this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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The process by which de facto responsibility is established is a legal process. The adjudication of blame is a legal decision. Case in point, the current dust up over abortion rights involves states assigning culpability for homicide of a fetus to anyone aiding a pregnant woman in pursuing an abortion.
Everything about this is a legal issue:
The legality of the original act
The culpability of individual participants
The definition surrounding the concept of "aid"
The definition surrounding the concept of "pregnant"
The definition surrounding the concept of "abortion"
Property and contract play a role in determining whether an action is socially permissible.
Morals aren't objective and the idea of "responsibility" is relative. Parents are considered responsible for the acts of a child, but the legal definition of "parent" and "child" vary by legal jurisdiction. The core concept of "responsibility" is therefore rooted in the legal framework that assigns culpability.
"Responsibility" has different senses. One must be clear which sense is being discussed. Who is legally culpable for an action is what I am talking about with "legal responsibility." De facto responsibility is a descriptive concept independent of whether there even is a legal system to impute legal responsibility. Property and contract determine the legal consequence of being held culpable. De facto responsibility is about purposeful results of deliberate actions. Morals have an objective part
Absent a system to impute legal responsibility, this is an entirely subjective question. In fact, the whole reason we have courts and juries is to answer the question relative to the local norms. That's why jury selection is such a pivotal part of the trial process.
They determine the perceived de facto responsibility from the perspective of an outside observer, as well. Law influences public opinion. A country in which smoking is taboo will treat the harms inflicted by second hand smoke as far more material than one in which it is decriminalized or socially encouraged. Same with getting vaxxed/masking up during a pandemic. Or driving while intoxicated.
It can just as easily be defined as the neglect of certain actions. But, again, this depends on the social standards of one's neighbors, which are then commonly enshrined into regional laws.
Who is responsible for smoking remains the same. It is just the legal consequences associated with that action that change.
The kind of responsibility being discussed when someone neglects their duties is different from what is being discussed when we are talking about de facto responsibility.
A group of people is de facto responsible for a result if it is a purposeful result of their joint intentional actions. Production is a planned and deliberate process. Workers are de facto responsible
The cigarette manufacturers? The retailers? The smokers themselves? Ad agencies? Nicotine? Workplace anxiety? Who IS responsible?
It is not, because its not objectively certain where the buck stops.
A group of people can engage in individually virtuous actions while generating a villainous result. The classic example is the "Tragedy of the Commons". Six individual shepherds grazing on a hill that can only support five flocks. Each doing an honest day's work, but collectively destroying each others' livelihoods.
Individuals lack perfect information and cannot be held culpable for unforeseen consequences.
The smoker is de facto responsible. Other kinds of responsibility could extend some blame to the manufacturers etc. Those are not responsibility in the de facto sense.
For example, someone sells a car to a person that commits a crime using it; the car seller is not involved in the planning or execution of the crime. The car purchaser is solely de facto responsible for the crime. I am using responsibility in the narrow de facto sense.
The tragedy of the commons is not a purposeful result
Then why do companies need to spend enormous sums on advertising and marketing?
You seem to suggest there is no de facto responsibility for lying.
A mob boss throws one of his cronies the keys to his car. "If my rival ends up dead tomorrow, the car is yours. By the way, he's going to be at the corner of 5th and Main tomorrow."
But he's not de facto responsible, because he contracted a third party to handle the dirty work.
The tragedy of the commons is a foreseeable consequence of individual actions.
You can see this play out in a game of Jenga. Everyone is pulling blocks out of the base of the tower. Asserting that the last person to pull a block is "de facto responsible" neglects culpability of each of the other participants.
What do you mean?
There is de facto responsibility (DFR) associated with any intentional action.
The mob boss situation is different from the car situation I was presenting The mob boss and his crony are both jointly DFR. The mob boss participated in the planning of the crime. Furthermore, the situation is a conspiracy.
Each party is DFR for their contribution to the tragedy of the commons at a bare minimum. DFR doesn't subsume other notions of culpability
An act performed under misinformation isn't intentional.
Only because the mob boss's intent is made explicit in the example. The same boss who owns a car dealership, and all his gang members just happen to get cheap cars there that they use to commit crimes, we're back to your example.
That doesn't mean anything. There's no logical consequence that flows from it.
It depends on how the misinformation relates to the act. There can be cases where such an act is intentional
That sounds like a conspiracy. There are cases where the DFR party isn't imputed legal responsibility because there isn't enough evidence to determine who is DFR. It means we don't know not that there isn't a fact of the matter.
Natural resources are not fruits of labor. They should be socially owned. Each worker coop DFR for greenhouse gases would be liable to society