ABSTRACT
The issue of collective moral rights raises a number of important issues. One such issue is the claimed existence of supra-individual entities, such as nations and ethnic groups, that possess moral properties, including moral rights, above and beyond the moral properties that the individual persons that compose them possess. Another issue is the possibility that fundamental human rights possessed by individuals might be justifiably overridden by collective rights. A third issue is the moral claims of minority cultural groups. This chapter argues that collective moral rights are joint rights of individual persons. An instance of collective rights held against the larger community might be the land rights of the Australian Aboriginals held against other Australians. Collective rights are joint rights to collective goods, and joint rights possessed in part in virtue of membership of a viable and morally acceptable social group.
