OCT 17

13: OCT 17

Reading for today are in a subfolder of the shared folder - "Collective Responsibility Articles"
Browse SEP article on Collective Responsibility
May, Larry. The Morality of Groups, C1 and C2
Browse other folder articles or follow a subtopic from SEP (or any CR issue) that interests you. An applied case would be great, too.

May argues for a theory of collective responsibility (CR) that is between collectivism and individualism. He thinks groups can be CR by just displaying the capacity for joint action or common interest, as in a mob. Groups are individuals in their relationships.

Before developing his own theory, he reviews Individualist and Collectivist theories. Legal scholar Lon Fuller is skeptical about the “legal fiction” of recognizing groups like corporations. He suggests we judge the usefulness of the fiction. He is right to doubt that the collective exists independently of the individuals, but undervalues the structures and relationships that enable corporate action. (He also reviews Watkins theory of “methodological individualism” 14-18.

The main collectivist he considers is Durkheim, who argues that we should think of social facts, as well as collective beliefs and traditions as evidence that the collectivity is independent individuals. Like language, we inhabit them without being able to change them. May grants that social traditions are ontologically ind of individuals, but denies that groups of people who come together to create corporate action. French is another collectivist May partly agrees with. He thinks that “conglomerates” are groups that have identities not reducible to the individuals. Lists of individuals in a conglomerate can change without change in the identify of the conglomerate. Against French, May thinks even aggregates may be CR. Also, things predicated of conglomerates can also be predicated of individuals.

In developing his own theory, May draws on J.P. Sartre’s analysis of collective action in the storming of the Bastille. Groups can have collective identity partly by how they are treated by other groups, even without formal decision making structure, acts of incorporation, etc. The solidarity seen in spontaneous mob behavior is enough.

May develops his theory from Sartre’s insights about mob by giving an account of “vicarious agency,” using the case of Yale’s CR for sexual harassment of a student. Vicarious agency does require a formal relationship between a corporation and corporate individual.

May’s work is pretty standard, methodologically. Examine the range of positions and develop your own opinion by making careful conceptual distinctions grounded in argument.

May also shows the value of “cross-pollination” when he uses an insight from existential thought as the germ of his own theory.

Interesting theoretical discussion in CR: do we have the conditions for assigning CR. Do you need mind to have responsibility? (Note the argument can be flipped around.)

Note that in the last two cases, you could claim that recognizing CR has effects for MR. "Diversity training" helps satisfy CR, but also increases ind. MR.