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  1. Group Duties: Their Existence and Their Implications for Individuals.Stephanie Collins - 2019 - Oxford University Press.
    Moral duties are regularly attributed to groups. Does this make conceptual sense or is this merely political rhetoric? And what are the implications for these individuals within groups? Collins outlines a Tripartite Model of group duties that can target political demands at the right entities, in the right way and for the right reasons.
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  • What We Together Do.Derek Parfit - manuscript
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  • Consumer Choice and Collective Impact.Julia Nefsky - 2017 - In Anne Barnhill, Mark Budolfson & Tyler Doggett (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Food Ethics. Oxford University Press. pp. 267-286.
    Taken collectively, consumer food choices have a major impact on animal lives, human lives, and the environment. But it is far from clear how to move from facts about the power of collective consumer demand to conclusions about what one ought to do as an individual consumer. In particular, even if a large-scale shift in demand away from a certain product (e.g., factory-farmed meat) would prevent grave harms or injustices, it typically does not seem that it will make a difference (...)
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  • The inefficacy objection to consequentialism and the problem with the expected consequences response.Mark Bryant Budolfson - 2019 - Philosophical Studies 176 (7):1711-1724.
    Collective action problems lie behind many core issues in ethics and social philosophy—for example, whether an individual is required to vote, whether it is wrong to consume products that are produced in morally objectionable ways, and many others. In these cases, it matters greatly what we together do, but yet a single individual’s ‘non-cooperative’ choice seems to make no difference to the outcome and also seems to involve no violation of anyone’s rights. Here it is argued that—contrary to influential arguments (...)
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  • What’s Wrong with Joyguzzling?Ewan Kingston & Walter Sinnott-Armstrong - 2018 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21 (1):169-186.
    Our thesis is that there is no moral requirement to refrain from emitting reasonable amounts of greenhouse gases solely in order to enjoy oneself. Joyriding in a gas guzzler provides our paradigm example. We first distinguish this claim that there is no moral requirement to refrain from joyguzzling from other more radical claims. We then review several different proposed objections to our view. These include: the claim that joyguzzling exemplifies a vice, causes or contributes to harm, has negative expected value, (...)
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  • What We Together Ought to Do.Alexander Dietz - 2016 - Ethics 126 (4):955-982.
    I argue that we have not only individual reasons for action but also collective reasons for action: reasons which apply to us as a group. I next argue that if we together have a reason to act, then I may have a reason to do my part, but only when others will do theirs. Finally, I argue that collective reasons to do good can never make a difference to what individuals ought to do, but that other kinds of collective reasons (...)
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  • Reasons and Persons.Joseph Margolis - 1986 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 (2):311-327.
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  • Why Citizens Should Vote: A Causal Responsibility Approach.Alvin I. Goldman - 1999 - Social Philosophy and Policy 16 (2):201-217.
    Why should a citizen vote? There are two ways to interpret this question: in a prudential sense, and in a moral sense. Under the first interpretation, the question asks why—or under what circumstances—it is in a citizen's self-interest to vote. Under the second interpretation, it asks what moral reasons citizens have for voting. I shall mainly try to answer the moral version of the question, but my answer may also, in some circumstances, bear on the prudential question. Before proceeding to (...)
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  • Review of Donald Regan: Utilitarianism and co-operation[REVIEW]William Nelson - 1982 - Ethics 92 (4):751-753.
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  • How you can help, without making a difference.Julia Nefsky - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (11):2743-2767.
    There are many cases in which people collectively cause some morally significant outcome (such as a harmful or beneficial outcome) but no individual act seems to make a difference. The problem in such cases is that it seems each person can argue, ‘it makes no difference whether or not I do X, so I have no reason to do it.’ The challenge is to say where this argument goes wrong. My approach begins from the observation that underlying the problem and (...)
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  • Fairness, Participation, and the Real Problem of Collective Harm.Julia Nefsky - 2015 - Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 5:245-271.
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  • (1 other version)What we owe to each other.Thomas Scanlon - 1998 - Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
    In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other.
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  • (1 other version)Great harms from small benefits grow: how death can be outweighed by headaches.A. Norcross - 1998 - Analysis 58 (2):152-158.
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  • Environmental Damage and the Puzzle of the Self-Torturer.Chrisoula Andreou - 2005 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 34 (1):95-108.
    I show, building on Warren Quinn's puzzle of the self-torturer, that destructive conduct with respect to the environment can flourish even in the absence of interpersonal conflicts. As Quinn's puzzle makes apparent, in cases where individually negligible effects are involved, an agent, whether it be an individual or a unified collective, can be led down a course of destruction simply as a result of following its informed and perfectly understandable but intransitive preferences. This is relevant with respect to environmental ethics, (...)
