Atelier tenu dans le cadre des activités du thème phare Antiracisme et Décolonisation, dirigé par Yann Allard-Tremblay, autour d’un article de Jules Salomone-Sehr intitulé « Complicity: A Minimalist Account for Our Maximally Messy Social World ».

L’événement sera tenu en mode virtuel. Pour y participer par Zoom, c’est ici.

L’article sera pré-circulé (au moins une semaine avant l’événement). Les intéressé.es peuvent en demander une copie directement à Jules (jsalomone@gradcenter.cuny.edu).

Résumé

This paper develops a minimalist account of complicity, one on which complicity is, roughly, a matter of participating, along with others, in the enactment of a wrongful plan of action. This minimalist account combines three features. First, my account is non-psychologistic insofar as it does not require that the accomplice’s mental states register the fact of their participation in wrongdoing. Non-psychologism is encouraged by the law of complicity, in particular the doctrine of command responsibility that countenances negligent complicity and, thus, the possibility of unintentional and unwitting complicity. Non-psychologism is also called for by the complex entanglements typical of human sociality and, specifically, our often unintentional and unwitting participation in social oppression and structural injustice. Second, my account is non-moralistic insofar as it leaves open the possibility of blameless complicity—a possibility that often materializes in our social world as when one’s participation in wrongdoing is excusably ignorant. Third, my account is non-causalist insofar as, in my view, causally contributing to φ is not a precondition for complicity in φ. The resulting minimalist account enables our concept of complicity to do its job, namely: to clarify our thinking about our deeply entangled responsibilities in our messy social world.