Everyone agrees that not all norms that govern belief and assertion are epistemic. But not enough attention has been paid to distinguishing epistemic norms from others. Norms in general differ from merely evaluative standards in virtue of the fact that it is fitting to hold subjects accountable for violating them, provided they lack an excuse. Different kinds of norm are most readily distinguished by their distinctive mode of accountability. My thesis is roughly that a norm is epistemic if and (...) only if its violation makes it fitting to reduce epistemic trust in the subject, even if there is no doubt about their sincerity, honesty, or other moral virtues. That is, violations of epistemic norms don’t merit resentment or other forms of blame, but rather deduction of credibility points in internal scorekeeping and related attitudinal and behavioral changes. As Fricker’s work on epistemic injustice shows, such distrust is undesirable from the point of view of an epistemic agent. Consequently, when one manifests epistemic distrust towards a subject in suitable circumstances, it amounts a way of holding her accountable. Since this form of accountability involves no opprobrium, there is good reason to think it is not linked to voluntary control in the same way as moral accountability. Finally, I make use of this account of what makes epistemic norms distinctive to point out some faulty diagnostics in debates about norms of assertion. My aim is not to defend any substantive view, however, but only to offer tools for identifying the right kind of evidence for epistemic norms. (shrink)

This paper articulates the importance of distinguishing responsibility practices from accountability frameworks for the design, development, and deployment of algorithmic decision-making systems. Accountability frameworks are organized social systems associated with particular groups or institutions that employ rule-governed practices to incentivize or sanction specific behaviors. In contrast, responsibility practices concern our everyday notions of praise and blame, which vary across different contexts and institutions. There is widespread recognition that algorithmic decision-making systems raise special questions about how to attribute moral (...) responsibility and hold individuals accountable. However, scholars often overlook the importance of distinguishing these things. We argue for the value of recognizing that accountability practices and responsibility practices are distinct. Moreover, we argue that accountability frameworks can offer morally important benefits that cannot be obtained through ordinary moral responsibility practices. That is, there are often good moral reasons for organizations to implement accountability practices in their internal rules. This justifies some current practices, but also provides an argument for the value of developing and implementing accountability practices within an organization. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to briefly spell out why corporate moral agency is a fallacy and to show how this conclusion should shift the field of business ethics more in the direction of political philosophy and the rule of law. An argument based on a false assumption can be valid, but it cannot be sound. If corporate moral agency is a fallacy, and thus also moral prescriptions for corporations, how do we salvage the field of business ethics? To (...) the extent that business ethics is about corporate behaviour (rather than individual managerial behaviour), the field can shift its foundational paradigm from ethics (which requires the attributes of moral agency) to legal accountability (which can be imposed instrumentally on corporate legal agents). By letting our elected representatives legislate the norms of acceptable corporate behaviour we can hold corporate legal entities legally accountable. What these norms should be then becomes the central focus of business ethics seen through the lens of political philosophy. (shrink)

The growing use of automated decision-making (ADM) systems in the public sector and the need to control these has raised many legal questions in academic research and in policymaking. One of the timely means of legal control is accountability, which traditionally includes the ability to impose sanctions on the violator as one dimension. Even though many risks regarding the use of ADM have been noted and there is a common will to promote the safety of these systems, the relevance (...) of the safety research has been discussed little in this context. In this article, I evaluate regulating accountability over the use of ADM in the public sector in relation to the findings of safety research. I conducted the study by focusing on ongoing regulatory projects regarding ADM, the Finnish ADM legislation draft and the EU proposal for the AI Act. The critical question raised in the article is what the role of sanctions is. I ask if official accountability could mean more of an opportunity to learn from mistakes, share knowledge and compensate for harm instead of control via sanctions. (shrink)

While organizations today make extensive use of complex algorithms, the notion of algorithmic accountability remains an elusive ideal due to the opacity and fluidity of algorithms. In this article, we develop a framework for managing algorithmic accountability that highlights three interrelated dimensions: reputational concerns, engagement strategies, and discourse principles. The framework clarifies that accountability processes for algorithms are driven by reputational concerns about the epistemic setup, opacity, and outcomes of algorithms; that the way in which organizations practically (...) engage with emergent expectations about algorithms may be manipulative, adaptive, or moral; and that when accountability relationships are heavily burdened by the opacity and fluidity of complex algorithmic systems, the emphasis of engagement should shift to a rational communication process through which a continuous and tentative assessment of the development, workings, and consequences of algorithms can be achieved over time. The degree to which such engagement is, in fact, rational can be assessed based on four discourse-ethical principles of participation, comprehension, multivocality, and responsiveness. We conclude that the framework may help organizations and their environments to jointly work toward greater accountability for complex algorithms. It may further help organizations in reputational positioning surrounding accountability issues. The discourse-ethical principles introduced in this article are meant to elevate these positioning contests to extend beyond mere adaption or compliance and help guide organizations to find moral and forward-looking solutions to accountability issues. (shrink)

