Collective Responsibility

This anthology presents the best recent philosophical analyses of moral, political, and legal responsibility of groups and their members. Motivated by reflection on such events as the Holocaust, the exploding Ford Pintos, the My Lai massacre, and apartheid in South Africa, the essays consider two important questions: What collective efforts could have prevented these large-scale social harms? And is some group to blame and, if so, how is blame to be apportioned? Contributors: R.P. Lewis, Joel Feinberg, Howard McGary, D.E. Cooper, R.S. Downie, Virginia Held, Stanley Bates, Manuel Velasquez, Peter French, Richard T. DeGeorge, James Muyskens, Richard Wasserstrom, Kurt Bauer, Anthony Appiah, Larry May, A. Zvie Bar-on, and Hannah Arendt.

This anthology presents the best recent philosophical analyses of moral, political, and legal responsibility of groups and their members. Motivated by reflection on such events as the Holocaust, the exploding Ford Pintos, the My Lai massacre, and apartheid in South Africa, the essays consider two important questions: What collective efforts could have prevented these large-scale social harms? And is some group to blame and, if so, how is blame to be apportioned?

Larry May is Professor of Philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. Stacey Hoffman is Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University.