Concluding Remarks: Organized Groups as Agents

Abstract

Abstract In these concluding remarks, I summarize the main claims of the book. The book focuses on organized groups, such as governments, corporations, and charities. I defend the commonsense view that such organizations genuinely have mental states, and are capable of action. More specifically, I defend a non-summative account of a range of group phenomena including group belief, group evidence, group justified belief, group knowledge, what it is for a group to act or believe for a reason, and group excuse from blameless ignorance. This helps illuminate the moral responsibility of the organized groups with which we interact on a daily basis.