4: Explaining Collective Contexts: Expanding Individualism 81 !
4.5 Expanded Individualism and Social Structural Harm 108 !
In the preceding chapter, I discussed the ways in which Young’s work on structural injustice provided support for a participation-based account of moral responsibility regarding social structural harm. In Bjornsson’s work there is further support for an individualist account of moral responsibility for social structural harms through an analysis of the motivations for agents’ involvement in these structures, what I shall call ‘expanded individualism’. Holding people responsible for social structural harms is problematic for many traditional approaches to analysing moral responsibility due to the difficulty involved in identifying individual perpetrators of harm. In this section I shall therefore explain how expanded individualism provides an account of moral responsibility for social structural harm based on agents’ responsibility for participating in harmful structural activities. This account of moral responsibility focusses on agent motivations regarding their participation, rather than the specific difference made by each individual participating agent. I shall explain why agent motivation plays a significant role in social structural harms and discuss the problem that this role is commonly overlooked due to its normalisation in contemporary society.
109 i.! The importance of motivation
Analysing responsibility ascriptions in cases of social structural harm is difficult because of the minute or indiscernible contribution of each individual participant. It is often the case that an individual contribution, considered in isolation, makes no difference to the harm caused by the social structure.218 We can identify the harm that is done by the social structural practice as a
whole, but identifying the harm caused by specific individuals is usually not possible. We do not, however, therefore hold the belief that no-one is morally responsible for social structural harm, since identifying the participants is usually possible. This leaves us with a problem, traditional accounts of moral responsibility struggle to explain who is responsible for these large-scale harms and why.
By focussing on the importance of agent motivation to our evaluation of moral responsibility, Bjornsson’s account of joint responsibility helps explain why participation in social structural harm is so morally problematic despite the apparent lack of harm caused by each individual participant. The problem lies in the lack of agent motivation to avoid participating in harm. Where many agents fail to be motivated to act morally, individual actions which in isolation may not cause harm (though they may still be morally problematic) can contribute to large-scale harms. Although any one individual’s withdrawal from a harmful practice would have no effect on whether the harm caused occurred or not, if many participating individuals withdrew from the practice the effect of the process would be altered.
ii.! The significance of individual participation
Whilst Bjornsson’s account provides an interesting explanation for our practices of holding agents jointly morally responsible for harms where no individual has control over the outcome, on first reading it may appear that Bjornsson’s account gets us no closer to explaining the importance of individual agent participation is social structural harm. The third condition of his argument that an agent’s contribution must make a significant contribution, does not appear to apply to social structural harms. Each agent’s contribution in these circumstances is usually minute, and the difference it makes is minimal when the entire social structural harm is considered.
This, however, misrepresents the importance of individual contributions and the role they play in social structural harms. These harms are solely composed of such individual contributions,
110 therefore the choices and participation of individual contributors is of central importance to the nature of the overall social structure. If we consider each agent in isolation, this importance can be lost. When each individual sees their contribution as unimportant, they will lack the motivation to address the harms in which they are involved. When agents understand that their contribution makes a difference, however small or seemingly insignificant, to a large-scale harm, their change in behaviour to avoid contributing to harm can change the impact of social structures. The more participants in a social structure who share this understanding and act accordingly, the less likely that social structure is to cause large scale harm. Therefore agent motivation is a particularly significant aspect of social structural harms.
When agents fail to take into account the wider repercussions of their individual participation, it is easy for many small and seemingly harmless contributions to compound into large-scale harms. These harms are not inevitable, but avoiding them does require agents to be mindful of their interactions with others and to consider the effects of their actions when performed not just by them, but along with many other agents. When, for example, an agent is considering buying a sweatshop produced jumper, they may think that there is very little chance that their purchase will harm anyone, which if we consider that action in isolation, it would not. Since, however, that action is not performed in isolation, we must think about it in its wider social context.
We can usually ignore a very small chance. But we should not do so when we may affect a very large number of people, or when the chance will be taken a very large number of times. These large numbers roughly cancel out the smallness of the chance.219
With the huge amounts of agents involved in social structures, agents cannot think of their individual contributions in terms of individual risk, but rather as part of a much larger set of individuals all performing actions that risk harm. This better reflects the likelihood that engaging in such activities helps perpetuate harm.
