Work

Collective Responsibility and Collective Obligations Without Collective Moral Agents

Year: 2020
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: It is commonplace to attribute obligations to φ or blameworthiness for φ-ing to groups even when no member has an obligation to φ or is individually blameworthy for not φ-ing. Such non-distributive attributions can seem problematic in cases where the group is not a moral agent in its own right. In response, it has been argued both that non-agential groups can have the capabilities requisite to have obligations of their own, and that group obligations can be understood in terms of moral demands on individual group members. It has also been suggested that members of groups can share responsibility for an outcome in virtue of being causally or socially connected to that outcome. This chapter discusses the agency problem and argues that the most promising attempts at solutions understand group obligations and blameworthiness as grounded in demands on individual agents.
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W3018154283
FWCI: 70.19
Cites: 1
Cited by: 46
Related to: 10