Collective Moral Responsibility for Omissions
JMR looks to be generalisable to, at least, some central categories of collective moral responsibility for omissions and, in particular, morally significant joint omissions.1
Assume that there are multiple persons, A1, A2, A3 etc., whose lives are at high risk, but that there are multiple bystanders, B1, B2, and B3 etc., who could, if they performed a salient joint action, J, save these lives without significant cost to themselves.
So, the bystanders can perform J, and if J was performed it would, in fact, save the lives of A1 etc. (Miller 2001a; Miller 2006; Clarke 2014: 125—32). Here I am assuming that all this is a matter of mutual true belief among the bystanders, e.g. B1 truly believes that performing J would save the lives of A1 etc., B2 truly believes that performing J would save the lives ofA1 etc., B1 truly believes that B2 truly believes that performing J would save the lives ofA1 etc. (Smith 1982). The bystanders in such scenarios have a collective, or joint, moral responsibility to save those at risk by virtue of the (aggregate) positive rights of the latter. Moreover, this collective moral responsibility is (under some more or less adequate description, e.g. the notion of a joint responsibility or a positive right might not be fully understood) also a matter of mutual true belief among the bystanders. Accordingly, each bystander has an individually possessed moral obligation to perform his individual action as a contribution to the joint action, and thus to the realisation of the collective end of saving the multiple lives at high risk. However, this obligation is possessed interdependently with the others; it is a joint moral obligation. So joint moral obligations can be derived from collective moral responsibilities to realise morally required collective ends. Roughly speaking, the realisation of such a collective end calls for the performance of some salient joint action. The determination of this joint action, in turn, enables the specification of the contributory individual actions, and thereby the generation of the individual moral obligations of the participants. Each participant has a moral obligation to perform a contributory action. However, just as the action of each participant is performed interdependently with the actions of the others, so are the corresponding individual moral obligations interdependent. This is because each individual action is only part of the means to realise the collective end, and its performance would have no point if the others refrained from performing their contributory actions. Accordingly, the moral obligation of each to perform his contributory action would lapse if the others did not perform theirs; hence these moral obligations are joint moral obligations. At any rate, in cases of this kind, if the agents omit to perform the joint action then — other things being equal — they have failed to discharge their joint obligation and, therefore, they are collectively morally responsible for their omission. This is so whether or not each intended not to perform his or her contributory action or merely failed to form an intention to do so. I note that even if each failed to form an intention to perform his contributory action, each did believe that he ought to perform his contributory action (supposing the others performed theirs). Moreover, the performance of his contributory action is something that “comes to mind” to each; at the very least, it occurs to each that he could perform his contributory action (Clarke 2014: 35—87).Notice that there can be cases where the morally significant collective end of a joint action is realised, yet one individual (or a minority) fails to successfully perform his contributory individual action, and cases where the morally significant collective end of a joint action is not realised because most fail to perform their contributory actions, yet one individual (or a minority) successfully performs his contributory individual action.
What are we to say about collective moral responsibility in such cases?Consider the cases in which one individual (or a minority) fails to successfully perform his contributory action. (Note that the arguments below are also valid in the case of minorities, as opposed to individuals. However, to reduce verbal clutter, I won’t refer to minorities on every occasion.) Assuming the individual (or minority) had the collective end in question (and, therefore, tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to perform his individual contributory action), the individual shares in the collective moral responsibility for the realisation of the collective end, notwithstanding his individual failure to perform his contributory action. For, as was the case with the other agents, the individual had the collective end in question. Moreover, as was also the case with the other agents, the individual indirectly causally contributed to the realisation of the collective end, notwithstanding his failure to perform his contributory action. He made an indirect causal contribution since the other individuals acted in part on the basis of their beliefs that the individual in question would perform his contributory action. Nevertheless, the failure of such an individual to perform his individual contributory action reduces his share of the collective moral responsibility for the realisation of the collective end.
The following question might now be asked of a would-be participant in a joint action who tried but failed to perform his contributory action.2 What if the other individuals did not for some reason act even in part on the basis of their belief that the individual in question would perform his contributory action. If so, then the individual would not even have indirectly causally contributed to the collective end. In such cases it seems that the individual does not share in the collective moral responsibility for the realisation of the collective end. For, on the one hand, the individual did not make any actual causal contribution to the realisation of the collective end; but only attempted to do so.
On the other hand, while he presumably believed that his end was an integral element of the collective end; it was not. The others possessed and successfully pursued the collective end independently of his possession and pursuit of that end.Now consider cases in which the morally significant collective end is not realised due to the fact that most fail to perform contributory actions, yet one individual (or a minority) performs his. Once again, assuming all the individuals had the collective end in question (and, therefore, tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to perform their contributory actions), then the individual shares in the collective moral responsibility for the failure to realise the collective end, notwithstanding his individual success in performing his contributory action. For, as was the case with the other agents, the individual had the collective end in question, and that end was not realised; in short, each agent, including the individual in question, failed to realise an end each had (the collective end), and each failed to make a causal contribution to that end. Nevertheless, the success of such an individual in performing his own individual contributory action reduces his share of the collective moral responsibility for the failure to realise the collective end, at least in cases in which each would not have been fully morally responsible (albeit jointly with the others) for the realisation of the collective end supposing it had been realised (and it is not clear that there are cases of collective, i.e. joint, morally responsibility for omissions to perform a joint action in which each would have been fully responsible for the realisation of the collective end of the joint action, supposing it had been realised). In response to this it might be argued that the individual cannot have a share in the collective moral responsibility for the failure because, after all, he had the collective end in question and performed his contributory action; he did all that he could reasonably have been expected to do.
Certainly, he is not morally culpable or blameworthy, but then neither are the others morally culpable or blameworthy, given they tried to perform their own contributory actions. The theoretical conclusion to be drawn at this point is twofold:(1) moral responsibility, including collective moral responsibility, should not be equated with culpability/non-culpability or blameworthiness/praiseworthiness (Miller 2007); and (2) agents can be (individually or collectively) morally responsible for failing to realise an outcome, even if they did all that can be reasonably expected of them; responsibility is not simply a matter of possession of the relevant subjective states, such as intentions and ends.
It is consistent with this that if an individual (or minority) culpably failed to realise his or her individual end yet knew that the collective end would nevertheless be realised, then that individual does not share in the collective moral responsibility for the successful outcome, since, for one thing, the individual did not, in fact, have the collective end. It is also consistent with the above that if an individual (or minority) culpably failed to realise his or her individual end in the knowledge that, as a consequence of this culpable failure, the collective end would not be realised, then the individual (a) does not have the collective end, and (b) is individually morally responsible for the collective failure (of the others) to realise the collective end. So, there is no collective moral responsibility, let alone collective moral culpability, for the failure.
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