Constitutional responsibility
| Abstract | This paper asks whether an individual or a political community (henceforth: 'constitutional community') ever incurs moral responsibility for the requirements made by the norms of their constitution. We argue, first, that any constitutional community bears collective moral responsibility for those requirements. We reach this thesis by showing that (i) a constitutional community is a group which can take collective actions attributable to the group as a whole, and (ii) any given set of constitutional norms is the outcome of such collective action. We argue, second, that ordinary citizens of constitutional communities can, in normal circumstances, bear individual moral responsibility for such norms. We reach this second thesis by showing that an average citizen bears individual responsibility for the direct outcome of her polity's collective action whenever she both (1) contributes to the collective action where she need not fear serious reprisals for not contributing, and (2) supports and reflectively endorses the outcome. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,664 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesSeumas Miller (1998). Collective Responsibility, Armed Intervention and the Rwandan Genocide. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 12 (2):223-238.
Marion Smiley (2010). "From Moral Agency to Collective Wrongs: Re-Thinking Collective Moral Responsibility". Journal of Law and Policy (1):171-202.
R. S. Downie (1982). Collective Responsibility in Health Care. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 7 (1):43-56.
James L. Muyskens (1982). Nurses' Collective Responsibility and the Strike Weapon. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 7 (1):101-112.
Paul B. Thompson (1986). Collective Responsibility and Professional Roles. Journal of Business Ethics 5 (2):151 - 154.
Gunnar Björnsson (2011). Joint Responsibility Without Individual Control: Applying the Explanation Hypothesis. In Jeroen van den Hoven, Ibo van de Poel & Nicole Vincent (eds.), Compatibilist Responsibility: beyond free will and determinism. Springer.
Roland Pierik (2008). Collective Responsibility and National Responsibility. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 11 (4):465-483.
Linda Radzik (2001). Collective Responsibility and Duties to Respond. Social Theory and Practice 27 (3):455-471.
Tracy Lynn Isaacs (2011). Moral Responsibility in Collective Contexts. Oxford University Press.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads17 ( #71,024 of 549,007 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,261 of 549,007 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
