Responsibly Navigating Social Practices

The literature on moral responsibility and moral appraisals is moving beyond a focus on blame that characterized much of the late 20th Century and early 21st Century debates (e.g., Wallace 1994; Scanlon 2008). Persons can be responsible without being blameworthy (Pickard 2011; Lacey and Pickard 2018). Persons can be responsible and liable to a range of different moral responses, ranging from moral disappointment (Fricker 2010) to appreciation (Calhoun 2021) or praise (Telech 2021, 2022). Cheshire Calhoun (2024) has recently made an exciting contribution, and one which more fully develops an expanded picture of the morally responsible person. This picture focuses not only on the capacities needed to be accountable for violations of moral norms—as has been the focus of much of the literature on moral responsibility. Rather, Calhoun argues, we ought to consider also what capacities are needed to be fluent operators in social practices, in a way that enables others to form predictive expectations (what Calhoun calls “compliance responsibility”). And we ought to consider what capacities agents have such that they are sometimes able to promote values and go above and beyond what is required of them (what Calhoun calls “taking responsibility”). This picture helps us to see what is valuable about being a responsible person; why it is a status that matters to us. It is a picture truer to the Strawsonian ambition of taking seriously the practices in which we engage with each other as responsible; and one which should “remind us of the much richer, more complexly three-dimensional conception of responsible persons that ordinary people in ordinary social life have” (2024, 14). Our intervention focuses on Calhoun's notion of compliance responsibility, and the question of what capacities are involved in the navigation of social practices. Our contention is that Calhoun's notion of “compliance responsibility” is ultimately insufficient to capture the responsibility-relevant capacities presupposed by social practices as we know them. We reach this conclusion by illustrating that the capacities that are salient in a model of the responsible person depend on the model of social practices we articulate, and the features of those practices brought into view. We will survey three models of social practices—each model involves different idealisations and abstractions, and so brings into focus different features of our practices, and we argue, each one brings different capacities into view. Ultimately we will argue that, at least sometimes, a model which brings a richer and more complex notion of practices, and the corresponding set of capacities into view, is desirable. But our argument is intended as a constructive modification of, rather than a rival, to Calhoun's picture. We proceed as follows. In each section, we present a different model of social practices and show how different responsibility-relevant capacities and attitudes are brought into focus. In Section 2, we set out Calhoun's picture of social practices; in Section 3, we attend to Karen Stohr's (2019) model; in Section 4, we articulate Sally Haslanger's (2018) account of social practices. In Section 5, we present two examples of social practices, surrounding eating and drinking, and toilet use. The first extends existing literature on food-related social practices, focusing on the potentially conflicting norms of dinner parties. The second examines the exclusionary (binary) practices of bathroom usage. We argue that these examples illustrate that compliance with norms is sometimes neither possible nor desirable. This may be because the practices are hostile or oppressive, as with binary bathrooms; but it need not be, as the dinner party example shows. It is simply a function of our complex social worlds. Rather than Calhoun's notion of compliance responsibility, we argue for a model of norm-responsive responsibility. This responsiveness may generate compliance; but may sometimes promote resistance. There is extensive philosophical literature articulating what it takes to be a responsible person. But, Calhoun argues, the model of the responsible person developed in much of the literature to date is limited, as a result of authors focusing on what it takes for people to avoid acting wrongfully, or for it to be apt to hold them accountable for such wrongful actions. A very different picture emerges, Calhoun argues, if we instead focus on what it is to take responsibility, or what it takes to be a member of minimally functioning social practices—practices that depend upon participants complying with norms, and sometimes volunteering to promote the valuable aspects of those practices. We focus in detail on the model of social practices that Calhoun has in mind, and the picture of the compliance responsible person that emerges. For, as we will argue, by elaborating a different model of social practices, different features of the social environment and different capacities become significant for responsible persons who operate within, and sometimes challenge, those social practices. Being responsible in the sense of accountable requires not merely having a suitably developed capacity to respond to normative considerations, but also having a developable capacity—such that if we are not presently sensitive (due to unfamiliarity with the local norms, perhaps), we could in future become so (2024, 11–21). With a focus on the possibility of development, the range of responsibility-recognizing attitudes already extends beyond blame—it can include normative expectations or aspirations, as well as those embedded in efforts to educate others and oneself. These capacities are not only activated in the occasions in which persons violate moral norms; they are capacities which underpin a default status, and one which it is valuable for us to have. However, even with this more expansive notion of accountability responsibility in place, Calhoun argues, there are aspects of what it is to be a responsible person that are not yet in view. This brings us to the idea of “compliance responsibility.” Calhoun claims having the status of accountability is consistent with frequently failing to meet normative standards, either because one does not understand the local norms, or because one is ill-motivated to comply with them. People can have the relevant capacities for sensitivity even when they don't know how to fulfill them or are poorly motivated. So it is a minimalist and far from optimistic conception of the responsible person. Nor is it a conception of the responsible person, Calhoun argues, with which we tend to engage with others in much of our daily life. We tend to engage with others who have “been into of the moral norms, those of that we have. to that those people are already to the range of that are relevant in as we (2024, We tend to go our daily not only with normative expectations about the of but with predictive expectations that, for the others will to the we of each Calhoun in social practices on a more conception of responsible than that in the notion of accountability responsibility (2024, our question for what is the model of social practices Calhoun has in mind, and what is the picture of the responsible person embedded Calhoun focuses on practices as practices with which are and others are as (2024, The features for our are that the social practices in are such that the norms them are and by those in them. participants in the proceed on the that others comply with the norms of the with an of default (2024, and the that may well be with of (2024, This model of social practices and the model of the “compliance responsible which involves that such persons social to be participants in social (2024, with the local norms of the practices; in to comply with the normative and to that others will on of social norms, Calhoun that compliance responsible persons have the capacity to social and to and the social that in that have a There is a to the compliance responsible such that from of the (2024, So the model of the compliance responsibility brings into a different range of responsibility-recognizing that social life. We are and as responsible persons not only when we are for violations of norms, but also when we are as a default to comply with the norms in a (2024, when on we by default that the comply with norms with We show our when we to on the others to not us. people are not to Calhoun people who are not to compliance responsible may be as yet with local norms or may be in a or may be to the at a (2024, the to compliance in Calhoun's examples are people simply may not know how to compliance be the practices are in Calhoun's well on of (2024, Calhoun these claims with examples of a of and and social the of in a a in the of a and the of an And the picture of social practices is a for these practices when they function at least This may be an picture of responsible persons when they operate in functioning social compliance is possible and desirable. 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The responsible person who social practices, is of as with rather than compliance responsibility, as Calhoun has being norm-responsive But as it is that practices will sometimes generate and resistance. our social practices requires this more extensive range of This range of capacities is also from the idea of “taking as Calhoun it of beyond accountability and compliance (2024, responsible persons take responsibility they more than is required of or even of they to promote go above and These of taking responsibility are with attitudes such as or Calhoun argues, our social practices are the that persons will take responsibility and more than the in which we this of responsibility, argues, are we for on our practices for people to in one social practices that sometimes in complex or are upon the that people will go beyond what the norms of this is not with the idea of people beyond the and responsibility” in Calhoun's sense the practices, to or taking responsibility in Calhoun's sense is by participants in the and sometimes conflicting or norms may not a different set of and will be required to be to practices, in the In if accountability responsibility is having the capacity for normative and taking responsibility involves those capacities to go above and beyond what social norms of we to model the of responsibility that in the of social practices as that which requires local and but the to either comply or or or or on a of those practices, to other norms, and for the they and the participants them. 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