It has been claimed in the literature that collective intentionality and group attitudes presuppose some “sense of ‘us’” among the participants (other labels sometimes used are “sense of community,” “communal awareness,” “shared point of view,” or “we-perspective”). While this seems plausible enough on an intuitive level, little attention has been paid so far to the question of what the nature and role of this mysterious “sense of ‘us’” might be. This paper states (and argues for) the following five claims: (1) (...) it is neither the case that the sense in question has the community (or “us”) in its content or as its object nor does the attitude in question presuppose a preexistent community (or “us”) as its subject. (2) The “sense of ‘us’” is plural pre-reflective self-awareness. (3) Plural pre-reflective self-awareness plays the same role in the constitution of a common mind that singular pre-reflective self-awareness plays in the individual mind. (4) The most important conceptions of plural subjects, collective persons, or group agents in the current literature fail to recognize the nature and role of plural self-awareness, and therefore fall short in important respects. (5) In spite of the striking similarities between the plural and the singular mind, there are important differences to consider. The authority of the singular first person point of view has no equivalent in the plural case. (shrink)

In ‘Ethics of sharing medical knowledge with the community: is the physician responsible for medical outreach during a pandemic?’ Strous and Karni note that the revised physician’s pledge in the World Medical Association Declaration of Geneva obligates individual physicians to share medical knowledge, which they interpret to mean a requirement to share knowledge publicly and through outreach. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, Strous and Karni defend a form of medical paternalism insofar as the individual physician must reach out (...) to communities who may not want, or know to seek out, medical advice, for reasons of public health and health equity. Strous and Karni offer a novel defence of why physicians ought to intervene even in insular communities, and they offer suggestions for how this could be done in culturally sensitive ways. Yet their view rests on an unfounded interpretation of the Geneva Declaration language. More problematically, their paper confuses shared and collective responsibility, misattributing the scope of individual physician obligations in potentially harmful ways. In response, this reply delineates between shared and collective responsibility, and suggests that to defend the obligation of medical outreach Strous and Karni propose, it is better conceptualised as a collective responsibility of the medical profession, rather than a shared responsibility of individual physicians. This interpretation rejects paternalism on the part of individual providers in favour of a more sensitive and collaborative practice of knowledge sharing between physicians and communities, and in the service of collective responsibility. (shrink)

There are puzzle cases that forfeiture theory has trouble handling, such as the issue of what happens to the rights of two qualitatively identical people who simultaneously launch unprovoked attacks against the other. Each person either has or lacks the right to defend against the other. If one attacker has the right, then the other does not and vice versa. Yet the two are qualitatively identical so it is impossible for one to have the right if the other does not. (...) The Problem of Symmetrical Attackers is a problem for non-consequentialism because the most plausible non-consequentialist theories assume that people have rights and can lose them by forfeiting them or waiving them. This article considers whether consequentialism can get around this problem. (shrink)

This essay discusses the nature of collective responsibility and explores various controversies associated with its possibility and normative value.

Multiculturalism has become a hot topic in political philosophy. This thesis investigates the philosophical foundations of multicultural theories through examining the key concepts commonly relied upon. A careful examination of each concept and the way in which they are interconnected, reveals an interesting strategy that the multiculturalist employs. It is my contention that the multiculturalist relies on a complex web of nebulous concepts which fools the reader into thinking that their theory rests on strong foundations. However, when we clear away (...) the fog of confusion, we can see that the multiculturalist has presented us with an illusion, and none of the concepts remain strong enough to hold any of the normative weight they need them to. Multiculturalism relies on grandiloquent rhetoric and muddled thinking, and will ultimately fail to achieve the liberal goals it purports to. (shrink)