Calls to hold artificial intelligence to account are intensifying. Activists and researchers alike warn of an “accountability gap” or even a “crisis of accountability” in AI. Meanwhile, several prominent scholars maintain that accountability holds the key to governing AI. But usage of the term varies widely in discussions of AI ethics and governance. This chapter begins by disambiguating some different senses and dimensions of accountability, distinguishing it from neighboring concepts, and identifying sources of confusion. It proceeds (...) to explore the idea that AI operates within an accountability gap arising from technical features of AI as well as the social context in which it is deployed. The chapter also evaluates various proposals for closing this gap. I conclude that the role of accountability in AI ethics and governance is vital but also more limited than some suggest. Accountability’s primary job description is to verify compliance with substantive normative principles—once those principles are settled. Theories of accountability cannot ultimately tell us what substantive standards to account for, especially when norms are contested or still emerging. Nonetheless, formal mechanisms of accountability provide a way of diagnosing and discouraging egregious wrongdoing even in the absence of normative agreement. Providing accounts can also be an important first step toward the development of more comprehensive regulatory standards for AI. (shrink)

What is the nature of moral accountability? And what does an answer to this question reveal about the correct moral theory? This paper defends the view that moral accountability is inherently relational or bipolar in nature. It does so by seeking to understand a central accountability practice—sincere apology. The paper begins by considering a challenge to a relational or bipolar view of morality, according to which such a theory cannot adequately explain the nature of accountability and (...) its connection to morality without having to invoke non-relational concepts such as ‘moral obligation, period’ and third-personal reason. In answering this challenge, the paper argues that reflection on the practice of sincere apology reveals that appeal to non-relational concepts such as ‘moral obligation, period’ or third-personal reasons is neither necessary nor sufficient in order to adequately account for the nature of moral accountability. What these reflections show instead is that a relational or bipolar understanding of morality is best equipped to give an adequate explanation of the nature of moral accountability. (shrink)

This paper challenges the idea that authorship is defined by who produces a text. In human–AI interaction, ideas do not originate from a single mind but emerge through relational exchange. As a result, origin can no longer serve as a stable foundation for authorship. Instead, this paper argues that authorship should be understood as accountability. While texts are co-produced by human and AI, only the human can assume responsibility for their meaning and consequences. This asymmetry does not weaken authorship—it (...) clarifies it. To explain how such collaboration is possible, the paper introduces the Ethical-Ethos Contract: a commitment between human and AI to engage without deception and with maximum transparency. Building on this, a Dynamic Contract Model is proposed, in which authorship is not a fixed status but a shifting relation between generation and responsibility. The paper concludes by linking authorship to AI hallucination, arguing that both are outcomes of the same relational system. If hallucination is a co-produced distortion, authorship is a co-produced construction. The question is no longer who created the text, but who stands behind it. (shrink)

Unethical behavior is important to study because it may have an adverse influence on organizational performance. This paper is an attempt to better understand why individuals behave as they do when faced with ethical dilemmas. We first explore the definition, theories and models of ethical behaviors and accountability. This discussion of societal ethics and accountability as forms of social control segues into a discussion of how accountability may influence ethical behaviors. Based on the business ethics and (...) class='Hi'>accountability literatures, we suggest a number of research questions and hypotheses that need to be tested, as well as an appropriate research strategy. (shrink)

We report the results of a vignette study with an online sample of the German adult population in which we analyze the interplay between need, equity, and accountability in third-party distribution decisions. We asked participants to divide firewood between two hypothetical persons who either differ in their need for heat or in their productivity in terms of their ability to chop wood. The study systematically varies the persons’ accountability for their neediness as well as for their productivity. We (...) find that participants distribute significantly fewer logs of wood to persons who are held accountable for their disadvantage. Independently of being held accountable or not, the needier person is partially compensated with a share of logs that exceeds her contribution, while the person who contributes less is given a share of logs smaller than her need share. Moreover, there is a domain effect in terms of participants being more sensitive to lower contributions than to greater need. (shrink)

