"Complicity Without Blame: Forward Looking Collective Responsibility"

Marion Smiley (Brandeis University)

Our workshop seeks to advance research on novel approaches to complicity as well as morally adequate responses to complicity. For that purpose, we have invited scholars who have been working and publishing on complicity previously as well as scholars coming new to the topic from adjacent research topics. One focus will be on non-causal and non-intentional forms of complicity. We will investigate the possibility of retro-active complicity in past wrongdoing, and how reluctant complicity might be justified, e.g. when living under authoritarian regimes. Speakers might consider questions such as: (How) can one become complicit in past wrongdoing? Does failure to remedy past injustices constitute complicity in the injustice? What emotions are appropriate reactions to one’s moral complicity in other people’s wrongdoing? Another focus of the workshop will lie on responses to complicity such as conscientious objection, whistle-blowing and protest resignation. Question might include: How should one respond to complicity? Is it sometimes impossible to escape complicity especially when it comes to complicity in structural injustices?

Confirmed Speakers:

• Christopher Bennett (University of Sheffield)
• Matěj Cibík (University of Pardubice)
• Silvia Donzelli (University of Regensburg)
• Lisa Hecht (Technische Universität Dresden)
• Felix Lambrecht (Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich)
• David Levy (University of Edinburgh)
• Benjamin Matheson (University of Bern)
• Herlinde Pauer-Studer (University of Vienna)
• Jiří Přibáň (University of Cardiff)
• Kartik Upadhyaya (University of Warwick)