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420Team reasoning and collective moral obligationSocial Theory and Practice. forthcoming.We propose a new account of collective moral obligation. We argue that several agents have a moral obligation together only if they each have (i) a context-specific capacity to view their situation from the group’s perspective, and (ii) at least a general capacity to deliberate about what they ought to do together. Such an obligation is irreducibly collective, in that it does not imply that the individuals have any obligations to contribute to what is required of the group. We highlight various …Read more
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278Collective Omissions and ResponsibilityPhilosophical Papers 37 (2): 243-261. 2008.Sometimes it seems intuitively plausible to hold loosely structured sets of individuals morally responsible for failing to act collectively. Virginia Held, Larry May, and Torbj rn T nnsj have all drawn this conclusion from thought experiments concerning small groups, although they apply the conclusion to large-scale omissions as well. On the other hand it is commonly assumed that (collective) agency is a necessary condition for (collective) responsibility. If that is true, then how can we hold s…Read more
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182Collectivity And CircularityJournal of Philosophy 104 (3): 138-156. 2007.According to a common claim, a necessary condition for a collective action (as opposed to a mere set of intertwined or parallel actions) to take place is that the notion of collective action figures in the content of each participant’s attitudes. Insofar as this claim is part of a conceptual analysis, it gives rise to a circularity challenge that has been explicitly addressed by Michael Bratman and Christopher Kutz.1 I will briefly show how the problem arises within Bratman’s and Kutz’s analyses…Read more
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155The second mistake in moral mathematics is not about the worth of mere participationUtilitas 16 (3): 288-315. 2004.‘The Second Mistake’ (TSM) is to think that if an act is right or wrong because of its effects, the only relevant effects are the effects of this particular act. This is not (as some think) a truism, since ‘the effects of this particular act’ and ‘its effects’ need not co-refer. Derek Parfit's rejection of TSM is based mainly on intuitions concerning sets of acts that over-determine certain harms. In these cases, each act belongs to the relevant set in virtue of a causal relation (other than mar…Read more
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100Team Reasoning and Collective IntentionalityReview of Philosophy and Psychology 8 (2): 199-218. 2016.Different versions of the idea that individualism about agency is the root of standard game theoretical puzzles have been defended by Regan 1980, Bacharach, Hurley, Sugden :165–181, 2003), and Tuomela 2013, among others. While collectivistic game theorists like Michael Bacharach provide formal frameworks designed to avert some of the standard dilemmas, philosophers of collective action like Raimo Tuomela aim at substantive accounts of collective action that may explain how agents overcoming such…Read more
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96Co-responsibility and Causal InvolvementPhilosophia 41 (3): 847-866. 2013.In discussions of moral responsibility for collectively produced effects, it is not uncommon to assume that we have to abandon the view that causal involvement is a necessary condition for individual co-responsibility. In general, considerations of cases where there is “a mismatch between the wrong a group commits and the apparent causal contributions for which we can hold individuals responsible” motivate this move. According to Brian Lawson, “solving this problem requires an approach that deem…Read more
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76Belief & Desire: The Standard Model of Intentional Action : Critique and DefenceBjörn Petersson, Dep. Of Philosophy, Kungshuset, Lundagård, Se-222 22 Lund,. 2000.The scheme of concepts we employ in daily life to explain intentional behaviour form a belief-desire model, in which motivating states are sorted into two suitably broad categories. The BD model embeds a philosophy of action, i.e. a set of assumptions about the ontology of motivation with subsequent restrictions on psychologising and norms of practical reason. A comprehensive critique of those assumptions and implications is offered in this work, and various criticisms of the model are met. The …Read more
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63Bratman, Searle, and Simplicity : Comments on Bratman, Shared Agency, Planning Theory of Acting TogetherJournal of Social Ontology 1 (1). 2015.Michael Bratman’s work is established as one of the most important philosophical approaches to group agency so far, and Shared Agency, A Planning Theory of Acting Together confirms that impression. In this paper I attempt to challenge the book’s central claim that considerations of theoretical simplicity will favor Bratman’s theory of collective action over its main rivals. I do that, firstly, by questioning whether there must be a fundamental difference in kind between Searle style we-intention…Read more
