ABSTRACT

This chapter addresses the question of how moral responsibility that attaches in the first instance to groups of agents (as opposed to organizations or institutions) should be distributed to the individual members of the group. It identifies the conditions under which such a group is collectively morally responsible for having done something and argues that in these cases, in the absence of other conflicting duties or responsibilities, and assuming members act freely and are aware of the consequences of what the group does, each member of the group is culpable to the degree he would be if acting alone regardless of the size of the causal contribution and regardless of whether it was overdetermined.