In this article we critique the collectivist approach to collective moral responsibility. According to philosophers of a collectivist persuasion, a central notion of collective moral responsibility is moral responsibility assigned to a collective as a single entity. In our critique, we proceed by way of discussing the accounts and arguments of three prominent representatives of the collectivist approach with respect to collective responsibility: Margaret Gilbert, Russell Hardin, and Philip Pettit. Our aims are mainly critical; however, this should not be taken (...) to imply that we do not ourselves support an alternative account of collective responsibility. We advocate an individualist account of collective responsibility. On this view of collective responsibility as joint responsibility, collective responsibility is ascribed to individuals. Each member of the group is individually morally responsible for the outcome of the joint action, but each is individually responsible jointly with the others. (shrink)

Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke, Torture: When the Unthinkable is Morally Permissible Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2007, pp. xiii + 114.

Richard Lippke, Rethinking Imprisonment, 278pp. Although there are numerous monographs on the ethics of legal punishment1 and a small number of edited coll...

Historically, the quality of police investigations of police corruption and misconduct has been poor. Numerous police commissions in the United States,1 Australia,2 and elsewhere have found major d...

Biometric facial recognition is an artificial intelligence technology involving the automated comparison of facial features, used by law enforcement to identify unknown suspects from photographs and closed circuit television. Its capability is expanding rapidly in association with artificial intelligence and has great potential to solve crime. However, it also carries significant privacy and other ethical implications that require law and regulation. This article examines the rise of biometric facial recognition, current applications and legal developments, and conducts an ethical analysis of (...) the issues that arise. Ethical principles are applied to mediate the potential conflicts in relation to this information technology that arise between security, on the one hand, and individual privacy and autonomy, and democratic accountability, on the other. These can be used to support appropriate law and regulation for the technology as it continues to develop. (shrink)

Many of our interactions in the twenty-first century - both good and bad - take place by means of institutions, technology, and artefacts. We inhabit a world of implements, instruments, devices, systems, gadgets, and infrastructures. Technology is not only something that we make, but is also something that in many ways makes us. The discipline of ethics must take this constitutive feature of institutions and technology into account; thus, ethics must in turn be embedded in our institutions and technology. The (...) contributors to this book argue that the methodology of 'designing in ethics' - addressing and resolving the issues raised by technology through the use of appropriate technological design - is the way to achieve this integration. They apply their original methodology to a wide range of institutions and technologies, using case studies from the fields of healthcare, media and security. Their volume will be important for philosophical practitioners and theorists alike. (shrink)

This book deals with the problem of dual-use science research and technology. It first explains the concept of dual use and then offers analyses of collective knowledge and collective ignorance. It goes on to present a theory of collective responsibility, followed by four chapters focusing on a particular scientific field or industry of dual use concern: the chemical industry, the nuclear industry, cyber-technology and the biological sciences. The problem of dual-use science research and technology arises because such research and technology (...) has the potential to be used for great evil as well as for great good. On the one hand, knowledge is a necessary condition, and perhaps a constitutive feature, of technologies that contribute greatly to individual and collective well-being. Consider, for example, nuclear technology that enables the generation of low cost electricity in populations without obvious alternative energy sources. So technological knowledge is a good thing and ignorance of it a bad thing. On the other hand, these same technologies can be extremely harmful to individuals and collectives, as with the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So, at least with respect to some technologies evidently knowledge is a bad thing and ignorance a good thing. Accordingly, the question arises as to whether we ought to limit scientific research and/or the development of technology and, if so, which research or technology, in what manner and to what extent. This book examines the answer to that question. (shrink)