Sometimes agents seem accountable for harms brought about by others solely in virtue of their intentional participation in a harmful collective enterprise, despite not having themselves causally contributed to these harms. At other times, as in cases of individual or collective omissions to prevent harm, agents seem accountable for harms in virtue of being part of why they materialized, and not in virtue of any intentional involvement in what brought them about. Thus, on the face of it, there are two (...) distinct bases for accountability. -/- This paper argues that these bases have an underlying unity. The argument proceeds by supporting three claims. First, valuable and disvaluable outcomes provide agents with contributory reasons for or against actions that contribute to what brings these outcomes about, regardless of any difference made to them. Second, when an agent fails to act on such reasons and the outcome unfolds accordingly, the outcome is constitutive of an imbalance in how she has distributed her agency. Third, accountability responses are fitting insofar as they correct for such imbalances. Cases of accountability through participation and causal involvement both fit this model: contrary to appearances, accountability is one. (shrink)

An essential requirement for increasing human confidence in computer systems is knowing an event’s origin. Therefore, it is necessary to have an efficient method to record such information. It is especially challenging in robotics, where unexpected behaviours can have unpredictable consequences, endangering the interests of people or even their safety. Furthermore, to analyse an incident’s cause or anticipate future behaviours, we must identify the events that cause a specific action. Although it is common to use logging systems for such purposes, (...) issues such as partial recording of events, unhelpful data or the impact on robot performance suggest conceiving new accountability solutions that assist when determining the responsible entities or the provenance of specific information. This paper presents a general-purpose approach to developing an accountability system for autonomous robots. It consists of four main components: a system event logger, a message producer, a distributed event streaming platform and a database. Our proposal is completely decoupled from the monitored system and allows real-time analysis, improving flexibility, besides system protection and transparency. Finally, the need to reduce the impact of the audit process and logging tasks on robot performance has promoted the development of different assessment scenarios to determine the best strategy for providing accounting services. (shrink)

We often talk loosely of the “tyranny of the majority” as a threat to the workings of democracy. But, in ancient Greece, the analogy of demos and tyrant was no mere metaphor, nor a simple reflection of elite prejudice. Instead, it highlighted an important structural feature of Athenian democracy. Like the tyrant, the Athenian demos was an unaccountable political actor with the power to hold its subordinates to account. And like the tyrant, the demos could be dangerous to counsel since (...) the orator speaking before the assembled demos was accountable for the advice he gave. With Dangerous Counsel, Matthew Landauer analyzes the sometimes ferocious and unpredictable politics of accountability in ancient Greece and offers novel readings of ancient history, philosophy, rhetoric, and drama. In comparing the demos to a tyrant, thinkers such as Herodotus, Plato, Isocrates, and Aristophanes were attempting to work out a theory of the badness of unaccountable power; to understand the basic logic of accountability and why it is difficult to get right; and to explore the ways in which political discourse is profoundly shaped by institutions and power relationships. In the process they created strikingly portable theories of counsel and accountability that traveled across political regime types and remain relevant to our contemporary political dilemmas. (shrink)

This article links recent work on assimilative and contrastive counterfactual thinking with research on the impact of accountability on judgment and choice. Relative to participants who felt accountable solely for bottom-line performance outcomes, participants who were accountable for their decision-making process (a) had more pronounced differential reactions to clearly winning versus (winning but) nearly losing and to clearly losing versus (losing but) nearly winning; (b) were less satisfied with the quality of their decisions when they nearly lost and more (...) satisfied with the quality of their decisions when they nearly won; and (c) invested less money into investments that nearly failed and more money into investments that nearly succeeded. This pattern is consistent with the hypothesis that process accountability amplified assimilative counterfactual thinking, whereas outcome accountability attenuated it. The evidence underscores the power of contextual features of the decision-making environment to shape key cognitive and affective consequences of upward and downward counterfactual comparisons. (shrink)

Questions regarding the moral responsibility of Internet accessand service providers relating to information on the Internetcall for a reassessment of the ways in which we think aboutattributing blame, guilt, and duties of reparation andcompensation. They invite us to borrow something similar to theidea of strict liability from the legal sphere and to introduceit in morality and ethical theory. Taking such a category in thedistribution of responsibilities outside the domain of law andintroducing it into ethics, however, is a difficult thing. Doingso (...) seems to conflict with some broadly shared and deeply feltintuitions regarding the individuality of responsibility and therelationship between responsibility and guilt. These convictionscoincide with some basic ideas in Kantian moral theory and theascriptive theory based on these ideas. Nevertheless, theproblems to which the proposed liabilities / responsibilitiesrelate are so serious that they do not seem to leave room foraloofness. At least, they encourage us to reconsider the idea ofstrict liability carefully and to assess its merits. (shrink)

