What is complicity? Lepora
and Goodin (2013) provide the most comprehensive framework for
parsing and assessing the moral blameworthiness of complicit
behavior.
In their analysis, Lepora and Goodin distinguished between four
groups of agents: (a) shady non-contributors who have no causal
relation to the harm, (b) non-blameworthy but
complicit contributors to the harm, (c)
blameworthy complicit contributors to the harm, of varying
degrees, (d) and co-principals of the harm. Whether agents are
blameworthy (in the case of coercion) or excusable (for participating in
a lesser evil) are additional and independent distinctions.
Figure 1: Lepora and Goodin’s (2013) types of agents.
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connivance
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condoning
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consorting
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contiguity
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(neither voluntary nor knowledgeable of harm or their role)
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connivance
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condoning
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consorting
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contiguity
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collaboration (follows plan)
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complicity simpliciter
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full joint (identical plan & action)
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co-operation (shared plan & different actions)
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conspiracy (shared plan)
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collusion (plan in secret)
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Even non-contributors, with no causal connection to
a harm, can have “shady” (my term) relationships to the wrongdoer. Such
shady non-complicit relationships are connivance
(tacitly assenting), condoning (granting forgiveness),
consorting (close social distance), and contiguity
(close physical distance). Even if unsavory, these non-contributors have
no causal contribution to the harm.
Contributors, on the other hand, are causally
necessary to the harm but not constitutive; their
complicity “necessarily involves committing an act that
potentially contributes to the wrongdoing of others in some causal way”
(2013, p. 6). The researcher who develops a better facial recognition
algorithm is a contributor to downstream harm. She did not join in the
harm, and she may not even be morally blameworthy—which I will return to
shortly—but she did contribute to the harm.
The six types of complicit behavior include the four shady behaviors,
already discussed, when they contribute to harm. If criminals
know they won’t be reported and consequently commit another crime, the
non-reporter’s connivance becomes complicit connivance. The
same holds true for condoning, consorting, and
contiguity. These terms describe agents associated with
wrongdoers; when their behavior becomes causal, encouraging harm, they
move from being shady non-contributors to complicit contributors.
The other two types of complicit contribution are collaboration and
complicity simpliciter. In collaboration the agent goes along
with a wrongful plan of the wrongdoer. A teller who is forced to open
that vault at gunpoint is a complicit collaborator—though morally
exonerable in the larger framework because his action was coerced. An
engineer who is threatened with termination if she does not help build
an oppressive system is a complicit collaborator. Complicity
simpliciter is a catch-all term used to cover those cases not
already addressed. Absent the specificity of the other types of
complicity, the agent simply has to have known (or should have known)
they were contributing to a harm.
Finally, co-principals are active participants in
the planning and execution of a wrong-doing; their actions
constitute the harm. In most cases, the co-principles are
co-operators: they each take the plan as their own and partake
in its actions, even if in different but interdependent ways. Members of
a bank robbery gang are co-operating co-principals, including those
holding the guns, the lookout, and the getaway driver. Similarly,
consultants who customize and install a biometric database system so
that the innocent can be tracked by an oppressive regime are cooperating
co-principals in this harm.
Of course, a given scenario can have multiple harms in which an agent
plays multiple roles. Someone who backed out of a heist after helping
plan it is a co-principal in the conspiracy and a complicit contributor
in its enactment but not a co-principal in the robbery itself.
Within these roles we can see various “dimensions of difference”
(Lepora & Goodin, 2013, ch. 4). Centrality speaks to the
extent of contribution: how much and how essential. Lepora and
Goodin use counter-factual thinking about alternative worlds for this.
An essential contribution is necessary to the harm in “every
suitably nearby possible world.” For example, someone who smuggles a
sniper rifle past security to an assassin is essential to the murder. A
potentially essential contribution is a “necessary condition of
the wrong occurring, along some (but not all) possible paths by which
the wrong might occur” (p. 62). The sniper who successfully assassinated
the target was essential; the back-up assassin was potentially so
because it is conceivable that some path would’ve led to the primary
assassin failing and the back-up assassin succeeding.
Proximity speaks to the closeness to the harm in the causal
chain; the last contribution to a wrongdoing has a greater weight than
an earlier one. Firing a rifle in an assassination is more proximate to
the harm than the person who procured it. The reversibility of
the contribution is a factor as is its temporality (e.g.,
condoning happens after the primary wrongdoing). There is also
a person’s mental stance toward planning the harm. The person
might be the plan-maker or a plan-taker. If the
latter, there is the degree of shared purpose and
responsiveness to the plan, from eagerly adopting it
as their own, otherwise accepting it, or merely
complying.
These dimensions are inputs to factors within Lepora and Goodin’s
framework for assessment. Complicit blameworthiness is a
function of the badness, responsibility, contribution, and shared
purpose factors: CB = (RF*BF*CF) + (RF*SP). An implication
of this equation is that even though bank tellers are complicit when
coerced, they are not blameworthy; if RF=0, so is
CB. Another implication is that you do not need a shared
purposes (SP) with the wrong-doer to be blameworthy. Even
when SP=0, a contributor might have non-zero factors of
responsibility (RF), badness (BF), and
contribution (CF), resulting in a positive
CB.
BF (Badness Factor): the morally badness of the
principal wrongdoingRF (Responsibility Factor) = f(V, Kc, Kw)
V: voluntarinessKc: knowledge of contributionKw: knowledge of wrongness
CF (Contribution Factor) =
f(C, Prox, Rvse, Temp, Pr, Resp)
C: centrality, including essentialityProx: proximityRvse: reversibilityTemp: temporalityPr: planning roleResp: responsiveness
SP (Shared Purpose): extent of overlap, strength, and
guidance relative to purposes of wrong-doers
This equation also implies four categories of secondary agents: (1)
those who are not complicit because they have no knowledge nor
contribution, (2) those who are complicit but without blame because of
coercion, (3) those who are complicit and somewhat to blame, and (4)
those who bear maximal blame.
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Secondary agents are not complicit with the principal wrongdoing if they
had no knowledge of their contribution, its wrongness, or did not
contribute.
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Kc=0 or Kw=0 or CF=0
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Knowing and contributing agents are complicit but bear no blame for
contributing to the principal wrongdoing if it wasn’t voluntary.
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Kc=1 and Kw=1 and CF > 0 but V=0
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Agents are complicit and bear more or less blame if they knew but only
partially contributed, consented, or shared the purpose.
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Kc=1 and Kw=1 but (0<CF<1 or 0<V<1 or
0<SP<max)
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Agents are complicit and bear maximal blame if they knew, volunteered,
made an essential contribution and shared the purpose of the wrongdoing.
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Kc=1 and Kw=1 and V=1 and CF=1 and SP=max
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Finally, Lepora and Goodin, true to their concern about humanitarian
efforts, acknowledged that blameworthy complicity in one harm
(provisioning a warlord) can be the lesser evil of another harm
(letting others starve). Nonetheless, we should still recognize the
lesser evil as an evil: “We think that is a better way of explicating
the morality of the situation than to deny that you are doing anything
wrong at all by contributing to wrongdoing, on the grounds that your own
intentions are pure” (Lepora & Goodin, 2013, p. 96).
References
Lepora, Chiara, and Robert E. Goodin. 2013. On Complicity and
Compromise. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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