Critical infrastructures and responsibility: A conceptual exploration

In this article some considerations are presented as a starting point for judging responsibility for infrastructural systems from a moral point of view. Infrastructural systems are essential for present day high-tech society. Without good working infrastructural systems people would hardly be able to survive. The importance and relevance of good working critical infrastructures for states and other public authorities are illustrated with some examples. Next, the meaning of the concept of responsibility in relation to infrastructural systems is developed. Outcome responsibility and remedial responsibility – developed in philosophy of law and political philosophy – are elaborated as useful concepts for dealing with responsibilities in infrastructural systems. This analysis is applied to the players on the infrastructural field: governments and other public authorities, non-state institutional actors and last but not least individual agents. In a last paragraph some conclusions are drawn, which can be applied for apportioning responsibility for infrastructures in practice.