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In the social sciences and in everyday speech we often talk about groups as if they behaved in the same way as individuals, thinking and acting as a singular being. We say for example that "Google intends to develop an automated car", "the U.S. Government believes that Syria has used chemical weapons on its people", or that "the NRA wants to protect the rights of gun owners". We also often ascribe legal and moral responsibility to groups. But could groups literally intend things? Is there such a thing as a collective mind? If so, should groups be held morally responsible? Such questions are of vital importance to our understanding of the social world. In this lively, engaging introduction De...
Are companies, churches, and states genuine agents? How do we explain their behaviour? Can we treat them as accountable for their actions? List and Pettit offer original arguments, grounded in cutting-edge work on social choice, economics, and philosophy, to show there really are group agents, over and above the individual agents who compose them.
Jennifer Lackey presents a ground-breaking exploration of the epistemology of groups, and its implications for group agency and responsibility. She argues that group belief and knowledge depend on what individual group members do or are capable of doing, while being subject to group-level normative requirements.
Acting together requires collective intentions. The contributions to this volume seek to critically assess or to enrich theories of collective intentionality by exploring topics such as collective belief, mutual coordination, and the explanation of group behavior.
This book examines whether firms as organizations can be considered morally responsible for their actions. This question has profound practical implications as well as theoretical significance, not least when we are today so frequently confronted with misconduct in business.
A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title How might society benefit if children were recognized as independent thinkers, capable of seeing clearly and contributing in valuable ways to our world? How would children’s lives change if what they said was not often ignored or patronized? In a series of conversations with children about many of life’s important philosophical questions, Seen and Not Heard reveals children as perceptive and original thinkers. Guided by discussions about the meaning of childhood, friendship, justice and fairness, happiness, and death, the book invites us to rethink our beliefs about children and become more receptive to the ways we can learn from them.
The original essays in this book address the influential writings of Peter A. French on the nature of responsibility, ethics, and moral practices. French’s contributions to a wide spectrum of philosophical discussions have made him a dominant figure in the fields of normative ethics, meta-ethics, applied ethics, as well as legal and political philosophy. Many of French’s deepest insights come from identifying and exploring the scope and nature of moral responsibility and human agency as they appear in actual events, real social and cultural practices, as well as in literature and film. This immediacy renders French’s scholarship vital and accessible to a wide variety of audiences. The ...
We often talk about groups believing, knowing, and testifying. For instance, we ask whether the Bush Administration had good reasons for believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, or whether BP knew that its equipment was faulty before the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Epistemic claims of this sort often have enormously significant consequences, given the ways they bear on the moral and legal responsibilities of collective entities. Despite the importance of these epistemic claims, there has been surprisingly little philosophical work shedding light on these phenomena, their consequences, and the broader implications that follow for epistemology in general. Essays in C...
This book draws from the use of modern surveillance technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic to explore a set of issues and challenges facing decision-makers and designers in times of emergency: how do we respond to emergencies in ways that are both consistent with democratic and community principles, and that are ethically justifiable?
Life in Groups: How We Think, Feel, and Act Together develops and applies the author's perspective on topics to do with joint commitment. This kind of commitment unifies those who participate in it, guides their actions going forward, and determines their relations to one another in important ways. In particular, it grounds in each of the parties a set of rights and obligations of a particular kind. Thirteen essays are gathered in this volume, together with a substantial introduction, which serves both to explain joint commitment for those unfamiliar with it and to advance discussion in light of some questions it has prompted, and a reflective conclusion. The essays range over collective beliefs and intentions; rational choice and preference; group lies and corporate misbehavior; remorse and other emotions; rights, obligations, and freedom.