Blurb:

The chapter offers a role-relational perspective on responsibility, as a complement to the agency-and-intentionality dimension usually associated with responsible action. A role-relational perspective foregrounds a dynamic notion of role vis-à-vis self-other relations in owning responsible actions/selves. The counselling context of childhood genetic testing is used as a way of illustrating the complex role-relational trajectories which underpin parental accounts of moral and causal responsibility. Drawing upon the distinction between ‘excuse’ and ‘justification’ in accounting for conduct, and by adopting a thematic discourse analytic framework, the study suggests that parental accounts orient towards the following: balancing of advantages and disadvantages of childhood testing; benefits of knowing for present and future purposes; and the role-relational work underpinning the decision about testing. Although articulation of moral and causal responsibility is nuanced in parental accounts, justifications for actions/decisions mainly take the form of causal responsibility, expressed typically in the ‘if-then’ format.