Mind the Vicarious Responsibility

Abstract Vicarious responsibility exists. It is (also) a species of moral responsibility. Nevertheless, it is seldomly discussed or considered as such in the main debates within moral philosophy. This article presents a case for the relevance of vicarious moral responsibility to several of these discussions. It seeks to provide new insights for the debate between historicism and structuralism and presents a further case for distinguishing between various facets of moral responsibility. Furthermore, the article demonstrates that an agent need not enter into the relation of vicarious responsibility freely in order to be responsible. This idea then allows us to present new cases for compatibilism, demonstrating the consistency of moral responsibility with determinism.