The dual-use dilemma arises in the context of research in the biological and other sciences as a consequence of the fact that one and the same piece of scientific research sometimes has the potential to be used for bad as well as good purposes. It is an ethical dilemma since it is about promoting good in the context of the potential for also causing harm, e.g., the promotion of health in the context of providing the wherewithal for the killing of (...) innocents. It is an ethical dilemma for the researcher because of the potential actions of others, e.g., malevolent non-researchers who might steal dangerous biological agents, or make use of the original researcher’s work. And it is a dilemma for governments concerned with the security of their citizens, as well as their health. In this article we construct a taxonomy of types of “experiments of concern” in the biological sciences, and thereby map the terrain of ethical risk. We then provide a series of analyses of the ethical problems and considerations at issue in the dual-use dilemma, including the impermissibility of certain kinds of research and possible restrictions on dissemination of research results given the risks to health and security. Finally, we explore the main available institutional responses to some of the specific ethical problems posed by the dual-use dilemma in the biological sciences. (shrink)

What obligations and responsibilities, if any, do adult children have with respect to their aged parents? This paper briefly considers the socio‐historical and legal bases for filial obligations and suggests there is a mismatch between perceptions in the community over what they see as their obligations, what policy makers would like to impose and how philosophers identify and ground these obligations. Examining four philosophical models of filial obligation, we conclude that no one account provides an adequate justification for the types (...) of responsibility that might be assumed in a family relationship. (shrink)

Margaret Gilbert has long defended the view that, roughly speaking, agents share the intention to perform an action if and only if they jointly commit to performing that action. This view has proven both influential and controversial. While some authors have raised concerns over the joint commitment view of shared intention, including at times offering purported counterexamples to certain aspects of the view, straightforward counterexamples to the view as a whole have yet to appear in the literature. Here we provide (...) such counterexamples to show that joint commitment is neither necessary nor sufficient for shared intention. (shrink)

At the United Nations climate change conference in 2011, parties decided to launch the “Durban Platform” to work towards a new long-term climate agreement. The decision was notable for the absence of any reference to “equity”, a prominent principle in all previous major climate agreements. Wealthy countries resisted the inclusion of equity on the grounds that the term had become too closely yoked to developing countries’ favored conception of equity. This conception, according to wealthy countries, exempts developing countries from making (...) commitments that are stringent enough for the collective effort needed to avoid dangerous climate change. In circumstances where even mentioning the term equity has become problematic, a critical question is whether scope for a fair agreement is being squeezed out of negotiations. To address this question we set out a conceptual framework for normative theorizing about fairness in international negotiations, accompanied by a set of minimal standards of fairness and plausible feasibility constraints for sharing the global climate change mitigation effort. We argue that a fair and feasible agreement may be reached by (i) reforming the current binary approach to differentiating developed and developing country groups, in tandem with (ii) introducing a more principled approach to differentiating the mitigation commitments of individual countries. These two priorities may provide the basis for a principled bargain between developed and developing countries that safeguards the opportunity to avoid dangerous climate change without sacrificing widely acceptable conceptions of equity. (shrink)

In this paper I provide a theory of the speech act of assertion according to which assertion is a species of joint action. In doing so I rely on a theory of joint action developed in more detail elsewhere. Here we need to distinguish between the genus, joint action, and an important species of joint action, namely, what I call joint epistemic action. In the case of the latter, but not necessarily the former, participating agents have epistemic goals, e.g., the (...) acquisition of knowledge. It is joint epistemic action that assertion is a species of. (shrink)

An integrity system is an integrated assemblage of institutional mechanisms, designed to minimize ethical misconduct and promote ethical health in institutions, organizations, occupations and the like. This book analyzes, describes and demonstrates the value of well-designed integrity systems for efficient, effective and ethically sustainable practice, in occupational groups in particular. Developing a blueprint for the design of integrity systems which can be tailored to the specific ethical needs of different occupational groups, this book furthers the general project of ethically informed (...) institutional design. The approach taken reflects the authors' academic background in professional ethics, as well as their extensive experience in the application of ethical theories and perspectives to the problems and challenges encountered by various occupational groups, such as accountants, business people, lawyers, doctors, nurses, social workers, engineers, emergency service workers and police. (shrink)

