Project Description

This project lies at the intersection of social ontology, collective ethics, and the ethics of blame and praise. An important part of our moral responsibility practices involves morally blaming or praising individuals for their actions. We usually blame someone when they did something morally wrong without excuse. For example, your friend broke a promise, and you resent them for doing so. We typically praise someone when they did something morally right or exceptional and they had the right motivation. For example, you express your admiration to your aunt for helping so many people in need with her tireless and selfless community work. Philosophers have developed detailed theories about the nature of blame and praise, when someone is worthy of blame and praise, and when these interactions between individuals involving blame or praise are appropriate. These theories are typically developed solely with individuals in mind. But we adopt the same moral responses towards groups. We blame corporations for polluting the environment. We praise NGOs for saving countless lives. Thus, groups are also an important part of our moral responsibility practices. How should we make sense of this? Some philosophers (moral individualists) think that this always involves blaming or praising a member of that group, for example the CEO or a manager. But other philosophers (moral collectivists) disagree, and think that, at least sometimes, the group itself is to blame or praise. We blame the organization, but not necessarily any individual. They think that groups, just as the average individual, are moral agents, capable of discerning right from wrong and acting in the right way. This is why it makes sense to blame or praise the group. In this debate, the theories of blame, praise, moral agency, and moral responsibility play a crucial role. What often happens is that philosophers from both camps simply apply the theories developed for individuals to groups. The group domain - all moral phenomena involving groups - plays no role in developing these theories. This project argues that this is a fundamental methodological mistake. The project first develops a novel methodology where the group domain plays an important role in developing the relevant theories of blame, praise, moral agency, and moral responsibility. And in a second step, based on this novel methodology, the project investigates how these cases involving groups matter for our understanding of the nature of blame and praise, of the conditions under which an agent is blameworthy or praiseworthy, and when blame- or praise-interactions are appropriate.

The project is subdivided in three sub-projects and focuses on seven research questions:

Sub-Project 1: Methodology
1.      What is the best methodology for systematically including our moral judgments about and moral interactions with or between groups in our theorizing about moral agency, moral responsibility and blame and praise?

Sub-Project 2: Blame
2.      What can we learn from the group domain about the nature of blame?
3.      What can we learn from the group domain about the conditions of moral blameworthiness?
4.      What can we learn from the group domain about the conditions for the appropriateness of blame-interactions?

Sub-Project 3: Praise
5.      What can we learn from the group domain about the nature of praise?
6.      What can we learn from the group domain about the conditions of moral praiseworthiness?
7.      What can we learn from the group domain about the conditions for the appropriateness of praise-interactions?

You can find the more detailed project proposal below.