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AFTER CERTAINTY

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Moral Responsibility of Public Officials: The

Thompson, Dennis F. "Moral Responsibility of Public Officials: The Problem of Many Hands." American Political Science Review 74, no. 4 (1980): 905–916.

Why this matters here

Thompson’s “problem of many hands” shows how collective action disperses causal and moral responsibility so that no single official can be cleanly held accountable for outcomes. After Certainty extends the structure to personal scale: responsibility can persist after control thins, because participation itself remains available even when agreement, reversal, or effectiveness cannot be guaranteed.