Functional task separation replaces moral responsibility with technical responsibility

Evidence

The second process responsible for distantiation is closely related to the first. The substitution of technical for moral responsibility would not be conceivable without the meticulous functional dissection and separation of tasks. At least it would not be conceivable to the same extent. The substitution takes place, to a degree, already within the purely linear graduation of control. Each person within the hierarchy of command is accountable to his immediate superior, and thus is naturally interested in his opinion and his approval of the work. However much this approval matter to him, he is still, though only theoretically, aware of what the ultimate outcome of his work is bound to be. And so there is at least an abstract chance of one awareness being measured against the other; benevolence of superiors being confronted with repulsiveness of the effects. And whenever comparison is feasible, so is the choice. Within a purely linear division of command, technical responsibility remains, at least in theory, vulnerable, It may still be called to justify itself in moral terms and to compete with moral conscience. A functionary may, for instance, decide that by giving a particular command his superior overstepped his terms of reference, as he moved from the domain of purely technical interest to that charged with ethical significance (shooting soldiers is OK; shooting babies is a different matter); and that the duty to obey an authoritative command does not extend so far as to justify what the functionary considers as morally unacceptable deeds. All these theoretical possibilities disappear, however, or are considerably weakened, once the linear hierarchy of command is supplemented, or replaced, by functional division and separation of tasks. The triumph of technical responsibility is then complete, unconditional, and for all practical purposes, unassailable. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 293

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines ‘technical responsibility’ as distinct from moral responsibility, and shows the mechanism by which functional division makes it unassailable.
• XREF: Technical vs moral responsibility maps onto the chapter’s concept of a ‘moral distance’ scaffold; connects to the silence/sound chapters’ idea that abstraction shields perception. — connects to: Civil-servant honor substitutes discipline for individual moral responsibility — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 94; Functional division of labour makes individual acts multifinal and morally meaning-void — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 292; Continuous responsibility shifting across a hierarchy creates free-floating responsibility that incapacitates moral authority — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 463 (+10 more)

Related

• Functional division of labour makes individual acts multifinal and morally meaning-void (similarity 0.81)
• Levinasian responsibility precedes knowledge and intention unconditionally. (similarity 0.80)
• Technical remoteness from victims enables moral substitution (similarity 0.79)
• Modern technology extends action beyond the moral vanishing point, enabling harm (similarity 0.79)
• Division of labour shifts evaluation from moral to technical criteria (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Continuous responsibility shifting across a hierarchy creates free-floating responsibility that incapacitates moral authority #corroborates (0.92) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 463
• Social organization displaces autonomous moral drive with instrumental and procedural rationality #corroborates (0.90) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 612
• Rationalized social organization structurally enables cruelty by mediating responsibility #corroborates (0.90) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 441
• Drone design produces a strong moral buffering effect on operators #exemplifies (0.88) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 407
• Technical remoteness from victims enables moral substitution #expands (0.85) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 459
• Moral responsibility can compel insubordination to socially upheld principles #contradicts (0.78) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 495
• Moral responsibility to others shrinks and vanishes with increasing distance #corroborates (0.75) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 547