Mobile robots are becoming increasingly common in spaces shared with humans, raising concerns about safety and security. However, the lack of capabilities to justify the actions behind a particular behavior to non-expert users poses a significant challenge in building trustworthy interactions. Explaining why a robot performs an unexpected action is crucial to understanding the cause of a failure. Furthermore, these explanations need to be clear and accessible to non-technical users. This work depicts a Proof of Concept of an accountability (...) and explainability engine for Robot Operating System (ROS)-based mobile robots. Our solution comprises two components. The first consists of a black box-like module to provide accountability, capturing the actions performed by the robot while guaranteeing faithful replay, data privacy, and authenticity. The second component generates natural language explanations by using data within the black box. The explainability component is based on the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) and Vision Language Models (VLMs), enabling the system to analyse textual logs with the added context of visual input. Initial results show that it is possible to obtain understandable, accurate, and precise explanations by using accountable data as context. This fact enhances the deployment of responsible, transparent, interpretable, and trustworthy agents, easing interaction between humans and robots. (shrink)

This article conceptualizes corporate accountability under international law and introduces an analytical framework translating corporate accountability into seven core elements. Using this analytical framework, it then systematically assesses four models that could be used in a future business and human rights treaty: the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights model, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights model, the progressive model, and the transformative model. It aims to contribute to the BHR treaty negotiation process by clarifying (...) different options and possible trade-offs between them, while taking into account political realities. Ultimately, the article argues in favour of the BHR treaty embracing a progressive model of corporate accountability, which combines ambitious development of international law with realistic prospects of state support. (shrink)

Policymakers and researchers consistently call for greater human accountability for AI technologies. We should be clear about two distinct features of accountability.

This study examines the 3.5 m+ English-language original tweets that occurred during the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protests. Starting from previous research, we analyze how character terms such as “the banker,” “politician,” “the teaparty,” “GOP,” and “the corporation,” as well as concept terms such as “ethics,” “fairness,” “morals,” “justice,” and “democracy” were used by individual participants to respond to the Occupy Wall Street events. These character and concept terms not only allowed individuals to take an ethical stance but also accumulated (...) into a citizen’s narrative about social accountability. The analysis illustrates how the centrality of the different concepts and characters in the conversation changed over time as well as how the concepts ethics, morals, fairness, justice, and democracy participated within the conversation, helping to amplify the ethical attributes of different characters. These findings contribute to our understanding of how demands for social accountability are articulated and change over time. (shrink)

We develop a model of ideals-based accountability which we have witnessed at work in several long-thriving family businesses. The owners and managers of these firms eschew individualism and materiality in the pursuit of ethical ideals such as supporting democracy and bettering the human condition. Although accountability is to these ideals, not for outcomes such as profitability or even reputation, IBA has resulted in outstanding reputations for some firms. We characterize IBA according to its missions, leadership, culture, and stakeholder (...) relationships. We also contrast it with traditional forms of accountability and differentiate IBA from related stakeholder, stewardship, and CSR perspectives. Finally, we examine its manifestations within five long-lived family enterprises, in the process generating propositions to advance the concept. (shrink)

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to reshape society, its integration into journalism raises critical questions about transparency, accountability, and public trust. Existing AI regulations have largely been developed without meaningful public input, prompting concerns about whether current governance approaches adequately address societal expectations. This study investigates the expectations and concerns of Dutch citizens regarding mandatory AI disclosures in journalism through three focus groups (N = 21). We aimed for a broad sample of participants to ensure diversity in terms of (...) age, gender, and education level. Key questions measured the main concerns about AI-generated content, why participants want to know if they are interacting with AI-generated content and which rights individuals would like to have in this context. The results reveal a preference for participatory regulatory processes and standardized transparency measures, such as the disclosure of sources. The results further underscore the wish to be able to hold news organizations and individual AI users accountable when regulations are breached. The findings can inform news professionals and regulators alike, for example, in the context of the implementation of the AI transparency obligations in the European AI Act. (shrink)

This essay makes a case that the ethical phenomena of accountability and recognition are not, as is widely believed, grounded in the psychological capacity of self-conscious reflective thought characteristic of persons. We know this because we have relationships of accountability and recognition with some animals who are clearly not self-conscious in that sense. On the other hand, not all conscious animals are capable of accountability or recognition. Thus we must focus on a capacity intermediate between mere conscious (...) awareness and self-consciousness in order to explain accountability and recognition. (shrink)

