Syftet med denna uppsats är att kritisera David Copps collective moral autonomy thesis. Denna tes säger att det är möjligt för kollektiv att ha moraliska förpliktelser och vara moraliskt ansvariga trots att ingen av dess medlemmar har motsvarande egenskaper. Copp har fört fram två argument och tre exempel till stöd för sin tes. Jag kommer att diskutera dessa utifrån den kritik som förts fram mot tesen. Min slutsats är att Copps tes, om ändå konceptuellt möjlig, inte stöds av de argument och exempel som Copp presenterar. Jag kommer huvudsakligen argumentera för att dessa är fall där ingen agent – varken ett kollektiv eller en individ – kan hållas moraliskt ansvarig.

I present a thorough metaphysics of causal overdetermination, which yields new insights into mental causation, our world's counterfactual structure, and properties of moral responsibility. I investigate causal overdetermination in three related papers.In "Overdetermination Underdetermined," I show that overdetermination has been underspecified in the literature, leading to a conflation of several important questions: (i) what is overdetermination?, (ii) is overdetermination physically possible, and if so, how ubiquitous is it?, and (iii) is overdetermination a problem?I diagnose the source of confusion as the following definition implicitly used in the literature:(OD) Causes c1 and c2 overdetermine an effect e if c1 and c2 are (i) distinct, (ii) they occur, and (iii) they are each sufficient to cause e in the way that it occurs.I hold that this is not in fact a definition, but a schema with several open definienda: distinctness, occurrence, causation, and precision in the way that the effect occurs. Different satisfiers yield different notions of overdetermination. Answers to the central questions regarding overdetermination are sensitive to the kinds of overdetermination in play. Once we are clear on what overdetermination is and to which sorts we are ontologically committed, we can also be clear on what is at stake for each debate--and it typically is not acceptance or denial of causal overdetermination per se.In "Overdetermination and Counterfactual Sensitivity," I show that the counterfactual structure of the world is richer than previously thought. I introduce a novel class of events that are insensitive to the additive force of multiple causes. They do not covary counterfactually with the multiplicity or force of their causes. They are to be contrasted with sensitive effects, which counterfactually covary according to the number and sorts of causes they have.In "Moral Overdetermination", I examine causal overdetermination in the context of moral responsibility. I use cases of moral overdetermination to introduce puzzles about the relationship between causal responsibility and moral responsibility that deserve further exploration. Along the way, I consider the instrumental value of various reductive theories of causation as guides to moral assessment, and I unearth interesting consequences for moral luck and for collective responsibility.

Thesis advisor: Lisa S. Cahill / This dissertation makes a case for renewed attention to the notion of collective agency and responsibility in Christian ethics. The overarching argument is that the kinds of moral claims we frequently make on social groups cannot be adequately reduced to individual or structural terms, and that a rightly construed sense of collective agency can help fill this conceptual gap. This view is in keeping with important elements of Christian reflection on the nature of social interaction and social life, and the main goal of the dissertation is the development of a model for understanding some groups as collective moral agents. After a survey of treatments of the problem of collective agency and responsibility in the Bible and Christian theology in the introduction, the dissertation turns to the work of two major figures in twentieth century Christian ethics, Jacques Maritain and Reinhold Niebuhr, to provide the central elements of this view of collective agency. Namely, these figures supply contrasting but mutually correcting accounts of individual intersubjectivity, structural non-reducibility, and collective intentionality in social groups. Perspectives from the social sciences and from analytic philosophy help clarify the issues at hand and adjudicate the differences between Maritain and Niebuhr. The dissertation ends with a theological synthesis of the forgoing discussion, proposing a view of the potential for collective moral agency that takes account of the capacity for both friendship and coercion in human intersubjectivity, for both community and conflict in social organization, and for both intentional creativity and impersonal functionality in the interaction of individual and structural elements of social life. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

The privatization of K-12 education in Canada is not new. The public and private sectors feel like natural elements of the Canadian education system because they have existed side by side since confederation. However, this thesis challenges that tradition and argues that private education undermines collective responsibility for education as a shared, public good by catering to private interests and isolating students from the public realm. Not only does private education reinforce the likelihood of socio-economic stratification, but the concept of a “public good” is increasingly destabilized as social services like education are privatized. Why, then, does the privatization of K-12 education continue to be an insignificant political issue in Canada? This question is particularly pertinent at a time when neoliberalism is in full swing in the United States, and all the time more apparent in Canada. Neoliberalism’s emphasis on the precedence of economic ideals over concerns for social welfare and democratic participation has transformed the way that we understand “value”. Drawing on a broad range of scholars including Charles Taylor, Richard Pildes, Janice Gross Stein, Henry Giroux, Francois-Lyotard and Michel Foucault, this thesis argues that the values involved in the very concept of private education reinforce, and are reinforced by, neoliberal views about the place of the individual within society, and that these values are detrimental to the concern for education as shared, public good.

