Written by Jeremy Watkins-Quesada, Viva La Resistencia member
***This paper was presented at the International
Conference on “Rethinking Responsibility: Agents and Structures”: John Molson
School of Business, Concordia University, Montreal, QC, Canada.
KEYWORDS: collective
responsibility, disassociation, genuine opposition thesis, genuine support,
negative duty, old ways of thinking, evil practices, medical reasons, Leviathan
1.
Introduction
Juha Raikka argues against disassociation from collective responsibility based on a premise of
logical inconsistency insofar as the conclusion ‘one is not guilty’ does not necessarily
follow from the premise that ‘everyone
is guilty.’ Raikka builds his case on a fictionalized national, ethnic, or
cultural group that participates in human sacrifices for the sake of ‘medical
reasons’ or human health.[i]
He concedes that this fictionalized group bears an uncanny resemblance to
Western society and their proposed collective responsibility for practices
ranging from (A) foreign conflicts to (B) Environmental pollution and (C)
overconsumption of “third world” foreign natural resources. Arguably, these
practices could be parsed as exercises conducive or equal to ‘human sacrifices’. Our discussion here will be all but
entirely subsumed by (C).
2. A
Fictionalized Case of Real-World Harms
Raikka asks his reader to suppose there is an “ethnic
group” that sacrifices human beings because there are "medical
reasons" to do so, or so the majority of the members mistakenly believe. Apparently,
there is “no opposition” to this practice. He also insists that the values and
norms of the group resemble the values and norms of outsiders, and that the
majority accepts this practice of human sacrifice only because they want to respect the value of health. This
practice of human sacrifice is said to hold its roots in “the old ways of
thinking,” yet the group is territorially located so that they could easily
obtain relevant knowledge yet only if
they would. On this point, it is said that there are well-equipped
libraries nearby to aid one’s pursuit of knowledge on this very topic. Yet,
it’s hard to point to any particular person or persons in the majority who
should be held especially responsible
(relative to the others) for the evil practice.
What Raikka says above is right in the most salient
of ways, but one question here among others is whether his proposed rebuttal of
disassociation has survived the test of time. In this paper, I argue that it
has not. Moreover, I also argue that some of Raikka’s thesis was doomed from
its conception, that is, in spite of (and prior to) any anachronistic
considerations presented herein. Accordingly, it seems there is at least one
necessary amendment to be made to this fictionalized case in terms of
accessibility of knowledge of evil practices. The amendment reads:
(A1) Yet, the group is territorially and temporally located so that they could
easily obtain relevant knowledge if they would: there are well-equipped
libraries nearby as well as digital libraries at their fingertips, and so on.
Technological advances within the previous two
decades since Raikka’s contribution made this modification necessary. Arguably,
the opportunity to ascertain knowledge about the moral blameworthiness of one’s
actions will prove important here. In a sense, we could almost argue that Raikka’s
thesis has been tested by time, that is, if only we could someday abstract the
reality of this fictionalized case. To be sure, I aim only to match Raikka fictionalized
proposal vis-à-vis fictionalized proposal. That aside, I shall continue digging
the trenches herein by moving some potential roadblocks to either proposal out
of the way.
3.
Potential Roadblocks to Collective Responsibility Claims
There are possible objections to either proposal in
the forms of (a) Arguments from historical disagreements or (b) Moral
disagreements from individualism. To be clear, fictionalized cases even if not
entirely fictional allow us to raise concerns about potentially real evil
practices without having to contend directly with (a), that is, since we aren’t
arguing against it as an actual case. Therefore, we’re absolved of the onus
proof from historical disagreements. However, this is to a degree not the case
for (b).
There are two objections from (b) with which we must
contend. Beginning from the first, when a population P is guilty of something
on the scale of group harm as grand in scope as ‘crimes against humanity’, it
means that P or something equal to it—e.g., Western Society, America, or
Germany—is guilty, not any individual
moral subject S—e.g., Tom, Dick, or Harry—not even many individual S’s. For
example, if the large-scale horrors of the holocaust were brought about by
Germany, then individual officers are not necessarily guilty on their own (much
less rank-and-file soldiers or ordinary non-military citizens), but rather
Germany is guilty for what Raikka would call ‘the crime of German citizen’ or,
more reductively, the crime of German.
On this line of reasoning, a Nazi SS Officer on trial for participation in
these crimes could ideally defend himself on the premise that it’s both
unreasonable and impossible to put his individual moral actions on trial
insofar as that for which he is on trial as a mere individual is the crime of
German.
