ABSTRACT
The phrase 'collective responsibility' is bound up, in our minds, with associations of the worst kind. It conjures up visions of occupying powers murdering people at random in revenge for attempts at resistance; of hostages taken and killed; and of terrorist attacks in which hundreds of people, quite uninvolved in whatever it was all about, end up dead. But victory or defeat on the playing field has little to do with moral responsibility, and that is a more difficult problem. Perhaps the most important issue under that heading is that of national responsibility. The case of religious bodies seems analogous. Each one of us belongs to a variety of human collectivities which retain their identity even as their membership changes: a nation, a Church, a social or political organization, or an institution, such as a school, a hospital, a university or a city.
