Abstract

In this paper we analyse the notion of collective responsibility and the criteria for its application to different types of groups. We argue that most of the ways in which the notion of collective responsibility has been attributed to different types of groups actually refer to a form of responsibility that is not genuinely collective, but that boils down to some form of individual responsibility. We identify an intrinsically collective kind of responsibility and argue that it can be attributed to only one kind of group. We begin by setting two necessary and sufficient conditions for attribution of genuinely collective moral responsibility, asking whether these two conditions are satisfied in the case of different types of groups that have been taken to be bearers of moral responsibility: organized groups, groups with internal bonds of solidarity, groups that program individuals to act in a certain way, random collections of individuals, and individuals engaging in joint actions. Contrary to what various authors have maintained, we argue that only in the case of individuals engaging in joint actions is attribution of a genuinely collective form of moral responsibility warranted, i.e. only groups engaging in joint action satisfy the two conditions for attribution of genuinely collective moral responsibility.

Highlights

  • Is there such a thing as “collective responsibility”? For example, can a corporation, a state, a mob, a social movement, a random collection of individuals be collectively morally responsible for things like an environmental disaster, a bad policy, an act of violence, a form of discrimination, or the failure to realize herd immunity or to help people in need? Or is it only individual members of these collectives who are morally responsible for such states of affairs? The answers to such questions depend on what it means to attribute to an entity a form of moral responsibility and on what it means to say that the responsibility in question is collective

  • We argue that only individuals engaging in joint actions satisfy what we take to be the two necessary and sufficient conditions for attribution of the genuinely collective form of moral responsibility that we present in this paper

  • Organized groups’ actions are the product of individual actions in the obvious sense that, without individuals acting in a certain way, there would be no group action. This obvious fact is not enough to satisfy the second condition for attribution of genuinely collective moral responsibility, i.e. that, to repeat what we have said above, “responsibility must be attributed to the collective as a composite, and not an individual, entity: it must not be a form of individual responsibility that happens to apply to collectives”

Read more

Summary

Introduction

Is there such a thing as “collective responsibility”? For example, can a corporation, a state, a mob, a social movement, a random collection of individuals be collectively morally responsible for things like an environmental disaster, a bad policy, an act of violence, a form of discrimination, or the failure to realize herd immunity or to help people in need? Or is it only individual members of these collectives who are morally responsible for such states of affairs? The answers to such questions depend on what it means to attribute to an entity a form of moral responsibility (as opposed to merely causal responsibility) and on what it means to say that the responsibility in question is collective (as opposed to individual). Smiley 2014)1 – and this is the notion of collective responsibility we will consider in this paper From this point on, whenever we refer to ‘collective responsibility’, it is the basic desert sense we have in mind: when we say that some groups can be morally responsible in an intrinsically collective way, we mean that they can be deserving of blame, praise or sanction, entirely in. Most philosophers have been concerned with whether groups can be morally responsible (usually, but not always, in the basic desert sense), not whether the kind of moral responsibility appropriately attributed to them is intrinsically collective This focus is understandable: the central normative issues up for grabs There are two conditions that collective responsibility must satisfy in order to be genuinely collective: we introduce these two conditions

Two conditions for genuinely collective moral responsibility
Types of collective moral responsibility
Responsibility of organized groups
Responsibility of groups with internal solidarity
Responsibility of “programming” groups
Responsibility of random collections
Responsibility of collections engaged in joint actions
Conclusion
Full Text
Published version (Free)

Talk to us

Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have

Schedule a call