Collective Responsibility and Its Implications for Group Members

A collective action occurs when members of a collective act in light of a joint commitment to intend as a body to perform some action. Some members may have determined the relevant collective intention having been given the authority to do so by the others, who left such matters in their hands. This implies that a collective can be morally responsible, and that the responsibility of a given collective has no logical implications for the moral responsibility of one (or more) individual members of the collective.