Moral Responsibility - Collective Moral Responsibility

Collective Moral Responsibility

When people attribute moral responsibility, they usually attribute it to individual moral agents. However, Joel Feinberg, among others, has argued that corporations and other groups of people can have what is called ‘collective moral responsibility’ for a state of affairs. For example, when South Africa had an apartheid regime, the country's government might have been said to have had collective moral responsibility for the violation of the rights of non-European South Africans.

Read more about this topic:  Moral Responsibility

Famous quotes containing the words collective and/or moral:

    “It is difficult to generalize why so many Latino/as moved toward conservative ... views.... for many, I believe it is basically a matter of desiring material acquisitions. It is difficult to maintain a collective ideology in a society where possessions and power-status equal self-worth.”
    —Ana Castillo (b. 1953)

    “That those tribes [the Sac and Fox Indians] cannot exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain. They have neither the intelligence, the industry, the moral habits, nor the desire of improvement which are essential to any favorable change in their condition.”
    —Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)