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There is no doubt that responsibility matters: that each of us owes a duty of care toothers. Where there is disagreement, however, is over the standard of care and the scope of the duty: how much do we owe, and to whom? This is, in part, an ethical question; but it is a purely ethical question only when the ethical context is settled. In the absence of any such settlement, it is not an ethical question but a political one; for before the ethical question can be broached it must be clear what is the framework within which claims about responsibility may be addressed. It is only then that we can argue about how particular burdens may be shifted. Indeed, because the standard of responsibility accepted does so much depend on the settlement of more fundamental political questions it can plausibly be argued that all issues of responsibility are, ultimately, political issues.
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The Politics of Responsibility: How to Shift the Burden Chandran Kukathas School of Politics University College University of New South Wales Responsibility, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star—Ambrose Bierce There is no doubt that responsibility matters: that each of us owes a duty of care to others. Where there is disagreement, however, is over the standard of care and the scope of the duty: how much do we owe, and to whom? This is, in part, an ethical question; but it is a purely ethical question only when the ethical context is settled. In the absence of any such settlement, it is not an ethical question but a political one; for before the ethical question can be broached it must be clear what is the framework within which claims about responsibility may be addressed. It is only then that we can argue about how particular burdens may be shifted. Indeed, because the standard of responsibility accepted does so much depend on the settlement of more fundamental political questions it can plausibly be argued that all issues of responsibility are, ultimately, political issues.1 In this essay I wish to address a particularly vexatious issue of responsibility: our responsibility for past injustice. And I wish to look at this issue through the case of the treatment of aboriginal peoples by settler societies, asking what claims contemporary aborigines may legitimately make upon their fellow citizens for past injustices suffered by aborigines at the hands of earlier settlers. My concern, however, is not simply with this problem—important though it may be. My concern is with the more general political problem of allocation of responsibility; and the aim of this essay is to offer an argument as to how that problem should be approached. I tackle the problem through the question of the claims of contemporary aboriginal peoples because it raises very clearly a particular challenge for any theory of responsibility. The challenge is a straightforward denial of the existence of any responsibility. The denial of responsibility goes something like this. It makes no sense to hold us responsible for the wrongs perpetrated by people in the past on other people in the past. Human history is a pretty sorry tale of injustice, and many have been victims. While we may be able to learn from this tragic story—and certainly we should try to do better—there is nothing we can do for those now dead. To their descendants we ought to show a measure of sympathy; but we owe them nothing simply in virtue of the sufferings of their ancestors, for which we are in no way to blame. Nor do we owe them anything in virtue of their own suffering as the descendants of the victims of injustice—except insofar as those of us who are well owe something to anyone who is suffering. Thus I, speaking as, say, a wealthy white Australian descended from a member of t