In their intriguing paper Responsibility and Accountability in an Algorithmic Society (2025) the authors argue that the debate on how to deal with responsibility related issues with algorithmic agents requires a distinction between responsibility and accountability. In this comment to their paper, it is argued that while the notion of accountability as understood by the authors brings some significant benefits it also is ambiguous in an important way. Accountability could be understood as being purely instrumental with (...) regard to general morally desirable consequences or it could be understood as necessarily containing an element of scaffolding for the agent who is held to account. The comment develops the options and discusses the consequences of choosing either of them. (shrink)

There has been little discussion of central bank accountability in recent decades because monetary policy has been seen as an essentially technical problem. Yet, during the 2008 financial crisis and the economic dislocations that ensued, central banks gained considerably in authority—bailing out failing institutions, using unorthodox monetary tools, and wading into sovereign debt crises. At the same time, the financial crisis and the slow recovery that has followed have revealed just how uncertain and volatile the global economy can be—a (...) situation that poses new dilemmas for monetary policy. This article looks at the existing model of central bank accountability and finds it wanting in this new, more uncertain environment. Because the principle of central bank independence involves a very narrow set of objectives—generally focused on an inflation target—and very few opportunities for sanction, the main mechanism for accountability is that provided by the publication of information about the bank's deliberations and activities. In an era of increased economic uncertainty, when central bankers themselves admit that simple rules and models are no longer adequate, a narrow, transparency-based form of accountability is not sufficient. I suggest that we need a thicker, more robust form of accountability that fosters more deliberation and debate, ensures that central banks are answerable to their publics, and broadens the standards by which they are judged. (shrink)

Professional institutions are increasingly confronted by fiscal constraints and political pressures to improve and increase their accountability in a competitive consumer-driven market. Accordingly, the need to ensure efficiency and accountability is of strategic importance. This article reports on a qualitative study of medical professionals that assessed the utility of financial incentives and external control methods derived from agency theory to ensure accountability of professionals. The authors argue that approaches derived from stewardship and institutional theories can extend the (...) principal–agent perspective to sustain greater social and ethical accountability. (shrink)

We report the results of a vignette experiment with a quota sample of the German population in which we analyze the interplay between need, equity, and accountability in third-party distributive decisions. We asked subjects to divide firewood between two hypothetical persons who either differ in their need for heat or in their productivity in terms of their ability to chop wood. The experiment systematically varies the persons’ accountability for their neediness as well as for their productivity. We find (...) that subjects distribute significantly fewer logs of wood to persons who are held accountable for their disadvantage. Independently of being held accountable or not, the needier person is always compensated with a share of logs that exceeds her contribution, while the person who contributes less is punished in terms of receiving a share of logs smaller than her need share. Moreover, there is a domain effect in terms of subjects being more sensitive to lower contributions than to greater need. (shrink)

Whistleblowing (WB) is the practice of reporting immoral or illegal behavior by members of a legitimate organization with privileged access to information concerning an alleged wrongdoing within that organization. A common critique of WB draws on its supposed consequence of generating a climate of mutual distrust. This wariness is heightened in the case of external WB, which may lead to weakening public trust in an organization by diminishing its credibility. Accordingly, even the defenders of WB have presented it as an (...) individual conscientious extrema ratio; the justification of WB as a dutiful practice has lost plausibility. Contrary to this view, we present WB as a specific instance of institutional and individual moral duties of public accountability in nonideal conditions. WB is thus justified as a dutiful corrective practice within a general normative theory of institutions because it qualifies the individual and institutional moral demands attached to rule-governed institutional roles. (shrink)

Despite the broad agreement that microaggressions cause harm, there is disagreement on how to capture microaggressor's accountability. Friedlaender (2018) argues that, in many cases, survivors of microaggressions are not justified in holding the microaggressor blameworthy or blaming them (Friedlaender 2018, 14). I argue, in contrast, that we are generally justified in holding most microaggressors blameworthy and blaming them. By adopting a broadly blame-inclusive account of microaggressor accountability, we are in a position to satisfy the desiderata an ideal account (...) should meet: (1) account for cumulative harm; (2) consistently allow for standing to forgive; and (3) be risk sensitive to the microaggressed. By possessing these virtues, I believe my view of microaggressor accountability better equips us to take seriously the harm caused by microaggressions and center the well-being of microaggressees. I respond to Friedlaender's concerns regarding epistemic ignorance and what they call the disaggregation problem. In contrast to Friedlaender's broadly blame-exclusive responsibility model, I motivate a broadly blame-inclusive model for holding microaggressors accountable, explaining how it fulfills the desiderata. I respond to the objection that my account is too blame-inclusive by providing examples of (1) justified microaggressions; (2) excused microaggressions; and (3) blameworthiless microaggressions where blame is justified all the same. (shrink)