We have two aims in this paper. The first is negative: to demonstrate the problems in Bernard Gert’s account of common morality, in particular as it applies to professional morality. The second is positive: to suggest a more satisfactory explanation of the moral basis of professional role morality, albeit one that is broadly consistent with Gert’s notion of common morality, but corrects and supplements Gert’s theory. The paper is in three sections. In the first, we sketch the main features of (...) Gert’s account of common morality in general. In the second, we outline Gert’s explanation of the source of professional moral rules and demonstrate its inadequacy. In the third section, we provide an account of our own collectivist needs-based view of the source of the role-moral obligations of many professional roles, including those of health care professionals. (shrink)

Social action is central to social thought. This centrality reflects the overwhelming causal significance of action for social life, the centrality of action to any account of social phenomena, and the fact that conventions and normativity are features of human activity. This book provides philosophical analyses of fundamental categories of human social action, including cooperative action, conventional action, social norm governed action, and the actions of the occupants of organizational roles. A distinctive feature of the book is that it applies (...) these theories of social action categories to some important moral issues that arise in social contexts such as the collective responsibility for environmental pollution, humanitarian intervention, and dealing with the rights of minority groups. Avoiding both the excessively atomistic individualism of rational choice theorists and implausible collectivist assumptions, this important book will be widely read by philosophers of the social sciences, political scientists and sociologists. (shrink)

In this book, Seumas Miller examines the moral foundations of contemporary social institutions. Offering an original general theory of social institutions, he posits that all social institutions exist to realize various collective ends, indeed, to produce collective goods. He analyses key concepts such as collective responsibility and institutional corruption. Miller also provides distinctive special theories of particular institutions, including governments, welfare agencies, universities, police organizations, business corporations, and communications and information technology entities. These theories are philosophical and, (...) thus, foundational and synoptic in character. They are normative accounts of a sampling of contemporary social institutions, not descriptive accounts of all social institutions, both past and present. Miller also addresses various ethical challenges confronting contemporary institutional designers and policymakers, including the renovation of the international financial system, the 'dumbing down' of the media, the challenge of world poverty, and human rights infringements by security agencies combating global terrorism. (shrink)

Bioethics, Volume 35, Issue 8, Page 779-786, October 2021.

Technology regulation is one of the most important public policy issues facing society and governments at the present time, and further clarity could improve decision making in this complex and challenging area. Since the rise of the internet in the late 1990s, a number of approaches to technology regulation have been proposed, prompted by the associated changes in society, business and law that this development brought with it. However, over the past decade, the impact of technology has been profound and (...) the associated issues for government have extremely challenging, ranging across cyber security, artificial intelligence, and many other areas. To that end, this article introduces a Theory of Institutional Technology Actors and Norms (TITAN), a normatively informed and institutionally-based account of technology regulation. It focuses on the moral and legal (including regulatory) rights and responsibilities of the relevant actors and seeks to inform the development of regulation that is both fit for purpose, rights compliant and fair for all concerned. The account incorporates the perspectives of four key categories of groups in society: producers of technology, users of technology, government regulators, and normative policy shapers. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Perspectives on the Unity and Integration of Knowledge Garth Benson, Ronald Glasberg & Bryant Griffith Intercultural Communication: pragmatics, genealogy, deconstruction Robert Young.

Forensic genomics now enables law enforcement agencies to undertake rapid and detailed analysis of suspect samples using a technique known as massively parallel sequencing (MPS), including information such as physical traits, biological ancestry, and medical conditions. This article discusses the implications of MPS and provides ethical analysis, drawing on the concept of joint rights applicable to genomic data, and the concept of collective moral responsibility (understood as joint moral responsibility) that are applicable to law enforcement investigations that utilize genomic data. (...) The widespread and unconstrained use of this technology without appropriate legal protections of individual moral rights and associated accountability mechanisms, could potentially not only involve violations of individual moral rights but also lead to an unacceptable shift in the balance of power between governments and the citizenry. We argue that in light of the rights of victims and the security benefits for society, there is a collective moral responsibility for individuals to submit their DNA to law enforcement and for MPS to be used where other, less invasive techniques are not effective. However, this application should be limited by legislation, including that any data obtained should be directly relevant to the investigation and should be destroyed at the conclusion of the investigation. (shrink)

This article characterises the nature of cognitive warfare and its use of disinformation and computational propaganda and its political and military purposes in war and in conflict short of war. It discusses both defensive and offensive measures to counter cognitive warfare and, in particular, measures that comply with relevant moral principles.

