Philosophy

Dr. Kirk Ludwig (Indiana University, Bloomington)

“Is the Distinction between Principal, Accomplice, and Accessory Morally Significant?”

Abstract:

English common law and legal traditions that look back to it draw a contrast between those who participate in a crime, on the one hand, and accomplices and accessories, on the other.  The accomplice actively participates in the commission of a crime without participating in the actual criminal offense.  A lookout or a getaway driver for a bank robbery, for example, is an accomplice because he actively participates in the enterprise but is not among those who enter the bank and demand the money. One may also be an accomplice through failing to perform a legal duty to prevent a crime or through urging someone to commit it.  The difference between an accomplice and an accessory is that the accessory either provides aid before or after a crime has been committed or encourages another to commit a crime but is not present at the time of the crime.  ‘Accomplice’ and ‘accessory’ are legal terms and the exact definitions, and even whether these terms are used, varies across legal jurisdictions, as well as whether a distinction is drawn with respect to degree of culpability between being a principal in the first degree of a crime and a principal in the second degree (an aider and abettor).  (I will use ‘principal’ alone to mean ‘principal in the first degree’.)  In some jurisdictions, those aiding and abetting a crime, which covers both accomplices and accessories, are treated in the same way as the principals; in others they receive lesser punishments.  Presumably these differences in legal culpability are grounded in different views of moral culpability.  My concern is with the theory of moral culpability which should guide, ceteris paribus, decisions about legal culpability.  In general, I am concerned with the question of the moral significance of the distinction between aiding and abetting and participating in a moral crime and, within the category of aiding and abetting, the moral significance of the distinction between accomplice and accessory (before and after the fact).  I approach this question from the standpoint of a general theory about responsibility of individuals in the context of collective action—since helping another to do something entails joint action.  And I approach a theory of collective responsibility from the standpoint of a general theory of the nature of collective action.  The legal categories of accomplice and accessory include a mix of different things that it will be useful to distinguish.  I distinguish four main types of contributions.

1. Role Participation.  Role participation is playing a role in the overall plan that a group intends to execute which involves bringing about some harm (or the commission of a crime).  We will distinguish between roles for principals with respect to bringing about the harm (those committing the crime) and aid roles.
2. Incidental aid. One provides incidental aid when one intentionally contributes to a group’s carrying out a plan to bring about some harm (commit a crime) but does not share an intention with the group to carry out the plan, and, hence, does not have a role in executing the plan that they intend to carry out together.
3. Solicitation.  Solicitation is one or another form of intentional instigation of others to bring about a harm or commit a crime.
4. Failures of Duty.  One may contribute to a harm coming about, not through aid or solicitation, but through failure to execute a duty to intervene.

There is much ground to be covered here, and this paper can only attempt a preliminary investigation.  I argue for the following tentative conclusions: (1) When someone shares an intention with a group to commit a moral crime, the distinction between principal and accomplice or accessory before or after the fact is morally irrelevant, and accomplices and accessories along with everyone else in the group are fully liable for the harm that occurs.  (2) This conclusion extends to incidental aid when the agent providing aid knows or can be reasonably expected to know that the aid contributes or is likely to contribute to a moral crime.  (3) Solicitation is by its nature intentional.  The solicitor is fully (but not solely) liable for the harms that result from his actions.  (4) Finally, failures of duty that are intentional make the agent fully liable for the harm which he or she could have prevented; failures that are due to failures to realize one should act are fully excusable only if one could not reasonably have been expected to realize the conditions for exercising the duty obtains.  In sum, indirectly aiding a moral crime, through commission or omission, provides no responsibility shelter.

For more information about the talk, please email dept@phil.ufl.edu.