Conclusion

This chapter set out to show that the discursive dilemma did not obviously or trivially imply a responsibility-collectivist conclusion. It has catalogued the most influential “bridging” arguments from the discursive dilemma — some responsibility-based, some agency-based — which collectivists have used to reach such a conclusion.

Notes

1 Unless otherwise specified, all references to responsibility in the following are to moral responsibility.

2 And thus, it is different, for example, from the individualist account of collective responsibility advocated by Miller & Makela (2005). On the latter view of collective responsibility, distributive col­lective responsibility is ascribed to individuals who are jointly responsible with others for joint actions and their outcomes. Petersson (2008) also allows for distributive collective responsibility, which is for him a kind of individual responsibility that accrues to individuals on account of their participation in joint actions or omissions. Such shared responsibility is distributive, but the distribution need not be equal among different individuals depending on their respective contributions to the collectively brought about outcome.

3 On collective duties and their relationship to collective responsibility, see Collins (2017).

4 Why the debate between collectivists and individualists loses much of its interest without these presuppositions is well explained by Haji (2006).

The collectivist may choose either option discussed in this paragraph to reply to responsibility­individualists who reject responsibility-collectivism on the grounds that (i) responsibility presupposes agency, and (ii) collectives cannot be agents (see Haji 2006 and Miller & Makela 2005 for arguments of this sort).

A claim vehemently denied by Ludwig (2016) for action sentences with plural noun phrases in the subject (e.g., we), and by Ludwig (2017) for actions sentences with singular noun phrases (e.g., “the mob”, “IBM”).

It is frequently argued that only well-structured collectives with formalized decision procedures and a stable identity can be such agents.

Some may worry that Strawsonian reactive attitudes can only be fitting if their addressee is also capable of having such participatory attitudes. It is, however, not obvious that collectives are necessarily incap­able of such reactive attitudes (Bjornsson & Hess 2016).

For other responsibility-based arguments not based on the discursive dilemma, see for example Copp (2007). Gilbert’s arguments (2000) for collective responsibility can also be characterized as responsibility­based because while she argues for the possibility of plural subjects these are not irreducibly col­lective agents. Shockley (2007) explicitly denies that collective agency is necessary for collective moral responsibility.

In our time, the problem was first introduced in jurisprudence as the “doctrinal paradox” (Kornhauser & Sager 1986; Kornhauser & Sager 1993). List & Pettit 2011 provide a useful overview of historical predecessors to the contemporary debate.

See also with minor variations, Chapman (2002); Tollefsen (2004); Bovens & Rabinowicz (2006); List (2006); Copp (2006); Copp (2007); Pettit (2007a); Pettit (2007b); List & Pettit (2011). Name of the candidate below is from Copp 2007.

Tenure Committee has been retained here as an example of the discursive dilemma in view of its prom­inent role in the literature. However, note that the case itself is not unproblematic because of course tenure is not awarded by a committee, but ultimately by the university through a complex decision­making process involving several levels in the institutional hierarchy.

As in Copp’s version (2007) where the decision is taken in two stages: the committee first votes on the premises, and then in a separate procedure, also votes just on the conclusion.

Chapman (2002) argues that groups such as the committee face no real dilemma because there is a rational order of priority among the propositions to be decided upon. However, first, there is frequently no natural sequential priority of the propositions to be established (“One persons conclusion may be another person’s premise,” List & Pettit 2011: 78). Second, even if Chapman is right, this would only undermine some collectivist arguments from the discursive dilemma (such as the “contingency argu­ment,” see below), but not others.

In addition, the problem also generalizes for different logical relationships between the premises and the conclusion (disjunctive as well as conjunctive, see below), diachronic as well as synchronic relationships among the propositions, and for any deliberative agenda with more issues than two. For further generalizations and a formally rigorous treatment of these issues, see List 2006, List & Pettit 2011, and the extensive technical literature quoted there.

I owe the fifth and sixth points above to Wlodek Rabinowicz.

In the following, as is customary in the non-technical literature, I will only discuss the premise-based and conclusion-based decision procedures.

On some versions of the argument, the committee’s decision is not just a function of the decision­making mechanism, but also that of the committee’s joint commitment to accept the results of the decision-making process (which commitment may or may not be itself the result of a prior formal decision) (see esp. Pettit & Schweikard 2006).

