Holding one kind of responsibility can shield actors from attribution of the other

Evidence

Calley, the only individual who had both role and direct causal responsibility, was the only individual tried and convicted for his actions. This makes intuitive sense. The enlisted men were seen as the physical cause of the killings, but it was recognized that they had a role responsibility to obey orders in general, which made them unattractive candidates for punishment. But looking at higher authorities, many felt that they had a plausible claim to deny that murder of innocents was what they meant. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4003

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the Milgram obedience experiments and to Hannah Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’ framing of organizational wrongdoing. — connects to: Ethical appeals to individual responsibility let impersonal structures evade accountability — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 139; A concession to one actor legitimizes that claim type for all others.; Contribution can rest on mutually exclusive liabilities rather than identical common liability — Henry M. Hart, Jr. and Albert M. Sacks, The Legal Process: Basic Problems in…, 1768 (+2 more)