High levels of police corruption have been a persistent historical tendency in police services throughout the world. While the general area of concern in this book is with police corruption and anti-corruption, the focus is on certain key philosophical and ethical issues that arise for police organisations confronting corruption. On the normative account proffered in this book the principal institutional purpose of policing is the protection of legally enshrined moral rights and the principal institutional anti-corruption arrangement is what is referred (...) to as an integrity system. The latter includes oversight bodies with investigative powers and internal affairs departments as well as specific devices such as early warning indicators, professional reporting mechanisms and integrity tests. Key concepts analysed in the book include corruption, noble cause corruption and collective moral responsibility. The key ethical issues analysed include investigative independence, professional reporting, covert operations and integrity tests. (shrink)

In this book, Seumas Miller develops distinctive philosophical analyses of corruption, collective responsibility and integrity systems, and applies them to cases in both the public and the private sectors. Using numerous well-known examples of institutional corruption, he explores a variety of actual and potential anti-corruption measures. The result is a wide-ranging, theoretically sophisticated and empirically informed work on institutional corruption and how to combat it. Part I defines the key concepts of corruption, power, collective responsibility, bribery, abuse of (...) authority and nepotism; Part II discusses anti-corruption and integrity systems, corruption investigations and whistle-blowing; and Part III focuses on corruption and anti-corruption in specific institutional settings, namely policing, finance, business and government. Integrating theory with practical approaches, this book will be important for those interested in the philosophy and ethics of corruption as well as for those who work to combat it. (shrink)

fusion theory challenges efforts to see theory as inhibiting by presenting an approach that is innovative, eclectic, and subtle in order to draw out competing and constellating ideas and opinions. This collected volume of essays examines fusion theory and demonstrates how the theory can be applied to the reading of various works of Indian English novelists.

This article discusses the process of empirical research on access to justice, explaining the procedure from data collection to analysis. Research into access to justice finds ways to render civil justice to citizens equitably. Reliable, non-anecdotal data is a prerequisite for useful empirical research into access to justice. Three international initiatives illustrate the reflection of access to justice in research projects. They are, the World Bank's Justice for the Poor Program, UNDP Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, and the (...) Tilburg Microjustice Initiative. The most comprehensive empirical projects on access to justice are those sponsored at the national or sub-national level. Non-governmental drivers of broad-based data collection are other legal actors. This article discusses examples of data collection and evaluation in countries where research has generated data on civil justice. Finally, this article discusses barriers to access to justice, which cause exclusion. (shrink)

This paper argues that the approach to questions of authority, legitimacy, and personal identity characteristic of contemporary European law presents a paradox. The power of the legal project that emerged after the French Revolution lay in its deployment of the notion of abstract legal subjectivity to challenge claimed authority. Much is made of the public law dimensions of this revolutionary moment—the creation of political constitutions establishing national citizenship and human rights standards. But the transposition of abstract legal subjectivity into the (...) private law through national social constitutions like Civil Codes has been far less successful.legal subjectivity in public law regimes necessarily privileges some personal identities over others in its construction of citizenship. These privileged identities of public law citizenship limit how legal subjects can express their identities in the private law. The paper proposes an alternative, pluralist, theorization of the diverse, iterative character of everyday human interaction that gives content to the idea of legal subjectivity in the private law. It seeks to reconcile a public law of abstract, unitary citizenship with a private law of plural legal subjectivities in a manner that advances the project of democratic constitutionalism. (shrink)

In this paper I explore the notion of collective moral responsibility as it pertains both to nation-states contemplating humanitarian armed intervention in international social conflicts, and as it pertains to social groups perpetrating human rights violations in such conflicts. I take the Rwandan genocide as illustrative of such conflicts and make use of it accordingly. I offer an individualist account of collective moral responsibility, according to which collective moral responsibility is a species of joint responsibility.