As for the second objection, this claim could
abstract from the above example that rather than all Germans being guilty on
account of being predicated by the feature German, that instead there must be
at least one subject within this relationship who had no opportunity to oppose
the practices in question. Yet, in cases like Nazi-Germany, it’s well documented
that support for the Nazi party was garnered by way of promises made to self-proclaimed
Aryans to punish their perceived non-Aryan or “subhuman” enemies. At very
least, we could say that Hitler voters (or even mere supporters) could be held
collectively responsible insofar as each was (at minimum) “okay” with these
promises to harm perceived enemies or, say, ‘strangers’. Even one imagined as
supporting Hitler under some sort of duress would have chosen the safety of their
own person or that of, say, their family in exchange for the harm of others. A
choice based on collective action as a means to violate group rights of others
was made. To be fair, and as shall be established later, such a person could
create opportunities for gainsay against what they have been coerced into
supporting, if and when doing so would pose no great harm to himself. For to
make oneself or their group as bad off as those he is trying to aid does
neither he nor the others any good.
It appears evident that individual responsibility in
the stated cases seems unreasonable and impossible, that is, insofar as harm
was suffered yet without any clear-cut mode of guilt distribution or
commensurate punishments as a form of redress for the crimes suffered. Having
given these objections their due, it seems clear at this point that there can
or even may be cases in which a group is guilty for evil practices that exceed
the limitations of individuals, even many individuals.[ii]
Yet, we may have to contest at least one more rejection, that is, externally to
what Raikka has raised for us.
*3b. What
is a Collective?
In the above, I restated and considered a bit further
the objections from individualism raised by Raikka in the contribution under
scrutiny. Yet, I am aware that other concerns from individualism are extant in
the larger discussion about moral responsibility as much as I am also privy to
as many arguments from collective responsibility that could stand to answer
individualist concerns as noted above.[iii]
Yet, delving into these concerns at any substantial depth is sure to lead the
particular voice of this discussion and its implications astray and into other
territories, for this paper is not only intended as a direct response to
Raikka’s thesis, but it is also a topic proposal of sorts for a larger
project—i.e., dissertation. And as witnessed in the above section, Raikka
himself does not concern his project much with in-depth analysis of
individualist notions of moral responsibility. Though, he does add a bit more
depth to his concept of collective responsibility and by extension a clear
although general concept of groups. That being said, I shall offer some very
basic implications from the depths of the larger thesis in which this smaller
work is ultimately rooted. I will employ a strategy of building an abstract or
more theoretic concept of the kind of groups I intend here when I speak of
collectives qua collective entities that can intend and act or be acted upon as
well as intend to counteract (or not). I shall then give a brief defense
against one thesis of individual responsibility against collective
responsibility, that is, before returning to our fictionalized case vis-à-vis
Raikka’s genuine opposition thesis.
On the onset, I fully realize the diversity my
concept of collectives takes on, that is, in terms of features that may or may
not appear to be congruent with my own, yet I will certainly distinguish it
from those models that are seemingly or otherwise contrary. Following Margaret
Gilbert, I envisage collectives as something somewhat similar to plural
subjects insofar as they could hold things like joint commitments (JC). From JC
something like joint action (JA) could occur. On Gilbert’s thesis, JAs from JCs
rely on two clauses:
Clause 1 (C1): JA doesn’t require physical proximity
for such acting to be possible.
Clause 2 (C2): JA necessitates mutual permission for
continuing or terminating JC.[iv]
As we will see later, I accept C1
although I shall (and for very good reason) reject C2. For now, let us just
become privy to the fact that Gilbert rejects the notion of JC holding parts
and so the act of unilateral rescinding or disassociation from JC would seem
rather implausible. However, I shall show this notion to be necessarily false
on my own thesis, for as I shall show parts or roles are necessary for JCs of
the kind in the fictionalized account of global harm to be possible. Moving on,
one more area of agreement with Gilbert’s plural subject resides in the fact
that prior agreements are unnecessary for JCs (2015, 26).[v]
Corresponding to the notion of corporate personhood, some like French would
agree (1979, 211).[vi]
Yet, a first intention warrants the fictionalized joint commitment under
discussion, which would extend as an intergenerational joint commitment from
the advent of colonialism. Following French, the collective I envision holds
within itself a kind of moral climate or collective personality
(interchangeably). To be clear, French’s collectives like corporate entities
require organizational structures, but then so too do nation-states like Janna
Thompson’s intergenerational groups. At this point, it is likely becoming
increasingly clear there is a necessary metaphysical and moral personhood that
I am formulating here, one that pits me in the company of Karl Jasper and by
extension Raikka himself. By virtue, I am arguing for a thesis of metaphysical
guilt on the part of those who have contributed to the harm under discussion.
As noted earlier, I am looking to colonialism as the beginning point from which
the fictionalized case and its intergenerational harms extend into contemporary
times.[vii]
As an aside, rather than talk of ‘others’, I instead speak of ‘strangers’ for
the sake of evolutionary coherence. But I digress.
On the flip side, most (if not all) commentators from
the camp of metaphysical guilt such as May would reject the notion that those
being harmed as, say, ethnic groups could be so organized in a way like
French’s corporations or Thompson’s nation-states. Though I am not at liberty to
discuss this matter here, I will post my rejection of that popular notion by
simply noting that by the end of this work the possibility of ethnic groups so
organized will be implied. One way in which I do this comes through a similar
though distinct way from (according to Smiley) Tuomela who like me employs
Hobbes’s Leviathan as a strategy of showing how collective actions “supervene”
on individual members.[viii]
Yet, there are some who reject this notion.
