Resolution Theory — Foundations IV: Authorship and the Architecture of Responsibility

Start here (base logic + reading order): Free Will Without Metaphysical Magic (++++ ≠ +++=) Modern institutions increasingly generate large-scale human, social, and environmental harm without any identifiable human author. Decisions are executed through systems, procedures, and automation that dissolve responsibility rather than distribute it. This paper argues that such failures are not primarily moral or political, but architectural. Using Resolution Theory, the paper develops an account of institutional coherence grounded in the binding of authorship to exposure across time. Where this binding fails, institutions become normatively incoherent “zombie systems”: entities that act without bearing responsibility. The paper diagnoses this failure across governance, infrastructure, automation, and finance. To address it, the paper introduces the Easton Method, a framework for top-down responsibility tracing, universal authorship logs, and bounded delegation through pre-authored resolution envelopes. The approach preserves speed and automation while rejecting unauthored exposure, and argues that insurance and accreditation mechanisms provide the most effective path to implementation in modern high-scale systems. This paper applies and extends the Resolution Theory framework. For the consolidated architectural account, see Agency-Laundering: Resolution Theory and the Structural Recovery of Authorship.