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58Over-Determined Harms and Harmless PluralitiesEthical Theory and Moral Practice 21 (4): 841-850. 2018.A popular strategy for meeting over-determination and pre-emption challenges to the comparative counterfactual conception of harm is Derek Parfit’s suggestion, more recently defended by Neil Feit, that a plurality of events harms A if and only if that plurality is the smallest plurality of events such that, if none of them had occurred, A would have been better off. This analysis of ‘harm’ rests on a simple but natural mistake about the relevant counterfactual comparison. Pluralities fulfilling …Read more
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56Co-responsibility and Causal InvolvementPhilosophia 41 (3): 847-866. 2013.In discussions of moral responsibility for collectively produced effects, it is not uncommon to assume that we have to abandon the view that causal involvement is a necessary condition for individual co-responsibility. In general, considerations of cases where there is “a mismatch between the wrong a group commits and the apparent causal contributions for which we can hold individuals responsible” motivate this move. According to Brian Lawson, “solving this problem requires an approach that deem…Read more
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37Collective Guilt FeelingsIn Saba Bazargan-Forward & Deborah Perron Tollefsen (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Collective Responsibility, Routledge. 2020.Defenses of the possibility of collective guilt feelings falls roughly into two categories: collectivistic positions that assign guilt feelings to groups as such but play down the experiential component in guilt feelings, and individualistic positions which understand collective guilt feelings in terms of individual experiences. The analogy between collective and individual guilt feelings is examined from two collectivistic viewpoints. It is argued that the functional states of collectives and i…Read more
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35Too Many Omissions, Too Much Causation?In Robin Stenwall & Tobias Hansson Wahlberg (eds.), Maurinian Truths : Essays in Honour of Anna-Sofia Maurin on her 50th Birthday, Department of Philosophy, Lund University. 2019.
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23Hommage à Wlodek; 60 Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz - published as web resource only (edited book)Department of Philosophy, Lund University. 2007.
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14Four brides for twelve brothers: how to Dutch book a group of fully rational playersIn Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Björn Petersson, Jonas Josefsson & Dan Egonsson (eds.), Hommage a Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz, . 2007.Wlodek Rabinowicz suggested in an e-mail conversation (2001) to me that one might be able to use a particular Hats Puzzle to make a Dutch Book against a group of individually rational persons. I present a fanciful story here that has the same structure as Rabinowicz’s Dutch Book.
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12Group Morality and Moral Groups: Ethical Aspects of the Tuomelian We-ModeIn Miguel Garcia-Godinez & Rachael Mellin (eds.), Tuomela on Sociality, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 201-218. 2023.Raimo Tuomela’s we-mode groups are partly characterized by norms. Some norms may be characteristic of all we-mode groups like the norm restricting a member’s right to leave the group. Some think that this aspect of Tuomela’s theory has implausible ethical implications concerning the rights and autonomy of members in we-mode groups. That worry vanishes, I argue, on a plausible interpretation of Tuomela’s notion of social normativity and a reasonable precisification of the notion of autonomy in th…Read more
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11On an Apparent Asymmetry in Attitude DesertIn T. Rønnow-Rasmussen B. Petersson J. Josefsson D. Egonsson (ed.), Hommage à Wlodek. Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz, . 2007.
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9A Comment on Michael Smith's Analysis of valuingIn Wlodek Rabinowicz (ed.), Preference and Value, Studies in Philosophy 1996/1, . 1996.
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7Consensus by aggregation and deliberationHommage a Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz. 2007.On the face of it both aggregation and deliberation represent alternative ways of producing a consensus. I argue, however, that the adequacy of aggregation mechanisms should be evaluated with an eye to the effects, both possible and actual, of public deliberation. Such an evaluation is undertaken by sketching a Bayesian model of deliberation as learning from others.
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61. Formal arguments against full 1:st person knowledge of motivation. 2. Empirical evidence against 1:st person knowledge of motivation. 3. Sensitivity to background factors. 4. Individuation of options. 5. Charitable or paternalistic interpretation. 6. The role of self-diagnosis in deliberation. 7. Conclusions.