Meradjuddin Khan Oidermaa

The proponents of Structural Complicity (“Structuralists”) argue that all of us are complicit in many structural injustices (Applebaum 2017; Aragon and Jaggar 2018; Mihai2019; Williams 2019; Knowles 2021). I examine whether this is true. I begin by analyzing what grounds complicity in the Structuralists’ accounts. I then argue that their accounts are not concerned with the same phenomena as the standards accounts of complicity (“Individualists”). In light of this, I investigate whether the paradigmatic cases used by theStructuralists are better captured by the Individualists’ accounts or the Structuralists’accounts. I conclude that both accounts face substantial challenges.

Is it possible for someone, right now, to become accountable for a wrong committed bysomeone else hundreds of years ago? Barring backwards-causation, it seems moral facts about the past are as indelible as historical facts. We argue, though, that this presumption is mistaken. We can affect the severity of the past wrongs others committed, by adding wrong-making features to their actions. We thereby can become accountable for the portion of that past wrong we worsen. After explicating and defending this principle, we apply it. Doing so reveals a deep connection among three distinct but related moral issues: on benefiting from injustice, on historical reparations, and on accessorial accountability. In excavating thisconnection, we present a univocal analysis of all three moral issues. We end by suggesting that the principle we defend helps unlock a host of other important and topical social issues as well.

Philosophers increasingly invoke the concept of moral complicity across a wide range of domains in moral philosophy, political theory and applied ethics. Yet the literature remains deeply fragmented and difficult to make sense of. This article identifies three central axes of disagreement—over which cases count as complicity, what its normative upshot is and what grounds it. I argue that, although disputes about cases are relatively tractable, disagreements about upshot and ground remain deeply entrenched. I conclude by proposing that progress requires a framework of limited pluralism that integrates and refines insights from selected accounts of complicity. This framework helps make sense of the phenomenon that is complicity and provides a coherent structure within which the field can advance.

This dissertation develops a unified theory of moral complicity—explaining how agents can be morally accountable for wrongs despite not having control over whether they occurred. Despite its importance in ethics, political theory, and social justice, the concept of complicity remains theoretically fragmented. I argue that complicity should be understood through the lens of quality of will: agents are complicit when their substandard quality of will helps explain the wrongness of another’s wrongdoing. The dissertation unfolds in four papers. The first challenges structural complicity accounts and argues they track a different normative kind from the dominant accounts of complicity. This narrows the scope of complicity, thus facilitating the pursuit of a unified account. The second critiques dominant causal theories by introducing the explanatory challenge. This sets up the need for a unified account. The third advances the unified account: According to the account, agents are complicit in a wrongdoing, if and only if, their substandard quality of will exacerbates the wrongfulness of that wrongdoing. The fourth extends this framework to show how present agents can become accountable for past wrongs. Together, the papers clarify the boundaries of complicity, expose the limitations of existing views, and offer a principled framework that unifies and extends our understanding of complicity.

The majority of authors in the complicity literature claim that causal accounts of complicity are inadequate because they fail to handle cases of causal overdetermination (Kutz, 2000, 2007, 2020; Lawson, 2013; Driver, 2015a, b; Bazargan-Forward, 2013, 2017, 2022; Mellema, 2016; Aragon and Jaggar, 2018; Williams 2019; Bennett, 2021; Donohue, 2021; Knowles, 2021). However, it has recently been argued that causal accounts can handle such cases (Lepora and Goodin, 2013; Petterson, 2013; Jensen, 2020). In this paper I scrutinize these defenses. I argue while they make some progress towards overcoming the standard overdetermination challenge, they are not fully satisfactory. More importantly, I present a novel challenge raised by cases of overdetermination—the explanatory challenge. I argue that, not only do these recent defenses not overcome this challenge, it is unlikely that any causal account can overcome it. Finally, I suggest that since causal accounts of complicity are inadequate, pluralism about complicity must be correct, because we cannot fully dispense with causation from our understanding of complicity.