The Ethics of Blaming and Praising Group Agents

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.