Collective Obligations, Group Plans and Individual Actions

Abstract

If group members aim to fulfill a collective obligation, they must act in such a way that the composition of their individual actions amounts to a group action that fulfills the collective obligation. We study a strong sense of joint action in which the members of a group design and then publicly adopt a group plan that coordinates the individual actions of the group members. We characterize the conditions under which a group plan successfully coordinates the group members' individual actions, and study how the public adoption of a plan changes the context in which individual agents make a decision about what to do.

An impossibility result on methodological individualism

“…See alsoBlackburn et al (2001, p. 126). Note that Theorem 4 entails that the class C cannot be characterized by an individualistic formula in L i .23 Tamminga and Duijf (2017) study how the public adoption of a group plan changes the context in which agents make a decision about what to do. They show that after a deontic game model is updated with what they call an ''optimal and interchangeable group plan'', it holds that if every group member performs a deontically admissible individual action in the changed decision context, then the group itself performs a deontically admissible group action.…”

The Food Thief: Alleviation of Responsibility in Terms of All-Things-Considered Obligations

“…See Cane(2002, 31).3 For collective responsibility and group agency, seeTamminga and Duijf (2017),Thompson (2018) andDuijf (2018).…”

Responsibility Voids and Cooperation

“… 32 In joint work with Allard Tamminga, I study how a group may regulate its group action by agreeing on a plan and then “characterize the conditions under which a group plan successfully coordinates the individual actions of the group members” ( Tamminga and Duijf 2017 , 187). …”