What is it Like to be a Group Agent?

List, Christian

doi:10.1111/nous.12162

Cited by 88 publications

(46 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…And it is not at all obvious that they can be. 1 Existing accounts equate moral collective agency with rational collective agency, which they explicate in terms of a collective decision procedure that tends to issue in rational decisions (French 1984;Copp 2006;Pettit 2007;List and Pettit 2011;Hess 2014). But these rationalist accounts face a problem that has thus far remained unaddressed: an agent can be prudentially rational without being a moral agent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective Agency: Moral and Amoral

Hindriks

2018

Dialectica

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Proponents of corporate moral responsibility have provided a number of accounts of moral collective agency. But these accounts do not shed light on how a collective agent might fail to be a moral agent. I explain the difference between moral and amoral collective agents in terms of the notion of a normative perspective. I argue that, in order for a collective agent to be a moral agent, it has to have a normative perspective that is suitably supported by its members. I develop this idea both from a rationalist and from a sentimentalist point of view. According to the rationalist proposal, the members have to collective accept the normative perspective. The sentimentalist proposal also requires that it be suitably supported by collective member emotions. These simulate the epistemic and volitional roles that genuine corporate emotions would play. The upshot is that an amoral collective agent either lacks a normative perspective altogether, or that its normative perspective is not suitably supported by its members.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective Agency: Moral and Amoral

Hindriks

2018

Dialectica

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“…For instance, perhaps personhood demands sentience or consciousness, while intentionality or rationality is sufficient for moral agency (e.g. French 1984;List and Pettit 2011;Hindriks 2014Hindriks , p. 1567List 2016). By contrast, individualists often elide agency and personhood, defending similar conditions for both (e.g.…”

Section: Defending Moderate Collectivismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…(I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pressing me on this point.) 8 Collectivists who deny the possibility of group consciousness include Tuomela (2013), p. 52; Theiner (2014); Tollefsen (2015), p. 63;List (2016). Two rare exceptions who do not rule out this possibility are Huebner (2014), p. 120, andSchwitzgebel (2015).…”

Section: Responding To Moral Reasonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate Agency and Possible Futures

Mulgan

2018

J Bus Ethics

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We need an account of corporate agency that is temporally robust-one that will help future people to cope with challenges posed by corporate groups in a range of credible futures. In particular, we need to bequeath moral resources that enable future people to avoid futures dominated by corporate groups that have no regard for human beings. This paper asks how future philosophers living in broken or digital futures might re-imagine contemporary debates about corporate agency. It argues that the only temporally robust account is moralised extreme collectivism, where full moral personhood is accorded (only) to those corporate groups that are reliably disposed to respond appropriately to moral reasons.

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“…This tension I call DISANALOGY. I then, in §4, consider proposals made by LP (2011) and List (2016) to address the tension and argue that these attempts do not in themselves ground DISANALOGY without further substantive commitment. In §5 I introduce an ontological explanation for DISANALOGY grounded in LP and Pettit's own accounts of both personhood and dominative power.…”

Section: Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The question remains: how is the claim that rights are "for" sentient beings justified (particularly given that whatever this feature is, it does not determine their responsibilities in an equivalent way, on the PP account)? §4.1-4.3 examine what I take to be the best proposals available in LP (2011) and List (2016) for what might justify a distinction. But leaving aside exactly what might prioritise individual sentience as a claim on intrinsic value, it is worth noting that the more general thought -that what is morally relevant can only be that which is in some way beneficial to sentient beings -does not in itself provide a response to DISANALOGY.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The Curious Case of Ronald McDonald’s Claim to Rights: An Ontological Account of Differences in Group and Individual Person Rights

Smith

2018

Journal of Social Ontology

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Performative accounts of personhood argue that group agents are persons, fit to be held responsible within the social sphere. Nonetheless, these accounts want to retain a moral distinction between group and individual persons. That: (1) Grouppersons can be responsible for their actions qua persons, but that (2) group-persons might nonetheless not have rights equivalent to those of human persons. I present an argument which makes sense of this disanalogy, without recourse to normative claims or additional ontological commitments. I instead ground rights in the different relations in which performative persons stand in relation to one another.

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What is it Like to be a Group Agent?

Cited by 88 publications

References 36 publications

Collective Agency: Moral and Amoral

Collective Agency: Moral and Amoral

Corporate Agency and Possible Futures

The Curious Case of Ronald McDonald’s Claim to Rights: An Ontological Account of Differences in Group and Individual Person Rights

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