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Collective Responsibility
There are two related but nevertheless distinct types of problems typically referred to under the heading collective responsibility. One is the set of issues that arise when we try to hold a nation, corporation, association, or other collective morally responsible for the wrongdoing of one or more of its members. In this case, the issues raised are metaphysical—what we need to explain is how an entity that is not a single, conscious, self-aware, decision-making human being can be morally responsible for anything. Some theorists claim that only individuals have the attributes necessary for moral responsibility to attach and that it makes no sense to assign moral responsibility to collectives of any kind. Others think that collectives can be morally responsible if they have established decision-making ...
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