Abstract

Abstract Stephanie Collins’ Group Duties offers interesting new arguments and brings together numerous interconnected issues that have hitherto been treated separately. My critical commentary focuses on two particularly original and central claims of the book: (1) Only groups that are united under a group-level decision-making procedure can bear duties. (2) Attributions of duties to other groups should be understood as attributions of “coordination duties” to each member of the group, duties to either take steps responsive to the others with a view to the group’s doing what is said to be its duty or to express willingness to do so. In support of the first claim, Collins argues that only groups that can make decisions can bear duties, and that the ability to make decisions requires the relevant sort of decision-making procedure. I suggest that both parts of this argument remain in need of further support. I furthermore argue that Collins’ account of coordination duties gets certain kinds of cases wrong, and suggest that attributions of duties to groups without decision-making procedures are more plausibly understood as attributing shared duties grounded in demands on the group’s members to care about the values at stake.

Highlights

  • Stephanie Collins’ Group Duties offers interesting new arguments and brings together numerous interconnected issues that have hitherto been treated separately

  • In support of the first claim, Collins argues that only groups that can make decisions can bear duties, and that the ability to make decisions requires the relevant sort of decision-making procedure

  • My commentary focuses on two original and central theses of the book, named here for easy reference: DUTY REQUIRES PROCEDURE: For a group to bear duties, it must be united under a group-level decision-making procedure. (Ch. 2–3)

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Summary

Björnsson

REINTERPRETATION: Attributions of duties to φ to groups without decision-making procedures should be understood as attributions of “coordination duties” to each member of the group, duties to take steps responsive to the others with a view to the group’s φ-ing or express willingness to do so. (Ch. 4). The strength of Collins’ case rests on premises (3) and (5) The latter seems plausible if we understand fulfilling a duty as performing what is one’s duty as the normal upshot of responsiveness to the reasons grounding the duty. Refraining puts pressure on (1*), as it seems that Fara fulfilled her duty not to take the stranger’s wallet, and didn’t just act in accordance with it.) The fourth, is to understand “made a decision” in (3) in a weak enough way to make it plausible that Fara did make decisions leading him to notice Jakob’s distress, wonder whether he could do something about it, or refrain from taking the wallet. At least it seems that more needs to be said to support the argument

Does a Group’s Ability to Make Decisions Require a Decision-Making Procedure?
Might Reasons-Responsiveness Require Decision-Making Procedures?
Group Duties Without Reinterpretation
Collins employs the following notion of responsiveness
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