IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pophec/v20y2021i1p22-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

With group power comes great (individual) responsibility

Author

Listed:
  • Erin L Miller

    (33585University of Chicago Law School, USA)

Abstract

When a group does harm, sometimes there’s no obvious individual who bears moral responsibility, and yet we still intuit that someone is to blame. This apparent ‘deficit’ of moral responsibility has led some scholars to posit that groups themselves can be responsible, and that this responsibility is distributed in some uniform fashion among group members. This solution to the deficit, however, risks providing a scapegoat for individuals who have acted wrongly and shifting blame onto those who have not. Instead, this article argues that, in most deficit cases, moral responsibility is borne not by the group but by specific individual members. When an individual acts within a group, she gains an increased potential for doing harm – and, accordingly, heightened duties of care toward others. These duties can, depending on the individual’s position, require amending the group’s rules, procedures, and norms. In most deficit cases, it is individuals who have failed to fulfill these duties who are responsible.

Suggested Citation

  • Erin L Miller, 2021. "With group power comes great (individual) responsibility," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 20(1), pages 22-44, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:20:y:2021:i:1:p:22-44
    DOI: 10.1177/1470594X20982052
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1470594X20982052
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1470594X20982052?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hindriks, Frank, 2009. "Corporate Responsibility And Judgment Aggregation," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 161-177, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Boudewijn Bruin, 2013. "Epistemic Virtues in Business," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 113(4), pages 583-595, April.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:pophec:v:20:y:2021:i:1:p:22-44. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.