The privatization of K-12 education in Canada is not new. The public and private sectors feel like natural elements of the Canadian education system because they have existed side by side since confederation. However, this thesis challenges that tradition and argues that private education undermines collective responsibility for education as a shared, public good by catering to private interests and isolating students from the public realm. Not only does private education reinforce the likelihood of socio-economic stratification, but the concept of a “public good” is increasingly destabilized as social services like education are privatized. Why, then, does the privatization of K-12 education continue to be an insignificant political issue in Canada? This question is particularly pertinent at a time when neoliberalism is in full swing in the United States, and all the time more apparent in Canada. Neoliberalism’s emphasis on the precedence of economic ideals over concerns for social welfare and democratic participation has transformed the way that we understand “value”. Drawing on a broad range of scholars including Charles Taylor, Richard Pildes, Janice Gross Stein, Henry Giroux, Francois-Lyotard and Michel Foucault, this thesis argues that the values involved in the very concept of private education reinforce, and are reinforced by, neoliberal views about the place of the individual within society, and that these values are detrimental to the concern for education as shared, public good.

abstract: Cecil Rhodes said, "I would annex the planets if I could." This attitude epitomized the views of the white people who colonized Zimbabwe starting in 1890, and thus society was built on the doctrines of discovery, expansion, and subjugation and marginalization of the Native people. For white Zimbabweans in then-Rhodesia the institutionalization of racism privileged their bodies above all others and thus they were collectively responsible for the oppression of black people through white complacency in allowing that system to exist and active involvement in its formation. For my family, who has a four-hundred year history in Southern Africa, coming to this realization - this critical consciousness of their positionality as oppressor - has been a difficult road. Through their struggle made evident is the potential for change for both individuals and nations fighting to overcome the effects of colonization / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Social Justice and Human Rights 2013

The privatization of K-12 education in Canada is not new. The public and private sectors feel like natural elements of the Canadian education system because they have existed side by side since confederation. However, this thesis challenges that tradition and argues that private education undermines collective responsibility for education as a shared, public good by catering to private interests and isolating students from the public realm. Not only does private education reinforce the likelihood of socio-economic stratification, but the concept of a “public good” is increasingly destabilized as social services like education are privatized. Why, then, does the privatization of K-12 education continue to be an insignificant political issue in Canada? This question is particularly pertinent at a time when neoliberalism is in full swing in the United States, and all the time more apparent in Canada. Neoliberalism’s emphasis on the precedence of economic ideals over concerns for social welfare and democratic participation has transformed the way that we understand “value”. Drawing on a broad range of scholars including Charles Taylor, Richard Pildes, Janice Gross Stein, Henry Giroux, Francois-Lyotard and Michel Foucault, this thesis argues that the values involved in the very concept of private education reinforce, and are reinforced by, neoliberal views about the place of the individual within society, and that these values are detrimental to the concern for education as shared, public good. / Education, Faculty of / Curriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department of / Graduate

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The subject of this work is a long-term debate about the collective responsibility which occurs between two opposite opinions on social phenomenon above all. The methodical individualists interpret the social phenomenons with reference to individuals, whereas the methodical holists assert that these cannot be reduced to phenomenons of individuals without any rest. Methodical individualists lean on the classic conception of the moral responsibility which is based on the intended agency in causal connection with the moral wrong. This conception is connected with human beings in its nature, but there is countless of thinkers who bring arguments in favour of the collective moral responsibility which is thought to bring about more good in the world. We will try to introduce this debate in its complexity and its most interesting and important arguments. Within the frame of debate about moral responsibility of collectives, we can meet with the notion of shared responsibility, distributive collective responsibility, non-distributive collective responsibility connected with the organized collectives, the responsibility for historic injusticies and with the conception of moral taint. All of notions will be the subject of this work. The biggest interest is put on the responsibility of politic communities. In...