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  • It's Not My Fault: Global Warming and Individual Moral Obligations.Walter Sinnott-Armstrong - 2005 - In Walter Sinnott-Armstrong & Richard B. Howarth (eds.), Perspectives on Climate Change. Elsevier. pp. 221–253.
    A survey of various candidates shows that there is no defensible moral principle that shows that individuals have an obligation to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
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  • Pooled beneficence.Garrett Cullity - 2000 - In Mike Almeida (ed.), Imperceptible Harms and Benefits. Springer. pp. 9-42.
    There can be situations in which, if I contribute to a pool of resources for helping a large number of people, the difference that my contribution makes to any of the people helped from the pool will be imperceptible at best, and maybe even non-existent. And this can be the case where it is also true that giving the same amount directly to one of the intended beneficiaries of the pool would have made a very large difference to her. Can (...)
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  • Difference-Making and Individuals' Climate-Related Obligations.Holly Lawford-Smith - 2016 - In Clare Heyward & Dominic Roser (eds.), Climate Justice in a Non-Ideal World. Oxford University Press UK. pp. 64-82.
    Climate change appears to be a classic aggregation problem, in which billions of individuals perform actions none of which seem to be morally wrong taken in isolation, and yet which combine to drive the global concentration of greenhouse gases (GHGs) ever higher toward environmental (and humanitarian) catastrophe. When an individual can choose between actions that will emit differing amounts of GHGs―such as to choose a vegan rather than carnivorous meal, to ride a bike to work rather than drive a car, (...)
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  • Climate Matters: Ethics in a Warming World.John Broome - 2012 - W. W. Norton.
    Esteemed philosopher John Broome avoids the familiar ideological stances on climate change policy and examines the issue through an invigorating new lens. As he considers the moral dimensions of climate change, he reasons clearly through what universal standards of goodness and justice require of us, both as citizens and as governments. His conclusions—some as demanding as they are logical—will challenge and enlighten. Eco-conscious readers may be surprised to hear they have a duty to offset all their carbon emissions, while policy (...)
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  • Small Impacts and Imperceptible Effects: Causing Harm with Others.Kai Spiekermann - 2014 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 38 (1):75-90.
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  • Individual responsibility in a global age.Samuel Scheffler - 1995 - Social Philosophy and Policy 12 (1):219-236.
    As the twentieth century begins to draw to a close, Europe is undergoing a process of political transformation whose outcome cannot be predicted with confidence, in part because the process is being driven by two powerful but conflicting tendencies. The first is the movement toward greater economic and political union among the countries of Western Europe. The second is the pressure, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, for the countries of Eastern Europe to fragment along ethnic (...)
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  • Consequentialism and the Problem of Collective Harm: A Reply to Kagan.Julia Nefsky - 2011 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 39 (4):364-395.
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  • “My Emissions Make No Difference”: Climate Change and the Argument from Inconsequentialism.Joakim Sandberg - 2011 - Environmental Ethics 33 (3):229-48.
    “Since the actions I perform as an individual only have an inconsequential effect on the threat of climate change,” a common argument goes, “it cannot be morally wrong for me to take my car to work everyday or refuse to recycle.” This argument has received a lot of scorn from philosophers over the years, but has actually been defended in some recent articles. A more systematic treatment of a central set of related issues shows how maneuvering around these issues is (...)
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  • Do I Make a Difference?Shelly Kagan - 2011 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 39 (2):105-141.
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  • Climate Change and Individual Responsibility.Avram Hiller - 2011 - The Monist 94 (3):349-368.
    Several philosophers claim that the greenhouse gas emissions from actions like a Sunday drive are so miniscule that they will make no difference whatsoever with regard to anthropogenic global climate change (AGCC) and its expected harms. This paper argues that this claim of individual causal inefficacy is false. First, if AGCC is not reducible at least in part to ordinary actions, then the cause would have to be a metaphysically odd emergent entity. Second, a plausible (dis-)utility calculation reveals that such (...)
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  • Is there a Duty to Vote?Loren E. Lomasky & Geoffrey Brennan - 2000 - Social Philosophy and Policy 17 (1):62.
    The genre of public service advertisements that appear with two- and four-year cyclical regularity is familiar. Cameras pan across scenes of marines hoisting the flag on Iwo Jima, a bald eagle soaring in splendid flight, rows of grave markers at Arlington. The somber-voiced announcer remonstrates: “ They did their part; now you do yours.” Once again it is the season to fulfill one's civic duty, to vote.
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  • The paradox of voting and the ethics of political representation.Alexander A. Guerrero - 2010 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 38 (3):272-306.
