Bringing responsibility to justice

In order to successfully introduce responsibility-sensitivity into theories of justice (distributive and relational) and theories of political morality (broadly conceived) it is not enough to merely draw distinctions between (1) different models of what responsibility-sensitivity requires in itself and (2) different normative grounds of, or justifications for, responsibility-sensitivity. We must also draw distinctions between (3) different roles played by responsibility-sensitivity within our theories; (4) different accounts of the strength of responsibility-sensitivity within theories of justice; (5) different accounts of the strength of responsibility-sensitivity within theories of political morality; and (6) different conceptions of the other requirements also incorporated into theories of justice and theories of political morality. The intended payoff of all this distinction-drawing is twofold: first, a more accurate, comprehensive, and illuminating account of the nature of the position of responsibility-sensitivity within theories of justice and theories of political morality; and, second, paving the way for a more sophisticated and analytically sharp research agenda on the subject of whether or not responsibility-sensitivity should have a position in our theories of normative political concepts in the face of mounting scepticism over its doing so, owing in part to the harshness/abandonment objection and the unfreedom objection.