What in the World Is Collective Responsibility?

Area of Science:

• Moral Philosophy
• Social Psychology
• Group Dynamics

Background:

• The concept of collective responsibility is widely applied to various groups.
• Existing frameworks often conflate collective responsibility with aggregated individual responsibilities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the criteria for applying collective responsibility to different group types.
• To identify and define intrinsically collective responsibility.
• To determine which groups can genuinely bear collective moral responsibility.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of the concept of collective responsibility.
• Establishment of necessary and sufficient conditions for genuine collective moral responsibility.
• Evaluation of different group types (organized groups, solidarity groups, programmed groups, random collections, joint actions) against these conditions.

Main Results:

• Most attributions of collective responsibility are not genuinely collective, but reducible to individual responsibility.
• An intrinsically collective form of responsibility is identified.
• Only groups engaging in joint actions meet the criteria for genuine collective moral responsibility.

Conclusions:

• The conditions for genuine collective moral responsibility are stringent.
• Joint actions represent the sole context for true collective moral responsibility.
• Distinguishing collective from individual responsibility is crucial for accurate moral and legal attributions.