    This paper connects the question of the rationality of voting to the question of what it is morally permissible for elected representatives to do. In particular, the paper argues that it is rational to vote to increase the strength of the manifest normative mandate of one's favored candidate. I argue that, due to norms of political legitimacy, how representatives ought to act while in office is tied to how much support they have from their constituents, where a representative’s “support” is (...)
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  • Ethical Theory and the Problem of Inconsequentialism: Why Environmental Ethicists Should be Virtue-Oriented Ethicists. [REVIEW]Ronald Sandler - 2009 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 23 (1-2):167-183.
    Many environmental problems are longitudinal collective action problems. They arise from the cumulative unintended effects of a vast amount of seemingly insignificant decisions and actions by individuals who are unknown to each other and distant from each other. Such problems are likely to be effectively addressed only by an enormous number of individuals each making a nearly insignificant contribution to resolving them. However, when a person’s making such a contribution appears to require sacrifice or costs, the problem of inconsequentialism arises: (...)
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  • Polluting the Polls: When Citizens Should Not Vote.Jason Brennan - 2009 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (4):535-549.
    Just because one has the right to vote does not mean just any vote is right. Citizens should not vote badly. This duty to avoid voting badly is grounded in a general duty not to engage in collectively harmful activities when the personal cost of restraint is low. Good governance is a public good. Bad governance is a public bad. We should not be contributing to public bads when the benefit to ourselves is low. Many democratic theorists agree that we (...)
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  • Ethical Obligations in a Tragedy of the Commons.Baylor L. Johnson - 2003 - Environmental Values 12 (3):271-287.
    When people use a resource without a co-ordinated plan the result is often a tragedy of the commons in which the resource is depleted. Many environmental resources display the characteristics of a developing tragedy of the commons. Many believe that each person is ethically obligated to reduce use of the commons to the sustainable level. I argue that this is mistaken. In a tragedy of the commons there is no reasonable expectation that individual, voluntary action will succeed. Our obligation is (...)
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  • The puzzle of the self-torturer.Warren S. Quinn - 1990 - Philosophical Studies 59 (1):79-90.
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  • When Utilitarians Should Be Virtue Theorists.Dale Jamieson - 2007 - Utilitas 19 (2):160.
    The contrast typically made between utilitarianism and virtue theory is overdrawn. Utilitarianism is a universal emulator: it implies that we should lie, cheat, steal, even appropriate Aristotle, when that is what brings about the best outcomes. In some cases and in some worlds it is best for us to focus as precisely as possible on individual acts. In other cases and worlds it is best for us to be concerned with character traits. Global environmental change leads to concerns about character (...)
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  • The morality of collective actions.Torbjorn Tannsjo - 1989 - Philosophical Quarterly 39 (155):221-228.
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  • Utilitarianism and vegetarianism.Peter Singer - 1980 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 9 (4):325-337.
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  • Puppies, pigs, and people: Eating meat and marginal cases.Alastair Norcross - 2004 - Philosophical Perspectives 18 (1):229–245.
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  • (1 other version)Great Harms from small benefits grow: How death can be outweighed by headaches.Alastair Norcross - 1998 - Analysis 58 (2):152–158.
    Suppose that a very large number of people, say one billion, will suffer a moderately severe headache for the next twenty-four hours. For these billion people, the next twenty-four hours will be fairly unpleasant, though by no means unbearable. However, there will be no side-effects from these headaches; no drop in productivity in the work-place, no lapses in concentration leading to accidents, no unkind words spoken to loved ones that will later fester. Nonetheless, it is clearly desirable that these billion (...)
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  • Precis of Group Duties: Their Existence and Their Implications for Individuals.Stephanie Collins - 2020 - Journal of Social Ontology 6 (1):85-89.
    This paper provides an overview of Group Duties: Their Existence and Their Implications for Individuals.
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  • No free lunch: The significance of tiny contributions.Zach Barnett - 2018 - Analysis 78 (1):3-13.
    There is a well-known moral quandary concerning how to account for the rightness or wrongness of acts that clearly contribute to some morally significant outcome – but which each seem too small, individually, to make any meaningful difference. One consequentialist-friendly response to this problem is to deny that there could ever be a case of this type. This paper pursues this general strategy, but in an unusual way. Existing arguments for the consequentialist-friendly position are sorites-style arguments. Such arguments imagine varying (...)
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  • (1 other version)Utilitarianism and Cooperation.Donald Regan - 1983 - Law and Philosophy 2 (2):251-256.
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  • Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age.Christopher Kutz - 2000 - New York: Cambridge University Press.
