Abstract

This chapter addresses complicity as a question of individual responsibility—the primary mode in which complicity matters in criminal-law contexts. There is a rich legal-doctrinal and philosophical literature on when participation in some wrongful endeavor gives rise to individual responsibility. The chapter draws on some of these works to identify the ethical basis on which one person can, by reason of something s/he has said or done, be considered responsible for some wrong that another person has committed. Rejecting the view that complicity should be approached as essentially a question of causality, the chapter argues that different bases of responsibility-ascription apply in situations where persons act together with, through, or merely alongside another. In consequence, different principles of responsibility-ascription for harmful outcomes govern cases where significant discrepancies exist between what each of the parties thought, intended, or set out to do.