Abstract

The aim of this article is to introduce and defend a revised conception of responsibility - namely, participatory responsibility. It starts from the insight that some pressing problems of global injustice render our common conception of responsibility useless. As an alternative the author mainly discusses Iris Marion Young's social connection model of responsibility. However, Young's approach becomes unconvincing in addressing and weighing specific duties. The author therefore adds a basic rights approach to her conception and argues that mere participation in a basic-rights-violating structure creates superordinated responsibilities for justice. Thus institutions and individual persons hold responsibility not because they have intentionally caused a foreseeable wrong, but because they have participated in, and thereby maintained, a social structure which has morally unacceptable effects