Narveson claims that harms warrant distribution based
on “what individuals have or have not done” because nothing else could be the
culprit of responsibility.[ix]
The reason for this, he says, is the serious matter of irreducibility and
thereby the feature or ability to be predicated of those who can ‘decide’ or
‘act’ via something like agency.[x]
On this view, collectives cannot intend things, not even crimes against
humanity like genocide or, perhaps, unjust trade agreements featuring sweatshop
conditions.[xi]
Rather, each instance of murder, say, is merely reducible to individuals acting
on other individuals. Yet, as I shall show at the end of this paper, collective
intentions are reducible to something like a moral climate that can also be
characterized as a collective personality, one that could be intergenerational
and therefore irreducible to individuals.[xii]
4. Applying
Raikka’s Case Against Disassociation
Recall, an entire cultural group sacrifices human
beings because the group’s majority mistakenly believe this practice is
necessary for medical reasons. Though, insofar as there is a majority, there
must necessarily be a minority of the group that doesn’t lend credence to the
mistaken belief. However, there is apparently no opposition to the practice.
This valuation from respecting human health is rooted
in what is explained as the old ways of thinking. Yet, in spite of this
belief’s anachronistic roots, it also seems the group’s individual members
could so easily ascertain knowledge about how morally egregious their practices
actually are, that is, insofar as they have access to well-equipped local
libraries in addition digital libraries at their fingertips. Furthermore,
ascertaining the knowledge in question assuredly (if not undoubtedly) would
compel the group as a whole to not only oppose the evil practices in question
but to genuinely oppose them such
that the values and norms of the group are no different from outsiders. Under
the conditions set by these fictionalized circumstances, I argue we could
presume the outsiders would not participate in such practices if only because
they view these actions as morally egregious in light of, say, a negative duty not to harm others.[xiii]
Yet, questions arise.
(i) How can there be a minority that in concept
counters the majority even when there is apparently no opposition?
(ii) How is it that the old ways of thinking amongst
the group’s majority cause these
particular individuals to ignore the moral intuitions allegedly shared by the
group as a whole, something like adherence to a negative duty they apparently
share with outsiders who act accordingly in contrast?
(iii) Does the fact of increased opportunity to
ascertain knowledge about the moral blameworthiness of the group and by
extension individual practices reinforce Raikka’s thesis against
disassociation?
4(i)- How
can there be a minority that in concept counters the majority even when there
is apparently no opposition?
To answer this question we must begin sketching out
what Raikka defines as genuine opposition to evil practices. On this matter,
Raikka frames four preliminary questions. Verbatim, these questions are framed
as follows.
(Q1) Does
everybody have an opportunity to oppose the practice without serious risk of
being killed or tortured?
(Q2) Does
everybody have an opportunity to oppose the practice by appealing to ‘shared
values’ accepted by the group and to ‘factual knowledge’ readily available to
its members?
(Q3) Does
everybody have an opportunity to oppose the practice in the sense that they
have no reason to believe that doing so would be completely futile?
(Q4) Does
everybody accept the practice without opposing it?
Raikka says these questions are asked because it is
believed by those doing the asking that, on the one hand, if the answers to all four are in the positive, then
“every single member of the group really is, at least partly, responsible for
the evil practice.”[xiv]
On the other hand, if the answer to any of these questions is in the
negative, not every member is responsible after all. About (Q4), most believe
that merely accepting or opposing the practice under scrutiny is what either
associates or dissociates one from moral blameworthiness. All things equal, we
must now come to better understand what Raikka intends when he calls for the
act of genuinely opposing.
4(ib)-
Genuine Opposition
Raikka’s genuine opposition thesis is a rejection of
general notions of opposition as
disassociation from collective responsibility (or at least within the
conditions set by the fictionalized case under development). Raikka’s genuine
opposition seems a concept built upon negative epistemological criteria.
Genuine cannot be opposition that
comes far too late. Genuine opposition cannot be evidentially inefficient,
whether it is directly or indirectly as such. Finally, genuine opposition
cannot produce more harm than it prevents. Each of these negative qualities
from supposed or less than genuine opposition reduces to what he calls “the
most extreme version” of opposition as disassociation.[xv]
In this most extreme example of opposition as disassociation, it is proposed
that one can absolve themselves of collective responsibility by forging a
symbolic protest, which is sufficient for clearing the subject of
blameworthiness even if the action holds no evident chance of doing some good.
Raikka, of course, emphatically rejects this notion. I second this sentiment!
Though to reiterate, we need to answer the preliminary question under scrutiny.
How can
there be a minority that in concept counters a majority even when there is
apparently no opposition?
Given the above, I shall close out this part of the
section by answering the question on which it was based by sculpting our
fictionalized group through how we could answer Raikka’s (Q1-Q4) as its basis.
