ABSTRACT

The Routledge Handbook of Collective Responsibility comprehensively addresses questions about who is responsible and how blame or praise should be attributed when human agents act together. Such questions include: Do individuals share responsibility for the outcome or are individuals responsible only for their contribution to the act? Are individuals responsible for actions done by their group even when they don’t contribute to the outcome? Can a corporation or institution be held morally responsible apart from the responsibility of its members?

The Handbook’s 35 chapters—all appearing here for the first time and written by an international team of experts—are organized into four parts:

Part I: Foundations of Collective Responsibility

Part II: Theoretical Issues in Collective Responsibility

Part III: Domains of Collective Responsibility

Part IV: Applied Issues in Collective Responsibility

Each part begins with a short introduction that provides an overview of issues and debates within that area and a brief summary of its chapters. In addition, a comprehensive index allows readers to better navigate the entirety of the volume’s contents. The result is the first major work in the field that serves as an instructional aid for those in advanced undergraduate courses and graduate seminars, as well as a reference for scholars interested in learning more about collective responsibility.

part I|150 pages

Foundations of Collective Responsibility

chapter 4|14 pages

What Sets the Boundaries of Our Responsibility?

Lessons from a Reductionist Account of Individual Agency

chapter 6|16 pages

From Individual to Collective Responsibility

There and Back Again

chapter 8|14 pages

Assembling the Elephant

Attending to the Metaphysics of Corporate Agents

part II|3 pages

Theoretical Issues in Collective Responsibility

chapter 16|15 pages

Collective Guilt Feelings

chapter 22|14 pages

Bystanders and Shared Responsibility

part III|104 pages

Domains of Collective Responsibility