When Do We Have Collective Obligations?

To sum up what has been said so far: In order for two or more agents to jointly hold an obli­gation to address some joint necessity problem they must have joint ability to address that problem.

It is a necessary condition for collective obligations that potential collaborators facing a joint necessity case have grounds to privilege we-reasoning over reasoning in I-mode. But under which circumstances do agents have such grounds? It is easier to give negative conditions for when agents lack such grounds. For instance, they will have no grounds for engaging in we- reasoning if they do not recognize the problem as a joint necessity case. Further, they may not recognize a joint necessity case as a morally pressing problem in need of resolution. Or else they may not be aware of other agents’ potential to contribute. Finally, they may have reason to believe that they are on their own with regard to the problem, because agents appear unwilling to contribute. However, if the problem is pressing enough, the conscientious agent must not give up at this point, but ought to attempt to secure the others’ cooperation.

The picture ofjoint obligations drawn here aligns best with a non-objective view of moral obligations. On an objective view of moral obligations, we ought to do what is objectively best (or right) regardless of whether we know what that is. So even if we act conscientiously, on the basis of the best available information, and are rigorous in our decision-making, we may still fail to meet our actual moral obligations.

The notion of collective obligations defended here, aligns best with what Zimmerman (1996) calls the prospective view of moral obligations.²³ To put it in a nutshell: on the pro­spective view, we ought to do what is prospectively best, that is, what our best bet is given the obtainable evidence and provided we have conscientiously availed ourselves of the evidence. This means that our moral obligations depend on our reasonable, justified (but not necessarily true) beliefs concerning the problem at hand.

The prospective view of moral obligations makes better sense of the intuition that agents have no collective obligation to address a joint necessity problem where they reasonably believe an individually available option to be superior to an only-collectively-available option. Or where they reasonably disagree on which collectively available option is best and they therefore cannot agree on a course of action. Or where they are unlikely to figure out the collectively optimal solution in the time available to them. These kinds of complications, where they cannot easily be resolved between willing agents, can cancel collective obligations.

To illustrate the prospective view of collective obligations, let us once more return to the case of the trapped motorcyclist: The passers-by are likely to include the option of (collect­ively) lifting the car and extracting the driver in their set of options for moral deliberation unless they have reason to believe, e.g., that there is no one available to help them. Of course, because the stakes are so high they may still try on their own to pull out the driver, essen­tially testing if the option of rescuing him is individually available. However, this action is simply a way of availing themselves of evidence in a conscientious manner.

Such information will often be crucial for whether or not the pro tanto joint obligation becomes an all-out obligation. To reiterate, an all-out obligation is an obligation all-things- considered. Whether or not anyone (or any group) has an obligation all-things-considered depends on how highly a particular option for action ranks for the respective individual(s) amongst competing options. Or, in other words, it depends on whether the reasons that speak in favor of that option outweigh the reasons speaking in favor of any of the alternative options. Awareness of others’ likelihood to contribute will strengthen those reasons in favor of the col­lectively available option, other things being equal.²⁵

On my view of collective moral obligations, two or more moral agents jointly hold an all- out obligation to perform an action or produce an outcome corresponding to a collectively available option if each of these agents, provided that she is conscientious,...

(1). has reason to believe that the collectively available option (joint rescue) is morally best;

(2). has reason to include that option in her deliberation about her obligations (we-framing the problem);

(3).

And if the agent.

(4). has no overriding obligations, is not unduly burdened by the task, and is jointly capable with the other(s) of discharging the task at hand.^{26, 27}

The first three conditions may be met either consecutively or simultaneously. Further, we- framing (ii) and determining individual courses of action (iii) will usually (but not necessarily) mean that agents communicate amongst each other, even though this need not be verbal com­munication. If one of the passers-by in our example observes another placing their hands on the car in an attempt to lift it then they usually have a reason as per (ii) and (iii).

It is obvious now that our main examples came with a few implicit assumptions, which are responsible for the initial plausibility of the claim that the agents involved have some all-out duty to assist. This was necessary to get the argument off the ground. For instance, the scenarios were characterized by a certain moral simplicity. The features of the situations described were such that rescuing the person (or protecting the lake) would presumably be the morally best response. That is, most major moral theories would converge in their action recommenda­tion. Further, in taking these scenarios out of context and discussing them at a certain level of abstraction we simply ignored other factors that would play a role for moral deliberation. For instance, we did not discuss any competing obligations that our passers-by (or the lakeside neighbors) may have, but simply assumed that there were none that would override the obli­gation to assist. Further, in the cases presented the objectively best option corresponded to the option that was perceived to be best by potential contributors (that is, the objective and the prospective view on obligations would align in these cases as to their action recommendation).

However, it may seem that more needs to be known or possibly investigated by individual agents if they are to jointly hold an obligation, compared to individually held obligations. This is true insofar as some knowledge concerning the others’ willingness and ability to contribute to a joint endeavor are concerned. On the other hand, joint agency often calls for the sharing of (epistemic and other) expertise and burdens. Often, we do not each need to know how exactly to address some problem in order to jointly address it, as long as between us we have enough expertise to do so. In this regard, the threshold to acquiring collective obligations may in fact be lower than it is for individual obligations, or, put differently, the former may at times be more easily defeated than the latter.

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