ABSTRACT
Institutional responsibility is a species of responsibility and contrasts, perhaps most obviously, with moral responsibility (Fischer 1999). Jones might be morally responsible for failing to assist an old woman to cross the road without being institutionally responsible for his failing. Equally, Smith might be institutionally responsible for seeing to it that her desk is tidy but we might baulk at regarding this as a moral responsibility. Moreover, responsibility can be used in a backward or a forward looking sense. An example of the former sense is: “Jones is responsible for the car crash since he failed to stop at the red traffic light.” An example of the latter sense is “The mechanic is responsible for seeing to it that the brakes in my car are fixed.”