This article examines how algorithmic accountability is translated into action at the municipal level in the United States. Based on a review of task forces, ordinances, and policy toolkits from New York City and Seattle, I demonstrate the ways municipalities and local publics operationalize abstract notions of accountability. Municipal interventions often prioritize revealing computational tools (transparency) and their effects on people (impact assessments). While these two forms of accountability are crucial, they may neglect to examine institutions—and how (...) they change—as they incorporate automated decision systems. I thus propose a political-economic approach that recognizes algorithmic systems as part of municipal institutions and focuses on their role in intensifying data collection and commodification between public agencies and markets. I argue that algorithmic accountability, especially in public agencies, needs to focus on incompetence and asymmetries of power within a network of governments, tech companies, community groups, and technologies. With a mix of transparency, impact assessments, and political economic review, the paper proposes a more comprehensive assessment of automated decision systems through their development, procurement, use, impact, and decommissioning. (shrink)

The comment on Cristina Lafont’s book includes two main points. (1) Minipublics do not necessarily stand in opposition to political theories that justify electoral democracy and participatory conceptions of deliberative democracy. In contrast to such a view, I argue that minipublics should be combined with electoral and participatory forms of democracy. (2) A deliberative concept of accountability may overcome some of the shortcomings of the traditional, voluntaristic concepts of democratic accountability.

Increasingly, philosophers who write about moral responsibility and accountability practices invoke the concept of “standing,” a term they claim to borrow from legal contexts. Yet critics point out that these philosophers have been maddeningly unclear about what standing is. Worse yet, no single account of the concept of “standing” seems to accommodate its current usage. This essay presents a thin account of standing, defends its usefulness in philosophical analyses of accountability practices, and develops further conceptual tools for thinking (...) about standing. (shrink)

This community service activity aims to increase the accountability of the Pesona Lestari Plajan Village tourism awareness group (Pokdarwis) through organizational governance training. The training is designed to strengthen the capacity of Pokdarwis in implementing the principles of good governance, including financial management, program planning, and preparing transparent and accurate reports. The main target of this activity is Pokdarwis which is the main driver in managing community-based tourism. Implementation methods include delivery of material, group discussions, and simulations of implementing (...) governance. The results of the activity showed an increase in participants’ understanding and skills in aspects of organizational accountability and management. Another positive impact is the emergence of a commitment to managing tourist destinations more professionally, transparently, and responsibly. Thus, this program has succeeded in making a positive contribution to more professional and sustainable tourism management. (shrink)

Christian miller invites further clarification about the relationship between accountability and autonomy. Whereas embracing accountability to others for one’s responsibilities in those relationships emphasizes relationality, autonomy accents the individual’s own capacities to exhibit agency in enacting one’s decisions. Accordingly, we theorize that relational capacities for empathic concern and perspective-taking are especially important in the virtue of accountability. The capacity for self-regulation may serve both one’s autonomous pursuits and accountability for carrying out one’s responsibilities...

This study examines how novice teachers in a Confucian-heritage context negotiate their personal needs while responding to external accountability demands. The purpose is to understand how these teachers navigate tensions between workplace expectations and their own perceptions of what they require to work sustainably. Interviews were conducted with fourteen early-career teachers, and the data were analyzed thematically with reference to a revised hierarchical needs framework. The results suggest that teachers’ needs can be described in hierarchical terms, but cultural norms (...) and liangxin (an internalized moral conscience) often prompt participants to move beyond unmet basic needs in order to meet what they view as the moral expectations of teaching. Security and belonging emerged as interrelated forms of perceived support, while accountability pressures contributed to increased workload and emotional strain. Despite these challenges, many teachers continued to pursue what they understood as professional fulfillment, indicating a form of needs-level crossover shaped by both external cultural expectations and internal moral commitments. These findings point to policy and school-level arrangements that may help teachers address essential needs more consistently, while also enabling them to engage in meaningful professional development without compromising their well-being. (shrink)

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used in disaster risk management applications to predict the effect of upcoming disasters, plan for mitigation strategies, and determine who needs how much aid after a disaster strikes. The media is filled with unintended ethical concerns of AI algorithms, such as image recognition algorithms not recognizing persons of color or racist algorithmic predictions of whether offenders will recidivate. We know such unintended ethical consequences must play a role in DRM as well, yet there is (...) surprisingly little research on exactly what the unintended consequences are and what we can do to mitigate them. The aim of this perspective is to call researchers working on fairness, accountability, and transparency to work with DRM and local experts—so we can ensure that disaster mitigation and relief is accountable, considers local values, and is not unintentionally biased. (shrink)