Following Raikka, the thesis under scrutiny abstracts from its fictionalized
case a rather peculiar mode of opposing called a ‘sacrificing ceremony’, an
event in which participation is a necessary means to oppose the evil practices
in question. For if one were to oppose these evil practices, say, by rejecting
Western living standards, they would not have their opposition taken seriously
to what is ultimately a case of collective responsibility for third-world
poverty. Therefore, one must participate in the very practices she aims to
oppose if she is to disassociate from them. And so we arrive at the concern
Raikka raises in what we will call the logical problem from disassociation, a
problem whereby the conclusion does not follow from its premise. This is by
extension what invalidates the idea of opposition as disassociation insofar as
the conclusion ‘one is not guilty’
does not follow from a premise of collective responsibility where everyone is guilty.
Following from (Q1), it appears that there are no rules that prohibit individuals from
obtaining new knowledge or suggesting new practices, so it seems this group as
a whole is not under threat of bodily harm from either torturing or killings if
they were to genuinely oppose current group practices. In the same vein,
though, if an individual member (or even many) decided to reject the practice and behaved accordingly, individual
intentions and actions as such unfortunately would not be sufficient in
stopping the practice altogether. But, this latter concern is best kept in
memory for later. As for (Q2), it is quite clear that shared norms and
values—in practice and custom—as well as factual knowledge are adhered to
whether one uses their opportunity to oppose or accept these sacrifices. Moving
onto (Q3), members of the group’s minority are led to believe merely their
opportunity to oppose evil practices via mere symbolic protests are plenty
sufficient to disassociate each one from guilt. Yet, it is upon reaching (Q4)
when we realize that the group’s minority in opposition misses the mark
vis-à-vis Raikka’s genuine opposition thesis, that is, insofar as their
opposition to human sacrifices are (1) Far too late, (2) Evidentially
inefficient, and (3) Creating more harm than it stands to prevent.
Consequently, this is what Raikka means when he says there is no opposition to
the practice of human sacrifices for medical reasons. For he does not mean to
say there is literally no opposition at all, only that there is no opposition
that could count as such on his genuine opposition thesis. And so on (Q4),
everyone accepts these practice without genuinely opposing.
In light of the above, Raikka’s thesis seems air
tight on the face of it. But, as I stated before, Raikka’s thesis has a couple
glaring problems that will begin below.
4(ii)- How
is it that the old ways of thinking amongst the group’s majority cause these particular individuals to ignore
the moral intuitions allegedly shared by the group as a whole, something like
adherence to a negative duty they apparently share with outsiders who act
accordingly in contrast?
As was established above, the group’s shared norm
from the practice of human sacrifices and the basis for this practice from its
valuation of human health are part of what doom them to being unable to
disassociate from collective responsibility even when they protest in
opposition to these norms and values. For how could one manage to disassociate
from the very practice she must commit in order to oppose it? On the genuine
opposition thesis, this is as unreasonable as it is impossible!
Yet, these norms and values are not the only ones the
group adheres to, for it is said that they also follow some so-called old ways
of thinking that otherwise distinguish them from allegedly likeminded
outsiders. As mentioned earlier, the outsiders in question could not participate
in the practice of human sacrifice—or, at least not the latter group’s
majority—since they are not morally blameworthy for these acts. As proposed
earlier, these outsiders, rather than respecting medical reasons to participate
in human sacrifices, perhaps respect a negative duty not to harm people of the
third world and so do not consume their natural resources in a very blameworthy
manner as their counterparts unfortunately do. Following this example, it seems
clear to me that the outsiders hold a respect for something like group rights,
that is, above and beyond the narrower threshold of strict individualism qua individual
rights and moral responsibility, for if they did not, it would be clear at this
point (having laid the foundation for
groups as moral agents) that they would deem collective responsibility equally
unreasonable and impossible. That is, to be so
responsible as a group so as to override individual pursuit of foreign
resources would seem morally impermissible in light of stricter individualist
sensibilities. Clearly, the majority of the unoffending group does not believe
that the individual holds a right to human sacrifice in light of group rights
and negative duties to others. But then, if true, this means we must ascribe
this feature of stricter individualism to Raikka’s group. What’s more, it would
seem that these two groups hold little in common in the way of norms or values.
Finally, could what seems a majority belief in individualism also be part of
what is characterized in the old ways of thinking?
Suppose in the closest possible world or what could
be the actual world of this fictionalized case, that the group of those guilty
are as Raikka describes them to be, a group in Western society, a hemispheric
division of the global community that is culturally
individualistic. Imagine that in the most extreme case of individualistic
belief within the division there is a subclass or group so individualistic that
it currently carries out the belief that things such as having the means to
respect the value of human health based on medical reasons is a privilege
rather than a right. Yet, outsiders to this group, whether culturally
individualistic or not, hold their norms and values contrary to this strongly
individualistic belief.[xvi]
It should be obvious at this point that neither collectivism nor individualism
need be strongly held or not at all, for this is not even the case in theoretical
discussions of moral responsibility or the actual world at-large where
theoretical principles are applied. Recall, I said that there are some
commentators, whether proponents or opponents of collective responsibility, who
refuse to endorse any notion of objective borders between groups. Perhaps,
these commentators view cases like the fictionalized group under discussion as
holding a collective of individuals far too diverse for objective borders to be
reasonable or possible. Yet, the forebears to the intergenerational group under
scrutiny that established the intergenerational evil practices also under
discussion did not agree.