Bjornsson’s argument that an agent needs to play a significant role in a harm in order to be held responsible for it helps explain moral responsibility for participation in social structural harm in a number of ways. He suggests that agents do not need to engage in intentional action or specifically make decisions in order to play a significant role in a harm.220 This is important when
considering social structural harms, as participants are unlikely to be intentionally participating in order to cause others harm. They may have given little or no thought to the implications of
219 Parfit, p. 75.
111 their participation, which is part of the problem regarding motivation that leads so many to participate in harmful activity.
I also suggest that it is possible for an agent to make a significant contribution without making an individual difference. This is the case for most participatory acts involved in social structural harms. Individual contributions are significant because it is these contributions which bring about and perpetuate the harm. Without such contributions, there would be no harm caused. At the same time, if any one individual’s contribution is considered in isolation it appears unimportant because it makes no discernible difference to the whole. The importance of the act does not lie in the difference it makes to the harm caused by the structural process. An agent therefore does not need to make a decisive difference to the harm, it can be the case that the harm will happen regardless of whether a particular agent acts or not, but their contribution (along with many others) remains significant because it is an integral part of the explanation as to how and why the harm came about.
Part of the reason that it may appear that contributions to social structural harm are not significant is that our multiple contributions have become normalised into our daily lives. As a result, Bjornsson’s analysis seems unable to explain why agent participation is morally problematic, as much of an agent’s involvement does not seem to be explicable through ‘attention grabbers’, through acts that are surprising and stand out from the background conditions.221 Many
contributions made by individual agents to these harms are through activities widely regarded as normal and mundane. This normalisation of participation in large scale harms is a significant part of the problem of adequately analysing individual contribution.
The fact that many social structural practices result in large-scale harm is common knowledge, but this knowledge fails to elicit a change in participant behaviour to avoid actions that contribute to and perpetuate harm. If we attempt to analyse the morality of our involvement objectively, we are presented with a very different picture of the effect on others of our actions. However, we usually fail to consider the morality of our participation in large-scale social practices in the way that we would consider our actions in smaller-scale direct interpersonal exchanges. Considering the common moral beliefs we have in these direct exchanges can help shed light on the kinds of moral considerations we should employ in our participation in social structural processes.
112 iii.! Participating in harmful structures
Many of our widely held moral beliefs regarding the appropriate treatment of other people incorporate ideas relating to the avoidance of causing harm, both directly and indirectly, through injury, exploitation, negligence, or indifference, to name but a few. When considering exchanges between individuals that we view as direct interpersonal interactions, we would consider actions which knowingly and foreseeably led to harm as morally unacceptable. There would have to be a very good reason for us not to blame a perpetrator of harm in these circumstances, such as them acting under duress. Where an agent contributed to significant and sustained harm, we would require any exculpation to be very strong indeed. That an agent’s contribution was small would not exclude them from responsibility, and claims of ignorance regarding their participation would require adequate justification, we would want to establish whether such ignorance was genuine or affected, and whether or not it was culpable.
When an agent participates in social structural harm, we commonly fail to impose these same moral responsibility requirements on their actions, and agents do not usually consider the implications of their actions in the same way. Participation in large-scale harm has quickly become a largely accepted and normalised part of our daily lives, resulting in agents often unreflectively contributing to social structural harms. Its ubiquity has made it appear unsurprising, so it fails to grab our attention in the way that we would normally think harmful actions should do. Thus despite the fact that it is common knowledge that most clothing is manufactured in sweatshops where people work in appalling conditions for very little money, many people fail to see their purchase of these clothes as particularly morally blameworthy. Pogge has argued that the pervasive nature of our participation in practices that harm the global poor has made us ‘active participants in the largest, though not the gravest, crime against humanity ever committed’.222 Despite the scale of the harm involved and the extent to which we
are actively engaged in contributing to it, most people continue their involvement without much reflection on their participatory actions. Action to change the social processes that lead to these harms largely continues to be seen as supererogatory, rather than a moral requirement of all those involved.
