The Reciprocity of Criminal Responsibility

Abstract

This chapter is concerned with responsibility, understood as accountability – as a matter of being held to account for some alleged misconduct. It distinguishes two dimensions of accountability, answerability and liability, and focuses on answerability in the criminal law: a defendant in a criminal trial is called to answer to a charge of criminal wrongdoing, and to answer for that wrongdoing if it is proved; he is liable to conviction and punishment if he cannot offer an exculpatory answer. Responsibility as thus understood is relational, in that it is responsibility to some person or body who has the authority to call me to account; it is also reciprocal, in that if we call you to answer to us (if we claim the authority to hold you to account), we must be ready to answer to you. These features of responsibility can help us to understand why the criminal prosecution and punishment of those who have suffered serious social injustice is problematic: the political community can retain the standing to call such offenders to criminal account only if it is ready to answer to them for the injustices they have suffered at its hands or through its neglect.