Scanlon’s argument for blaming groups of people isn’t
entirely compatible with a sense of blame that is based off of relationships.
He offers an account of blame that allows for “collective agents” to be blamed
for certain things. Examples may include companies, universities, or even
countries. He has a particular scope that may end up being narrower than he
intends, however.
On page 162, Scanlon writes that in order for blame to have
moral content, “we need to attribute attitudes to these entities…to which our
attitudes toward them are in turn responsive.” In other words, if we are going
to have a concept of blame for collective agents, we need to conceive of
collective agents as having some sort of singular attitude. This requires that
the component agents of the collective mostly hold such an attitude.
This strikes me as problematic because it seems difficult,
if not rare or impossible, that all members of a collective. The collective as
a whole does not make decisions in most examples of collective agents. Typically
in a collective, decisions are made by small groups of people, not all of the
members. This presents two problems. First, it makes it less likely and harder
to establish that members of a collective agent actually hold the attitude
driving any decision ascribed to that collective. Second, it makes it more
plausible that responsibility should be ascribed to those making the decisions,
not the collective as a whole.
To start with I don't think collective agents makes for a limiting definition. After all it is such a general term that you can fit it to almost any group. He is basically saying that we categorize people and blame them for things based on these categories whether it be race, religion, nationality, company, or even a club. I don't necessarily agree with his account given that there are certainly other plausible explanations but I don't think his account is very limited.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, it is not problematic that his account requires agents to hold the view of the collective, given that it doesn't do so. We simply act and believe as if such where true. This is actually how people think our brains generalize people based on traits they recognize in order to categorize and more easily process information. It sunfortunate that we do this but we do it and therefore there isn't an issue with Scanlon's account.