Despite this high level of normalisation, the kinds of harms to which agents are contributing would, in other circumstances, elicit our interest. Considering historical examples can help explain the morally problematic nature of our current predicament. Slavery is now universally recognised as indefensible, and support of slavery is morally condemned around the
222 Pogge, Thomas, ‘Human Rights and Human Responsibilities’, in Global Responsibilities: Who Must Deliver on
113 world.223 Historically, slavery was often institutionalised and widely accepted as a normal part of
societies around the world until the 1800s.224 During the time it was legal, it was widely practiced
and an accepted part of international manufacturing and economic activity. Slave labour has been used to provide goods and services that would otherwise have been difficult for many to afford. Knowledge of its use was common, and it seems that tacit support for this practice was widespread amongst those benefitting from the practice.
Despite this long running institutional practice of support for slavery throughout human history, it is now finally illegal in every country and publically condemned as an immoral practice. This is because slavery is regarded as incompatible with contemporary moral values, it denies people their basic human rights and causes much suffering. Of course, this was the case before it became universally illegal, but this was not so widely recognised. Given our contemporary conception of the morality of slavery, were an agent knowingly and willingly to purchase items produced from slave labour today, we would find this support of slavery immoral. We would do so regardless of whether we could identify any specific harm caused to a specific slave in the production of such goods. Simply supporting the practice of slavery through purchasing slave- made goods would be regarded as an immoral act because such purchases perpetuate the use of slaves in manufacturing and thus contribute to suffering and the denial of people’s basic rights.
iv.! Explaining collective responsibility: Expanded Individualism
Many people in the world today work in dangerous and horrendous conditions, denied basic human rights, and endure much suffering whilst working to produce cheap goods that would otherwise be difficult for many people to afford. Knowledge that these practices are widespread in the manufacturing of many goods, particularly clothing, is commonplace. However, despite the similarities, participating in the social structures that create this harm is not considered nearly as immoral, if it is considered immoral at all, as participating in social structures supporting slavery. Supporting harmful manufacturing processes has become institutionalised and normalised into contemporary society, so much so that many people rarely reflect on how and where the goods they purchase are produced.225 Participating in harmful social processes is not
perceived by agents in the same way as performing other harmful actions. In many ways, the
223 This is, unfortunately, oversimplifying the issue, as slavery continues to be practiced illegally around the world. Since this is done in secret, I take it that it is still acknowledged that this practice is considered morally unacceptable. 224 Although slavery remained legal in some countries until the 21st century, the abolition of slavery became widespread during the 19th century.
114 extensive institutionalisation of harmful social practices is a normal part of life, in much the same was as slavery was still viewed by many in the early 19th century.
Social structural harm is ubiquitous throughout contemporary society, it is something that most people contribute to in some way or another every day. The ability to explain why participating in harmful social structures brings with it moral responsibilities for those harms is therefore necessary in order to provide a more complete and accurate account of the moral responsibilities we all hold. Considering Young and Bjornsson’s work on participatory moral responsibility, we can explain individual moral responsibility for engagement in social structures which cause harm in the following way:
1.! Social structural process are responsible for causing large-scale harms. 2.! Social structures are perpetuated by the continuing participation of individuals.
3.! Individual contributing actions provide a significant explanation of the occurrence of collective harm in social structures.
4.! Agents are capable of being responsible agents in their involvement in social structures as much as they are in individual interactions.
5.! Agents’ motivations regarding social structures play an important role in the continuation of immoral social structures.
6.! Therefore, agents bear moral responsibility for participation in social structures.
Expanded individualism helps explain why agents bear responsibility for collective harms in which they participate but might make no discernible difference. Whilst the majority of agents continue to fail to be motivated to avoid harmful participation and fail to work towards changing social structural processes in order to make them non-harmful, these harms will continue to occur. Although the withdrawal of any one individual makes no difference to the outcome, were many of those involved to withdraw or alter their participation, the harm caused by the social structural process would be altered. The collective nature of this harm, and the need for a collective approach in order to adequately address it, makes it a difficult subject for many individualist accounts of responsibility. However, expanding our understanding of individualism to incorporate responsibility for those harms we cause with many others is an important step towards developing a full and accurate account of our moral responsibilities.