepticism? The answer in this case would have been no, or at least not without considerable explanation.

^[15] Reflective responsibility thus rules out an entire class of theories of responsibility. These are the theories that one is responsible for everything just because of one s being. The young Sartre is one example of an author propagating this kind of idea in relation with his existentialism. The phrase I am responsible for everything ( Je suis responsable de tout; Sartre, 1997, p. 107) does not make sense in our sense of the word.