Now, suppose this practice to respect human health on
medical reasons as the group qua many individuals sees it is not a right, much
less one respecting the concept of group moral agency. Rather, human health is
viewed as a privilege limited to those who somehow—say, by a just acquisition
of holdings (or so it is perceived as such)—“earn” this privilege whether by
perceived due diligence or mere accidents of birth. As the forebears saw it,
there were objective distinctions between them and (as they perceived) their
less than deserving counterparts. Perhaps, they based this notion on perceived
ethnic and cultural differences. Consider the very real world possibility that
for the forebears of this group mere accidents of birth alone are what
justified the perceived privilege they had over others to pursue respect for
individual human health for medical reasons, which they acted on by initiating
the group’s historical first sacrificing ceremonies. Call this notion of human
health as a privilege the old ways of thinking.
But then, how can we understand this manner of
thinking as being “old” when its practice has never ceased and therefore
appears to have subsisted on an intergenerational timeline? The conclusion
simply does not follow from its premise. Fortunately, we are discussing these
matters in a way that premises only their possibility in the world. That said,
I would like to dress up this matter a little further by connecting it to what
other commentators on collective responsibility for things like colonialism,
unjust trade, global poverty, and other proposed ‘crimes against humanity’ of
these sorts have said about them.
For the sake of argument, I propose we begin to
understand this fictionalized case in the following ways. Jana Thompson would
call this a case of collective responsibility for intergenerational harm.[xvii]
Thomas Pogge would agree to this sentiment such that he gives the argument from
what he calls actual history against
historical stories, which is to establish the historical precedent set for
the contemporary global institutional order that makes our fictionalized
account a possible phenomenon in the actual world.[xviii]
Judith Litchenberg in arguing against Pogge’s notion of a negative duty to not
harm via consumption of the kind discussed here, does so from the premise that
to accomplish such a duty seems unreasonable if not impossible insofar as
“These activities are seamlessly woven into our normal routines … Every bite we
eat! Every purchase we make! ... To not do these things ... Can encroach on our
autonomy at least as oppressively any duties of aid or beneficence.”[xix]
Then, I think we can begin to explore the possibility that the cultural group
under discussion could be defined by its participation in evil practices
insofar as its values and norms are so encompassed by their intergenerational
subsistence on them.
All things considered, it appears that the fictionalized
group participating in practices of human sacrifice does not appear to hold
much if anything in common with outsiders who refrain from such evil practices.
For whereas the latter group’s majority seems to respect the moral agency of
groups, at least as far as a shared negative duty not to harm others overrides
individual pursuit of foreign natural resources, the former’s majority does not
and accordingly holds to a way of acting from an old belief that those being
harmed have not—whether as a random collection of individuals or
otherwise—earned the privilege of human health.
And so we appear to have it on good authority that it
is reasonable (if nothing else and at minimum) to propose the possibility of human sacrifice from the notion of human
health as a privilege as itself being a predicate of group identity insofar
as it is ever encompassing in the practical sense and metaphysically prior in
the theoretic sense to the group’s individual members. What is more, consider
the fact that Raikka also levies charges of collective responsibility for human
sacrifices of their own group members via foreign conflicts and the world
at-large via environmental pollution (perhaps also due in part to
overconsumption).[xx]
Consequently, this means we must entertain the idea of this cultural group as
not so much hosting occasional sacrificing ceremonies, but as being one
continuous human sacrificing ceremony in-and-of-itself!
4(iii)-
Does the fact of increased opportunity to ascertain knowledge about the moral
blameworthiness of group and (by extension) individual practices reinforce
Raikka’s thesis against disassociation?
So far, we already poked some holes in Raikka’s
genuine opposition thesis even while attempting to merely unpack it.
Accordingly, this is precisely what I meant when I said his thesis suffers from
some developmental issues. But then, also recall that I had said that Raikka’s
contribution suffers some anachronistic problems as well, that is, such that it
has possibly yet very realistically
failed the test of time. I shall show why in this section simply by answering
its foundational question restated above.
The preliminary question for this section coincides
with Raikka’s (Q1), which asks ‘if everybody has an opportunity to oppose group
practices without the threat of death or torture’ as if the threat of bodily
harm is the only means to silence
dissidents or rogue voices in any meaningful way. Time by way of technological
advances of the previous two decades has demonstrated this as being false. But,
I would first like to sketch out the group’s majority and minority in just a
little more detail, a social psychological profile of sorts in order to better
understand the groups’s overall moral climate or collective personality.