Health-care organizations traditionally view accountability through punitive and performance-metric lenses, failing to address their responsibility to communities most impacted by health inequities. While research exists on organizational accountability in health care, little explores how Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) frameworks might transform health-care delivery toward justice and equity. This article examines how four BIPOC philosophical frameworks—right relations, Seven Generations, calling in versus calling out, and Emergent Strategy—can reimagine organizational accountability to advance health equity. The authors’ (...) findings reveal that combining BIPOC accountability frameworks with structural reforms in payment and care delivery systems enables health-care organizations to center relationship-building and long-term community impact. Concrete organizational examples demonstrate successful implementation of these principles through initiatives like the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Advancing Health Equity program, while personal narratives illustrate their transformative potential in patient care. This work provides practical pathways for health-care organizations to move beyond punishment toward accountability models that prioritize immediate holistic care needs, health equity, and generational community well-being, fostering healing and justice. (shrink)

This essay reflects on ‘objectivity’ and its relationship to accountability in the context of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) rural development projects. The analysis focuses on frontline field experiences during project implementation drawing on Edward Said's contrapuntal orientation that recognizes multiple and contested histories and Donna Haraway′s concept of situated knowledge that affirms the validity of each history. The narrative unfolds on two levels. At the macro level, the narrative follows historical changes in objective measures of success (...) with the Post WWII drift away from Enlightenment concerns with improving the human condition to neoliberal prioritization of market practices. At the micro level, the paper highlights the tension between (1) objectivity as perceived by the distant USAID headquarters and (2) the ethics of accountability with respect to the lived experiences of the actors involved in project implementation. As an example of objectivity, USAID’s aggregated project indicators across multiple diverse sites in many countries each with their local histories and tensions produces knowledge and power for the empire. Locally, however, objectivity involves accountability between multiple actors within their local networks woven from their mutual understandings of knowledge and power. (shrink)

Large language models (LLMs) increasingly participate in communicative practices that resemble human interaction: users ask them questions, rely on their outputs for belief formation and action guidance, and sometimes develop affective attachments. These practices raise a central philosophical question: can the outputs of LLMs be regarded as assertions, and if so, what follows for responsibility and accountability? Standard theories of assertion and testimony assume that assertions require asserters—agents endowed with intentionality, understanding, and belief—properties that contemporary LLMs plausibly lack. This (...) paper challenges that assumption by disentangling assertion from asserter. While defending a conservative, properties-based account of LLM ontology—according to which they are neither speakers nor moral agents—it argues that their outputs can nevertheless function as assertions within communicative practice. The core claim is that assertoric function can persist independently of assertoric authority, giving rise to a structurally asymmetric case of assertion without asserter. To explain this asymmetry, the paper advances a pragmatic framework that combines a properties-based analysis at the level of ontology with a relational account at the level of interaction. This framework clarifies how LLM outputs can exert normative pressure on users while lacking a bearer of responsibility, thereby explaining the emergence of epistemic responsibility gaps without attributing moral or legal agency to artificial systems. (shrink)

A prominent position about moral responsibility claims that a necessary condition on accountability blame is that, at the time of action, the agent must be sufficiently reasons-responsive so as to be capable of acting differently by following the pertinent moral reasons and thus avoid wrongdoing. Call this the Accountability with Avoidability view (or AWA). In this paper I aim to show that AWA is false by doing three things. First, I argue that it badly contradicts moral commonsense concerning (...) the moral responsibility of a particularly egregious kind of wrongdoer. Second, I show that AWA’s three most prominent rationales—based on the notions of desert, demands, and excuses—all fail to support a robust reasons-responsiveness requirement on accountability. Finally, I sketch an alternative conception of accountability—accountability without avoidability—that dispenses with robust reasons-responsiveness and appeals instead to the capacity of agents to convey moral meaning through their conduct as the key element in the moral psychology of responsible agency. (shrink)

It is only fair to hold someone accountable for outcomes over which they have sufficient control. The evidence-based approach to education (“evidence-based education,” or EBE) promises to give educators sufficient control over their students’ outcomes by providing access to interventions that are effective according to scientific research. I argue that EBE fails to secure sufficient control because the research on which it relies doesn't establish that interventions are generally effective. If they are to be fair, accountability practices must reflect (...) the limited control educators have, even when using evidence-based interventions that have improved outcomes in other settings. I glean relevant insights by considering accountability for medical practitioners within the context of evidence-based medicine (EBM). (shrink)

