Sometimes, bad things are the aggregate result of actions and omissions of more than one agent.
In such cases, we often blame that group of agents for the result. Some blame their divorced parents for not preserving a reasonable relationship. Others blame voters for electing corrupt leaders.
Others yet blame the growing threat of climate catastrophe on people who have known about the risks of greenhouse gas emissions without taking appropriate measures.As it is with blame, so it is with obligations. We often think that groups of agents have obligations that no individual could discharge on their own. The parents had an obligation to preserve their relationship, we might think, while the voters had an obligation not to elect corrupt leaders, and people aware of climate risks an obligation to significantly reduce those.
Attributions of blameworthiness to groups are not mere theoretical exercises. They direct our indignation over what has happened and indicate who should compensate those harmed or bear the burdens involved in preventing further negative consequences. Likewise, attributions of group obligations often seem relevant for what actions group members should take; for whether the group can be justly coerced to behave in a certain way; and for distributions of blame and compensatory or reparative burdens should the group shirk its duties.
Though common and seemingly important, attributions of group blameworthiness and group obligations can also seem metaphysically or ethically suspect. Often, no individual member of the group had control over the outcome for which they are blamed, and no individual member can make a difference as to whether the group discharges its obligation. This makes it difficult to understand group attributions in terms of attributions of corresponding individual blameworthiness and obligations. Moreover, the groups themselves often fall short of standard conditions of moral agency.
They seem to lack many properties normally associated with agenthood, including beliefs about their circumstances, and they lack the sort of stable inner organization that might make it clear what capacities they have and what demands can be properly directed at them, other than those directed at their members.In response to this agency challenge, philosophers who want to defend attributions of collective obligations to groups of these kinds have either (i) argued that the groups in question have the requisite capabilities to have obligations of their own or (ii) suggested ways in which the existence of related individual obligations can make it true that these groups have obligations.
Philosophers who have defended attributions of collective responsibility and blameworthiness have suggested that members of the relevant collectives can share responsibility for an outcome in virtue of being causally or socially connected to that outcome.
This chapter details some cases where it is natural to attribute obligations or blameworthiness to groups that cannot be plausibly attributed to their individual members, and discusses the agency challenge mentioned above, as well as proposed replies and problems and prospects for these. The most promising replies, I will argue, understand these groups’ obligations and blameworthiness as grounded in demands on individual agents.
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