Recall, we are now exploring the notion that the
fictionalized group guilty of evil practices subsists on something like a human sacrifice industrial complex—that
is, a system of economics based entirely on human sacrifices! Every bite, every
purchase is contingent on a practice of human sacrifice that began at a
previous time in the group’s history, yet it has survived changes of the
group’s parts from, say, t1 to t2. But, as far as this practice has survived
changes of the group’s temporal parts, what is it that has enabled the
persistence of this habit to sacrifice the health of others?
The majority derives their group narrative from
historical stories contrary to actual histories in response to these charges of
human sacrifice, which asserts that the group earned their privilege to respect
human health in the way they do simply by way of holding reasonably free
economies and trading with other groups such as the third world nations who—they
say—are now better off because of it.[xxi]
The third-world nations are simply led by incompetent barbarians who willingly
sacrifice their own people.[xxii]
Yet, as they also say, groups are a collection of individuals and personal
freedom including moral responsibility ought to override (if not eliminate) any
notion of collective responsibility insofar as the individual is the
fundamental social unit in a community.[xxiii]
What about the group’s minority that opposes these
practices? On the genuine opposition thesis, the minority fails to oppose the
practice in any meaningful way. But, also recall that we established that
everyone in the group could be predicated or tainted by human sacrifice insofar
as the group appears an intergenerational entity subsisting on an
economic-based human sacrifice industrial complex. If this is true, whether
purely in this fictionalized case or else in some actualized world, then the
genuine opposition thesis could be false insofar as it’s guilty of conflating
guilt for blameworthy practices with moral taint.
For something like moral taint to be argued, one must
establish that a member of a collective bears a kind of stain on their moral
integrity. This occurs through the ‘moral climate’ each member shares with the
wrongdoer(s) and yet most importantly the wrongdoing. On this view, however, it
seems that tainted individuals do not necessarily hold moral responsibility nor
do they belong to a collective that bears moral responsibility. Traditionally,
taint is something that influences the moral climate (if you will) and thereby
inspires each member as moral agents on
the whole to act accordingly. Mellema emphasizes the role of leadership in
establishing these ‘symbolic values’[xxiv].
But I worry—as would Raikka—about what seems an evident myopia in this
emphasis. This notion seems to excuse participants as bystanders, a mere mob of
victims of circumstance in the sense that only the group’s leadership or those
perceived as “directly responsible” would be to blame in these cases. And yet,
such is precisely the problem for this group’s minority.
Suppose the group’s minority is composed of two
opposition movements each of which are similar in political orientation yet are
also distinct in principle to one another as far as accepted norms are of
concern. Call these distinct movements (A) The Revolution and (B) The Rogues.
In this fictionalized paradigm, both (A,B) say they want to put an end to the
group practice of human sacrifice. Accordingly, each expresses a desire to help
the third-world nations start anew by reinventing the identity of their own
country through elimination of evil practices. Both of these groups refer to
this aspired move as ‘decolonization’, which is one way of saying ‘to end the
human sacrifice industrial complex’. Yet, whereas the rogues simply want to
help facilitate a more just world via moderate social changes by respecting the
value of everyone’s human health from tried and tested medical reasons, the
revolution and its revolutionaries want to make radical social changes that
include but are not limited to the erasure
of tried and tested medical reasons and what these reasons say about the value
of human health.
Suppose the revolutionaries are spreading the idea
that the value of human health from medical reasons is merely a social
construct being used to oppress the bodies of one-half of the population,
though not for the sake of health standards, but rather ‘beauty standards’ that
as they see it ‘objectify’ and by extension ‘colonialize’ the bodies of this
portion of the population. On this line of thinking, knowledge about bodies
from medical reasons is at best viewed with skepticism if not seen as
oppressive. Accordingly, shared medical reasons to respect human health by not
over-consuming resources is seen as a mere narrative of individual body
colonization. In relation, (A) on the whole begins to celebrate and even
encourage continued over-consumption of resources as a way of decolonizing the
body on both the individual and collective (one-half) levels.[xxv]
As far as (A) views this matter, though they are morally stained by extension
of shared group membership with those who they view as directly guilty, they
are not blameworthy as individuals or a class (within the group) insofar as it
would seem unreasonable and impossible for one or a few to be guilty for, say,
the crime of American when America is guilty. If we follow this line of
reasoning, the evil practice of human sacrifices will never end but only be
exacerbated, that is, insofar as continued sacrifices in this case means
increases in demand and therefore supply for sacrifices. What this
contradiction tells us is that Raikka’s conditions for genuine opposition are
still relevant. The reason stems from the fact that opposition to evil
practices in this case failed to fulfill the negative qualities of genuine
opposition, that is, the revolutionary’s opposition was (1) Far too late, (2)
Evidentially inefficient, and it stood to (3) Create more harm than it could
possibly stand to prevent. In spite of that, however, I will establish below
the failure of Raikka’s preliminary (Q1-Q4) questions for genuine opposition,
which fall in light of anachronistic concerns.
