Abstract
In Chapter 2, a basic analysis of the nature of individual (retrospective) liability responsibility was set forth, and was taken as uncontroversial at least insofar as the basic conditions of responsibility are concerned. From that analysis, I now seek to build a notion of collective responsibility for use in criminal law. Indeed, just as the analysis of individual moral responsibility was used to determine the extent to which an individual moral agent is punishable, the analysis of this chapter will seek to serve as the conceptual means by which to determine the extent to which a collective might be punishable.
The analysis will be congruent with, for the most part, the views set forth in J. Angelo Corlett, “Corporate Punishment and Responsibility,” Journal of Social Philosophy, XXVIII (1997), pp. 96–100; “Collective Punishment,” in Encyclopedic Dictionary of Business Ethics, Edited by Patricia Werhane and R Edward Freeman (London: Blackwell, 1997), pp. 117–20; “Collective Responsibility,” in Werhane and Freeman, pp. 120–25; “Corporate Responsibility for Environmental Damage,” Environmental Ethics, 18 (1996), pp. 195–207; “Collective Punishment and Public Policy,” Journal of Business Ethics, 11 (1992), pp. 207–16; “Corporate Responsibility and Punishment,” Public Affairs Quarterly, 2 (1988), pp. 1–16.
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References
Margaret Gilbert, Sociality and Responsibility ( Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000 ), p. 152.
Burleigh T. Wilkins, Terrorism and Collective Responsibility ( London: Routledge, 1992 ), p. 97.
Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970 ), p. 223.
This condition is related to the notion of collective feelings of guilt based on collective wrong doing. For an incisive discussion of collective guilt, see Margaret Gilbert, “Group Wrongs and Guilt Feelings,” The Journal of Ethics, 1 (1997), pp. 65–84.
This notion of collective fault ((i), (v)-(vi)) is borrowed from Feinberg’s notion of individual liability [See Feinberg, Doing and Deserving,p. 2221.
For an incisive discussion of shared moral responsibility for inaction, see Larry May, “Collective Inaction and Shared Responsibility,” Nous, 24 (1990), pp. 269–278; Larry May, Sharing Responsibility: Expanding the Domain of Moral Responsibility (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); David Copp, “Responsibility for Collective Inaction,” American Philosophical Association (Central Division), 1990; and Gregory Mellema, “Shared Responsibility and Ethical Dilutionism,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 63 (1985), pp. 177–187.
For accounts under which terrorism and other forms of political violence might be morally justified, see J. Angelo Corlett, “Can Terrorism Be Morally Justified?” Public Affairs Quarterly,10 (1996), pp. 163–84; and Wilkins.
Virginia Held, “Corporations, Persons, and Responsibility,” in Hugh Curtler, Editor, Shame, Responsibility, and the Corporation ( New York: Haven, 1986 ), p. 164.
This is a Goldmanian account of collective action based on the analysis of human (individual) action of Alvin I. Goldman [For suggestive remarks about whether or not collectives are intentional agents, see Alvin I. Goldman, A Theory of Human Action (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 226. For a helpful discussion of the plausibility of collective beliefs, desires and intentionality in light of Daniel Dennett’s “intentional stance,” see Austen Clark, “Beliefs and Desires Incorporated,” The Journal of Philosophy, XCI (1994),pp. 404–4251.
Michael Bratman, “Shared Cooperative Activity,” The Philosophical Review, 101 (1992), pp. 327–41; “Shared Intention,” Ethics, 104 (1993), pp. 97–113; “Responsibility and Planning,” The Journal of Ethics, 1 (1997), pp. 27–43.
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Such collective rule systems may be enacted formally, as in a national or corporate charter, or informally, as when the rules of the system are unwritten but understood and abided by members of the collective (as in the case of an academic association or society such as the American Philosophical Association).
Copp writes, “A collective, one might say, could not have any ‘immediate impact’ on the world, but can only have impact ‘through’ the actions of persons. Alleged actions of collectives can always be explained ultimately in terms of the actions of persons. The question here, of course, is why should we regard this as showing that collectives do not act, rather than merely as showing how their actions can ultimately be explained?” [See David Copp, “Collective Actions and Secondary Actions,” American Philosophical Quarterly,16 (1979), p. 178].
