"I, Volkswagen" It has become almost platitudinous that collective agents can be blameworthy for wrongdoing. However, theorists of collectives' moral agency tend to take a functionalist approach, on which collectives are moral agents in much the same way as complicated robots. This is puzzling: we do not hold robots blameworthy when they do harm. I suggest we don't hold robots blameworthy because robots cannot grasp their own agency from the first-personal standpoint. This raises the question of how collective agents can grasp their own agency. I give an account of how collectives can do this, so as to vindicate our social-political practice of blaming collectives.
When
Thu Nov 21, 2019 4am – 5:30am Coordinated Universal Time
