Collective Responsibility

Abstract

Philosophers constantly discuss Responsibility. Yet in every discussion of which I am aware, a rather obvious point is ignored. The obvious point is that responsibility is ascribed to collectives, as well as to individual persons. Blaming attitudes are held towards collectives as well as towards individuals. (It should be noted that I am discussing that sense of Responsibility—moral or social—in which Responsibility is related to attitudes of blame, praise, indignation, remorse, reward, and punishment; not that sense of Responsibility in which even material objects can be responsible, and which is broadly equivalent to ‘causally operative’.) Responsibility is often ascribed to nations, towns, clubs, groups, teams, and married couples. ‘Germany was responsible for the Second World War’; ‘The club as a whole is to blame for being relegated’. Such statements are not rare.