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Peter A. French, Collective and Corporate Responsibility (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984 ), Chapter 4.
This point against French’s argument for the moral responsibility of some corporations is found in J. Angelo Corlett, “Corporate Responsibility and Punishment,” Public Affairs Quarterly, 2 (1988), p. 4 [For a more recent assessment of French’s theory of collective responsibility, see J. Angelo Corlett, ‘Corporate Punishment and Responsibility,“ Journal of Social Philosophy, 28 (1997), pp. 86–100]. This argument counts also against Larry May’s argument for a version of Moral Responsibility Collectivism, where he asserts that the key to corporate intentionality lies in the redescriptions of actions of corporate-individuals into acts of corporations themselves [See May, p. 65f. 1.
G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969 ). For a critical assessment of Anscombe’s idea of intention, see Cora Diamond and Jenny Teichman, Editors, Intention and Intentionality: Essays in Honour of G. E. M. Anscombe ( Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1979 ).
John Ladd argues that there is a “logical” way to distinguish collective actions from those of its constituents, especially in highly organized collectives [See Ladd, “Morality and the Ideal of Rationality in Formal Organizations,” The Monist,54 (1970), pp. 492–496]. However, this logical distinction is blurred in the actual world of collective decision-making, where it is often difficult to distinguish between a conglomerate and its constituents as intentional or as teleological (goal-oriented) agents.
Raimo Tuomela, “Collective Action, Supervenience, and Constitution,” Synthese, 80 (1989), p. 243.
Tuomela, “Collective Action, Supervenience, and Constitution,” pp. 254–255.
Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organizations, Translated by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons ( New York: The Free Press, 1947 ), p. 113.
Raimo Tuomela, “We Will Do It: An Analysis of Group-Intentions,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 60 (1991), pp. 249–277.
It might be argued that collectives themselves need not act intentionally for collective intentional action ascriptions to be justified. Instead, one might argue, collectives are intentional agents to the extent that their members share an intention. However, this point assumes the plausibility of the idea of the intersubjectivity of intentions, a notion which is itself problematic [See Wilfred Sellars, Science and Metaphysics (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968), p. 217f.].
Harry G. Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). See Keith Lehrer, Metamind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990) and “Freedom, Preference, and Autonomy,” The Journal of Ethics, 1 (1997), pp. 3–25 for a competing higher-order or “metamental” compatibilist theory of freedom. For discussions of freedom and moral responsibility, see John Martin Fischer, Editor, Moral Responsibility (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986); John Martin Fischer, The Metaphysics of Free Will (London: Blackwell, 1994); John Martin Fischer, “Responsibility, Control, and Omissions,” The Journal of Ethics, 1 (1997), pp. 45–64; John Martin Fischer and Mark Ravizza, Editors, Perspective on Moral Responsibility (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). See also The Journal of Ethics, 3:4 (1999); 4: 4 (2000).
Holly Smith, “Culpable Ignorance,” The Philosophical Review, 92 (1983), pp. 543–571.
Margaret Gilbert, “Modelling Collective Belief,” Synthese, 73 (1987), p. 198.
For an account of the difficulties of collective knowledge see, J. Angelo Corlett, “Social Epistemology and Social Cognition,” Social Epistemology,5 (1991), p. 140f. This constitutes part of my reply to Frederick Schmitt’s excellent critical comment (see note 11) on J. Angelo Corlett, “Epistemology, Psychology, and Goldman,” Social Epistemology,5 (1991), pp. 91–100 [Also see J. Angelo Corlett, “Goldman and the Foundations of Social Epistemology,” Argumentation,8 (1994), pp. 145–156; and J. Angelo Corlett, Analyzing Social Knowledge (Totowa: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996)].
For example, see Roderick Chisholm, Theory of Knowledge, Third Edition (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1989); Alvin I. Goldman, Epistemology and Cognition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986); Keith Lehrer, Theory of Knowledge (Boulder: Westview, 1990); John Pollock, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge ( Totowa: Rowman & Littlefield, 1986 ).
Margaret Gilbert, On Social Facts ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989 ).
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Corlett, J.A. (2001). The Problem of Collective Responsibility. In: Responsibility and Punishment. Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9851-4_7
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