ABSTRACT
In his article ‘Dirty Hands’ (1992), Martin Hollis analysed the train of events which preceded the ‘infamous Massacre of Glencoe’ in 1692. Captain Campbell and his soldiers committed ‘murder under trust’, abusing the hospitality of the MacDonalds, whom they killed, and breaching their own honour. But the murder was explicitly ordered by the political authorities and the order was passed on through the higher ranks of the army until the command was given to execute the order. Hollis’s argument initially focuses on the question of ‘obedience under orders’—who among the order-givers was responsible for the massacre? But his wider theme is the inevitability of politicians having ‘dirty hands’ because of the role which they are expected to fulfil, satisfying interest groups with conflicting demands. The article is fascinating for anyone working on moral responsibility and the question of how to determine responsibility where a number of people contribute to a harmful action or outcome. The latter question arises regularly in complex and hierarchically structured organisations of which an army is one example. Whenever a disaster occurs, such as the sinking of the Herald of FreeEnterpriseIV, there is a clamour to identify who within the organisation was responsible, not just legally but morally, since disasters and harm raise moral issues. This is when the buck-passing begins.
