Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T21:40:07.972Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Moral Responsibility of Public Officials: The Problem of Many Hands

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Dennis F. Thompson
Dennis F. Thompson*
Affiliation:
Princeton University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

That many different officials contribute in many different ways to decisions and policies in the modern state makes it difficult to ascribe moral responsibility to any official. The usual responses to this problem—based on concepts of hierarchical and collective responsibility—distort the notion of responsibility. The idea of personal responsibility—based on causal and volitional criteria—constitutes a better approach to the problem of ascribing responsibility to public officials. Corresponding to each of these criteria are types of excuses that officials use in defending the decisions they make. An analysis of the conditions under which the excuses eliminate or mitigate responsibility provides a foundation for accountability in a democracy.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , December 1980 , pp. 905 - 916
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1980

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allison, Graham (1971). Essence of Decision. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Altshuler, Alan A. (1977). “The Study of American Public Administration.” In Altshuler, Alan A. and Thomas, Norman C. (eds.), The Politics of the Federal Bureaucracy. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Anderson, Charles W. (1979). “The Place of Principles in Policy Analysis.” American Political Science Review 73:711–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle, (1963). Ethica Nicomachea. In Ross, W. D. (ed.), The Works of Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ashabranner, Brent (1971). A Moment in History. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. (1956–1957). “A Plea for Excuses.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 57: 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bok, Sissela (1978). Lying. New York: Pantheon.Google ScholarPubMed
Congressional Quarterly (1975). Watergate. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly.Google Scholar
Donagan, Alan (1977). The Theory of Morality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donovan, Robert J. (1977). Conflict and Crisis. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Doty, Paul (1972). “Can Investigations Improve Scientific Advice? The Case of the ABM.” Minerva 10:280–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edelman, Murray (1964). The Symbolic Uses of Politics. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel (1970). Doing and Deserving. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fleishman, Joel, and Payne, Bruce (1980). Ethical Dilemmas and the Education of Policymakers. Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Hastings Center.Google Scholar
Frankfurt, Harry G. (1971). “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person.” Journal of Philosophy 68: 5–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, Peter A., ed. (1972). Individual and Collective Responsibility. Cambridge, Mass.: Schenkman.Google Scholar
Fried, Charles (1978). Right and Wrong. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedlander, Saul (1969). Kurt Cerstein. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Gerth, H. H., and Mills, C. Wright (1958). From Max Weber. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Glover, Jonathan (1970). Responsibility. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Hampshire, Stuart, ed. (1978). Public and Private Morality. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. (1968). Punishment and Responsibility. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hart, H. L. A., and Honoré, A. M. (1959). Causation in the Law. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Heclo, Hugh (1978). “Issue Networks and the Executive Establishment.” In King, Anthony (ed.), The New American Political System. Washington, D.C.: American Enterprise Institute.Google Scholar
Hill, Thomas E. (1979). “Symbolic Protest and Calculated Silence.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 9: 83–102.Google Scholar
Hirschman, Albert O. (1970). Exit, Voice, and Loyalty. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hobbes, Thomas (1962). Leviathan. New York: Collier.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1949). “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Altruistic Motives.” In Beck, L. W. (ed.), Critique of Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Kaufman, Herbert (1977). Red Tape. Washington, D.C.: Brookings.Google Scholar
Kissinger, Henry (1979a). “Letters.” Economist 272:6–7.Google Scholar
Kissinger, Henry (1979b). White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Krasner, Stephen D. (1972). “Are Bureaucracies Important? (Or Allison in Wonderland).” Foreign Policy 7: 159–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladd, John (1970). “Morality and the Ideal of Rationality in Formal Organizations.” Monist 54: 488–516.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lipsky, Michael (1980). Street-Level Bureaucracy. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
Lowi, Theodore J. (1979). The End of Liberalism, 2d ed. New York: W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Lukas, J. Anthony (1977). Nightmare. New York: Bantam.Google Scholar
Martin, John Bartlow (1966). Overtaken by Events. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday.Google Scholar
Muller, Robert J. (1967). Adlai Stevenson. New York: Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Nelson, William R., ed. (1968). The Politics of Science. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Operations Research Society of America (1971). “Guidelines for the Practice of Operations Research.” Operations Research 19: 1123–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pennock, J. Roland (1979). Democratic Political Theory. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Peters, Charles (1973). “The Culture of Bureaucracy.” Washington Monthly 5: 22–24.Google Scholar
Rohr, John A. (1978). Ethics for Bureaucrats. New York and Basel: Dekker.Google Scholar
Rourke, Francis E., ed. (1978). Bureaucratic Power in National Politics, 3rd ed. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. (1965). A Thousand Days. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.Google Scholar
Sjoberg, Gideonet al. (1978). “Bureaucracy and the Lower Class.” In Rourke, Francis E. (ed.), Bureaucratic Power in National Politics. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Stillman, Richard J. (1980). Public Administration: Concepts and Cases, 2d ed. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin.Google Scholar
Strawson, P. F. (1968). “Freedom and Resentment.” In Strawson, (ed.), Studies in the Philosophy of Thought and Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Thompson, Dennis (1981). “Excuses Officials Use: Moral Responsibility and the New York City Fiscal Crisis.” In Fleishman, Joelet al. (eds.). Ethics in Government. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Thompson, Victor (1961). Modern Organizations. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Truman, Harry (1955). Memoirs, Vol. 1, Years of Decisions. New York: Doubleday.Google Scholar
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (1971). In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Walsh, W. H. (1970). “Pride, Shame and Responsibility.” Philosophical Quarterly 20: 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walzer, Michael (1973). “Political Action: The Problem of Dirty Hands.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 2: 160–80.Google Scholar
Walzer, Michael (1977). Just and Unjust Wars. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Weisband, Edward, and Franck, Thomas M. (1976). Resignation in Protest. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Williams, Bernard (1973). “A Critique of Utilitarianism.” In Smart, J. J. C. and Williams, Bernard, Utilitarianism for and Against. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.