See Miller & Makela (2005), Makela (2007), and Hindriks (2009) for different formulations of the objection that on a proper analysis of cases involving the discursive dilemma any responsibility either distributes to individual members or no one is responsible.

It is crucial to keep in mind here that the question concerns the link between a harmful outcome (i.e., in this case, the felon's relapse) and the use of a specific decision procedure. As noted in section 21.4, there may be various reasons — political, epistemic, or even moral — to favor one kind of decision­procedure over another. However, in examples such as Parole Board (and the isomorphic examples used by collectivists, see esp. Pettit 2007a: 197f and Copp 2007) collectivists do not argue that there is something inherently wrong with the premised-based procedure. Rather, they try to show that given the use of the premise-based procedure the collective is to be blamed for the outcome of the decision. It may be suggested that the risks associated with granting parole and those associated with denying it are not equal because it is a graver matter to release a felon who relapses than to keep one locked up who no longer poses a threat. This would be a morally questionable position, but even if we grant it for the sake of the argument, it will not help the collectivist because differential risks, if any, can be and should be taken into account by the individual board members when rendering their individual judgments.

A possible objection here could be this: The fact that some possible distribution of votes will cause harm is perfectly foreseeable even if we do not need to foresee the actual distribution of votes. The fact that we know some possible distribution of votes will cause harm seems to implicate all of those who use this decision procedure. In response, we can specify that what was not foreseeable was that the use of the premise-based procedure would lead to the harmful outcome rather than the use of some other decision procedure. That only becomes clear once the actual votes are in. Had the conclusion-based procedure been used, for example, other distribution of votes could have led to the same outcome (and given those distributions the premise-based procedure would not have led to the harmful outcome). Therefore, those deciding to use the decision procedure are not responsible for the harm because they could not foresee which decision procedure could have prevented the harmful outcome.

This is a modified version of the example used in Szigeti 2014a.

For arguments that in such situations the individual members may not be above moral criticism after all, see Chapman 2002; Makela 2007; Miller 2007; Hindriks 2009.

To repeat, there may be some inherent epistemic, political, and moral reasons (briefly reviewed in section 21.4) to prefer one decision procedure over another. However, the moral objection here to the collective decision is not based on these reasons. See also note 20 above.

“[O]ne and the same act can be both unjust (to someone or other) and justified” (Feinberg 1970: 45). See Copp (2007: 381): “the university was blameworthy for the decision or at least liable to apologize or to compensate Borderline even though no person was blameworthy in the matter or liable to apolo­gize or to compensate Borderline.”

In practice, many groups are committed to long-term objectives and a stable group identity. In such cases, coherence is usually best maintained by using the premise-based procedure.

Once again, the premise-based decision procedure is often the best way to ensure that the desideratum of conversability is met. This is because the conclusion-based procedure does not make it possible to make explicit the collectives views on the reasons for the decision.

Similar lessons have been drawn from Arrow's theorem and the prisoner's dilemma (at least on some interpretations of it, see Parfit 1984: 89).

For the former see esp. List & Pettit 2011 as well as all of List's and Pettit's publications cited here. For the latter, see Tollefsen 2002b.

Although cases such as Tenure Committee are usually presented in terms of judgments regarding prop­ositions (here: p, q, and r), the same propositions can be the objects of desires and preferences too. So essentially the same argument from the discursive dilemma can be run for the autonomy of collective desires and preferences.

33 It is not my brief here to discuss functionalism as a general account of agency. Nor do we need to take up the issue here how plausible it is to attribute autonomous cognitive or conative states to collectives. For insightful criticisms on both counts, see Ludwig 2016. Note also that some would reject the view that a group can be said to believe that p without any of its members believing that p (see Hakli 2007).

34 Note that even if it is successful, the collectivist solution outlined in this section here would only solve one of the difficulties regarding the compatibility of ontological individualism and collective agency. Szigeti (2014b) argues that the metaphysical implications of collectivism will still be quite onerous as non-distributive collective agency can be shown to undercut the agency of individual members of the collective.

35 Although Rovane (2004: 337) comes close to accepting dualism here: “human-size persons might ini­tially decide to pool their efforts in a joint endeavor. If they implement their decision, they no longer maintain separate rational points of view.”

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