# Higher-Order Responsibility

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01003 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.01003/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 1 of its 30 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Jun 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Blameworthiness in Strategic Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.05485/) (2018)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [AUDITA: certified auditing and causal attribution of adverse outcomes in autonomous multi-agent systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.22160/) (2026)
- [Peer Oversight in Collective Decision Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.28754/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

In ethics, individual responsibility is often defined through Frankfurt's principle of alternative possibilities. This definition is not adequate in a group decision-making setting because it often results in the lack of a responsible party or "responsibility gap''. One of the existing approaches to address this problem is to consider group responsibility. Another, recently proposed, approach is "higher-order'' responsibility. The paper considers the problem of deciding if higher-order responsibility up to degree d is enough to close the responsibility gap. The main technical result is that this problem is Pi2d+1-complete.