Suppose the virtual human sacrificing ceremony that
is the fictionalized Western group is so vast in size that its overall
territory goes on for miles across a vast landmass. Accordingly, the
sacrificing ceremony is divided up by region and each region divides even
further into cities, counties, towns, and neighborhoods. However, in the last
couple decades or so the ceremony, its participants and their habits have been
projected live via satellites into an abstract space called the ‘internet’.
Part of the sacrificing ceremony includes the opportunity to communicate social
and political content on the Internet via mediums called social media. Social
media is a global community of sorts and so the opportunity to post
social/political content might seem almost boundless on the face of it.
Yet, suppose that as the reach of information has
grown, so has authority over access to information. What if social media and
posted content was controlled by powerful private firms consisting of venture
capitalists with a vested interest in social/political content insofar as—and
if nothing else—content of this sort was profitable for them? No matter what
inspires these firms, they are committed to censoring content deemed dissident
to, say, the status quo or the fashionable nonsense of the time by using
algorithms to ‘filter’ out what could be deemed as rogue points of view. And
not only are particular views being censored, but entire accounts of
individuals or organizations are forcibly suspended or even closed simply for
expressing views contrary to the status quo or fashionable nonsense. Moreover,
even individual accounts can adjudicate their disapproval for what others say
through a point system based on popularity, or they can block or mute
individual accounts and their content—a kind of tyranny of the majority via
institutionalized groupthink sandwiched between a false dichotomy. In other
words, one who expresses opposition to either (P) the human sacrifice
industrial complex or (Q) Say, the revolutionary social movements, no matter,
loses his opportunity to genuinely oppose human sacrifices by way of systematic
censorship. So, one is being forced to accept the very sacrifices he is trying
to oppose. As I will establish below, even if Raikka would refuse to call this
a case of genuine opposition, he certainly could not call it a case of genuine support.
5. Counter
Proposal
To begin, it is imperative that I make some quick
distinctions here. Groups of the kind, say, ‘Type 1’ that happen to be rooted
in an intergenerational practice of subsisting on a human sacrifice industrial
complex, a practiced premised on a notion of ethnocentricism, are equal to
examples of group types that include things like ‘clubs’ or ‘teams’.[xxvi]
Another type of group, ‘Type 2,’ includes things like races or ethnicities,
genders, or sexual orientations. Ritchie gives the example that while LeBron James
plays for the [Los Angeles Lakers] in this world he does not in some possible
worlds.[xxvii]
However, I take it that on this view, LeBron James is Black in all possible
worlds where he exists.[xxviii]
Interestingly, arguments against the right to immigrate have employed such
premises wherein a place like the United States is viewed as a kind of private
club. Then, on this line of reasoning, we can deduce that descendants of the
group’s forebears have the opportunity to disassociate from the group identity
set long ago if only a means of genuine opposition could be attained. As for
descendants of those sacrificed during the historical first ceremonies, things
get a little thorny here thereby warranting a separate discussion worth delving
into elsewhere. Suffice it to say, though, this opportunity for disassociation
is also available to this division of the group as well.
In the previous section, it was obvious that Raikka’s
genuine opposition thesis would appear wrong if the fictionalized case under
discussion were in fact a real phenomenon, for it seems that genuine opposition
is built on a false dichotomy that in turn is based on faulty premises about
the blameworthy group, its norms and values, and the general moral climate in
question. It was also clear that had Raikka’s contribution been a scientific
hypothesis it would have failed confirmation testing over time. To be clear,
Raikka’s thesis fails its own line of questioning (Q1-Q4) such that it was
shown that (A1) serious risk of bodily harm is not the only means of severely
limiting opportunities to oppose evil practices, (A2) the group lacks shared
values or factual knowledge they could agree to, and (A3) opposing the practice
does seem rather futile in light of (A1,A2). But then, what about (A4)? Well,
though we’ve cast some doubt on its stimulus (Q4), we’ve yet to satisfactorily
answer whether “everybody accepts the
practice without opposing it,” as Raikka argues. I will refute this claim
en route to our conclusion below.
Raikka alleges that disassociation for the case under
discussion is one in which the conclusion does not follow from the premise.
Yet, as I showed, Raikka conflates blameworthiness for an action, A, with a
concept more tantamount to the moral stain of a population, P, in which
individual, x, members’ moral
integrity is compromised or predicated by the stained moral climate—i.e.,
@xP(x). In sketching out his notion of genuine opposition, Raikka also seemed
to overestimate the moral goodness of his fictionalized group’s shared values
while simultaneously underestimating the severity of its moral climate. I
presume this is why he never explains what it is to act on genuine support for an evil practice. Following Raikka’s negative
view of genuine opposing, we can invert genuine opposition against evil
practices thereby transferring it to genuine support for disassociation based
on the actions—proposed and historically proven—of what we called our Rogue
group.