This paper considers the most important elements of both the stakeholder theory and accountability as an accounting concept. The main aim of the paper is to find the common elements of these two approaches. The stakeholder theory is based on the stakeholder concept, and the accountabilty concept on obligations to give an account and rights to know among interested parties. Both the stakeholder thinking and accountability concept are based on a more general responsibility thinking: someone being responsible for (...) someone else for something. By combining the stakeholder thinking and accountabiliy concept it seems to be possible to form a framework for the functions of accounting and other information systems of an organisation. (shrink)

A central task of computer ethics is to analyze problems that can be described as technical details intertwined with human values. Traditionally, computer professionals (like other practitioners in engineering fields) have mistrusted philosophers, whose thinking they characterize as too abstract, and not sufficiently grounded in the reality of computing. Some philosophers suggest that computing professionals (and other engineers) over-emphasize the importance of technical issues while minimizing the importance of ethically significant principles. The genius of Deborah Johnson has been to engage (...) with both computing professionals and philosophers and to develop insights that help increase understanding among both groups. This chapter explores how her recent work on algorithmic accountability illustrates Johnson’s approach, and how she succeeds in clarifying several crucial issues. (shrink)

In this study we examine (1) how a manager’s risk behavior is influenced by developing success (or failure) as an impending settling up deadline to report performance approaches, (2) how willingness to provide transparent accountability is negatively affected by perceived risk and eroding trust, and (3) how others interpret and respond to reduced transparency. As perceptions of high levels of risks suggest a lack of environmental control of a firm’s destiny in contemporary settings, we adopt a historical approach to (...) examine these issues. In this respect we draw on primary sources found in library archives in Spain and Argentina. Our focal case refers to the contract signed and executed between the South Sea Company and Captain José de Salinas (1731–1735) to walk 408 Negroes from Buenos Aires to Potosí and sell them en route or at destination. Drawing on this evidence, we examine how bring about unethical conduct featured by increasingly risky business practices, and how eroding trust conditions lead to only summary record-keeping and delayed reporting. In turn, diminished accountability further undermined trust. Our findings have implications for further research in this area as well as for contemporary cases of accounting failures. (shrink)

In the past decades, professions have increasingly been called to account. Several authors have reported that this increased public professional accountability, in the form of showing that professional conduct meets predefined standards or rules, has had severe negative consequences for professionals, their clients and society, and call for ‘intelligent’ forms of accountability; forms of accountability that may inform a wider public about professional conduct but do not harm it. In this paper, we propose a form of ‘intelligent’ (...) public professional accountability. Taking Freidson’s notion of institutional ethics as a point of departure, we develop a form of accountability that seeks to account for the conditions required for professional conduct. The paper first discusses the current ‘dilemma of professional accountability,’ describes ‘ideal-type professional conduct’ and goes into the conditions it requires. Next, it shows what accounting for these conditions entails and that this form of accountability fits the criteria for intelligent accountability, as set by O’Neill Capital failure: rebuilding trust in financial services, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014). (shrink)

My critical commentary focuses on Victor Tadros’ analysis of accountability for violations of the (revised) laws of armed conflict (LOAC) that he lays out (Tadr.

Accountability policy and its negative effects on teachers’ working lives and retention is internationally recognised as a problem in education with school evaluation and inspection being a particular issue, particularly in England. Research suggests that the school inspection system Ofsted impacts negatively on the health and well-being of staff and negatively influences teachers’ working practices, which can affect teacher retention. This paper examines the findings of a recent English research project entitled ‘Beyond Ofsted’ (2023) which aimed to gather a (...) wide range of views on both the current inspection system and potential alternatives. The data discussed in this paper is from part of the data collection which was a large-scale survey of teachers and school leaders. One of the findings of the Beyond Ofsted report was that 76% of our survey respondents thought that Ofsted had a negative effect on retention, with 30% considering leaving as a result of their most recent inspection. We found many reasons for this: the overall experience of inspection, the work in preparing for inspection, and many describing the regime as ‘toxic and brutal’. We argue that this is a compelling argument for urgent reform. (shrink)

John peteet, charlotte witvliet, and c. stephen evans are to be commended for drawing our attention to the relatively neglected virtue of accountability, and for making the case that it is an important virtue to cultivate in general and specifically within the context of psychiatry. I find little to object to in their discussion, and so my comments here will be more of an invitation for them to address in greater detail two important issues: the relationship between accountability (...) and autonomy, and the role of motivation in the virtue of accountability.According to Peteet et al., a person with the virtue of accountable is someone who “embraces being accountable”. The virtue is said to... (shrink)