    We live in a morally flawed world. Our lives are complicated by what other people do, and by the harms that flow from our social, economic and political institutions. Our relations as individuals to these collective harms constitute the domain of complicity. This book examines the relationship between collective responsibility and individual guilt. It presents a rigorous philosophical account of the nature of our relations to the social groups in which we participate, and uses that account in a discussion of (...)
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  • Sharing Responsibility.Larry May - 1992 - University of Chicago Press.
    Are individuals responsible for the consequences of actions taken by their community? What about their community's inaction or its attitudes? In this innovative book, Larry May departs from the traditional Western view that moral responsibility is limited to the consequences of overt individual action. Drawing on the insights of Arendt, Jaspers, and Sartre, he argues that even when individuals are not direct participants, they share responsibility for various harms perpetrated by their communities.
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  • Comparing Harms: Headaches and Human Lives.Alastair Norcross - 1997 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 26 (2):135-167.
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  • Unethical Consumption & Obligations to Signal.Holly Lawford-Smith - 2015 - Ethics and International Affairs 29 (3):315-330.
    Many of the items that humans consume are produced in ways that involve serious harms to persons. Familiar examples include the harms involved in the extraction and trade of conflict minerals (e.g. coltan, diamonds), the acquisition and import of non- fair trade produce (e.g. coffee, chocolate, bananas, rice), and the manufacture of goods in sweatshops (e.g. clothing, sporting equipment). In addition, consumption of certain goods (significantly fossil fuels and the products of the agricultural industry) involves harm to the environment, to (...)
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  • Climate Change and the Moral Agent: Individual Duties in an Interdependent World.Elizabeth Cripps - 2013 - Oxford University Press.
    Climate Change and the Moral Agent examines the moral foundations of climate change and makes a case for collective action on climate change by appealing to moralized collective self-interest, collective ability to aid, and an expanded understanding of collective responsibility for harm.
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  • Group morality.Frank Jackson - 1987 - In John Jamieson Carswell Smart, Philip Pettit, Richard Sylvan & Jean Norman (eds.), Metaphysics and Morality: Essays in Honour of J. J. C. Smart. New York, NY, USA: Blackwell.
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  • (1 other version)Justifiability to each person.Derek Parfit - 2003 - Ratio 16 (4):368–390.
    sonable, in this sense, if we ignore, or give too little weight to, some other people's well-being or moral claims.' Some critics have suggested that, because Scanlon appeals to this sense of 'reasonable', his formula is empty. On this objection, whenever we believe that some act is wrong, we shall believe that people have moral claims not to be treated in this way. We could therefore argue that such acts are disallowed by some principle which no one could reasonably reject, (...)
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  • Climate Change and Individual Duties to Reduce GHG Emissions.Christian Baatz - 2014 - Ethics, Policy and Environment 17 (1):1-19.
    Although actions of individuals do contribute to climate change, the question whether or not they, too, are morally obligated to reduce the GHG emissions in their responsibility has not yet been addressed sufficiently. First, I discuss prominent objections to such a duty. I argue that whether individuals ought to reduce their emissions depends on whether or not they exceed their fair share of emission rights. In a next step I discuss several proposals for establishing fair shares and also take practical (...)
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  • Group-based reasons for action.Christopher Woodard - 2003 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (2):215-229.
    This article endorses a familiar, albeit controversial, argument for the existence of group-based reasons for action, but then rejects two doctrines which other advocates of such reasons usually accept. One such doctrine is the willingness requirement, which says that a group-based reason exists only if (sufficient) other members of the group in question are willing to cooperate. Thus the paper argues that there is sometimes a reason, which derives from the rationality of some group action, to play one's part unilaterally (...)
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  • The paradox of group beneficence.Michael Otsuka - 1991 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 20 (2):132-149.
    An argument against Parfit's view (in his chapter of Reasons and Persons on five mistakes in moral mathematics) that, rather than maximizing the difference one makes as an individual, one should join that group whose members together make the most positive difference in cases involving imperceptible benefits. It is shown how Parfit's defence of this view has the problematic implication either (1) that each outcome is less beneficial than itself or (2) that "less beneficial than" is not transitive.
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  • Utilitarianism, group actions, and coordination or, must the utilitarian be a Buridan's ass?Jan Narveson - 1976 - Noûs 10 (2):173-194.
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  • What is the point of helping?James Fanciullo - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 177 (6):1487-1500.
    In some cases, a group of people can bring about a morally bad outcome despite each person’s individual act making no difference with respect to bringing that outcome about. Since each person’s act makes no difference, it seems the effects of the act cannot provide a reason not to perform it. This is problematic, because if each person acts in accordance with their reasons, each will presumably perform the act—and thus, the bad outcome will be brought about. Recently, Julia Nefsky (...)
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