The term political cell typically conveys negative
images of extremist or rogue subclasses within a group, a fringe group within a
larger whole whose political philosophy is contrary to the status quo or even
mainstream minority groups. Yet, if not for such rogue cells, systematic evil
practices such as native genocide, slavery, and segregation to name but a few
would never have been delegitimized. In spite of the possibility of being
systematically and legally censored or ostracized (even arrested or assaulted)
by the group, it took individual social/political rogues to come together in
order to oppose the status quo or fashionable nonsense of the day. Each of
these rogue cells likely began as mere nuisance, irritation, or eyesore, yet
benign in light of the system and its practices, and perhaps limited to one
region of the overall political body. After all, the very reason why it is
unreasonable to charge an individual or even many individuals for the crime of
a collective is because only the latter set possesses the possibility of carrying
it out or else resisting it in any meaningful way or at all. Yet, benign growth
is the way in which many lethal cancers begin.
Under what conditions could we deem one or a
subdivision as constituting a rogue cell? To answer, we must begin amending
Raikka’s (Q1-Q4).
(Q1) Does anyone or a political cell of the larger
collective body create opportunity to
oppose the practice in spite of the risk of being systematically and legally
censored or ostracized by the group?
(Q2) Does anyone or a political cell of the larger
collective body create opportunity to oppose the practice by appealing to
‘shared values’ accepted by the group and to ‘factual knowledge’ readily
available to its members?
(Q3) Does anyone or a political cell of the larger
collective body create opportunity to oppose the practice in the sense that
they have no reason to believe that doing so would be completely futile?
(Q4) Does everybody accept the practice without
opposing it or do they create opportunities for disassociating?
The modification of these questions begins with the
notion of ‘creating’ rather than merely ‘having’ opportunities to disassociate
from evil practices. In light of the fact that censorship of views against the
human sacrifice industrial complex is a legitimized and protected practice
within the moral climate of the fictionalized group implies that one must
create opportunities to voice their genuine opposition to these practices.
Creating opportunities to oppose evil practices requires rogue cells to hold
and appeal to values from factual knowledge they share about the circumstances
in question. All in all, the rogue cell does not think their opposition to be
futile in spite of systematic censorship or institutionalized groupthink that
may render the moral climate immune to it—at first. That is, the collective
force of those who contribute genuine
support to evil practices like human sacrifice through appeals to shared
values like human health as a privilege may overwhelm rogue opposition at
first. But, like in the aforementioned historical examples of delegitimized
cases of evil practices, rogue opposition can prevail only if genuine
opposition is possible. Let’s dress up this fictionalized group a bit further.
Following Hobbes, imagine a collective as something
like a plural subject, a less complexly defined individual composed of vastly
more complex individuals.[xxix]
Yet, this artificial man is greater in stature and strength than the natural
individual “for whose protection and defense it was intended; and in which the
sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and motion to the whole body.”[xxx]
Thought in this way, we can envision individuals as something analogous to
cells that compose this artificial man. Individual cells and humans each differ
from their peers in things like stored quantities of particular hormones, body
shape or form, and even daily function or routine. However, one rogue cell is
all it takes to begin potentially serious changes in the body. If a mass forms
composed of rogue cells on a particular area of the body, it could become
malignant and therefore be potentially lethal. If the rogue mass becomes
malignant, the next threat is that of metastasis, a process whereby this
cancerous growth spreads and grows in secondary areas. The cancer eventually
weakens the body and its host before finally killing them when successful. Yet
one thing that the cancer cells benefited from during this process of
opposition (if you like) to the body and its practices was the nutrients from
food and drink ingested by the body’s host. Yet, food and drink aren’t enough
to eliminate a rogue cancerous growth. To drive this point home, consider the
following thought experiment.
Johnny the
Human Sacrificing Maniac
Johnny is a homicidal maniac. Johnny spends nearly
every moment of everyday sacrificing small children. This habit of human
sacrifice is so ubiquitous in Johnny’s routine that every bite he takes, every
purchase he makes necessarily involves the blood or flesh of some poor innocent
child he murdered. Johnny bathes in sacrificial blood, brews it in his teas, or
else drinks it from the twitching bodies of his victims. Johnny is also a
cannibal whose diet is otherwise lacking in variety. The flesh and blood of
children is all that he ingests. Likewise, Johnny’s pores almost literally ooze
these substances when he perspires, a sign that his bodily tissues and cells
benefit solely from the nutrients obtained in these evil practices. One day
Johnny begins to feel a bit ill, as he is too weak to keep up with his usual body
count. A few weeks later, he is so weak that he is forced to eat bread and
bathe in water, as there is not enough flesh and blood to go round. Eventually,
Johnny is too weak to murder children and a day or two later he finally passes
away. Johnny died of cancer.
It is not uncommon to read or hear
about deceased cancer patients ceasing to eat in their final days in order to
likewise stop ‘feeding the cancer’. If we loan agency to the cells in the
thought experiment, we could say they are predicated on the moral stain of
Johnny’s evil practices. We could also say that all were guilty of benefiting
from human sacrifices for most of that time. Yet, we cannot deny the rogue
cells gave anything less than genuine opposition such that their rogue
opposition was necessary to the weakening and eventual ceasing of Johnny’s evil
practices. In this case, rogue opposition is genuine opposition, for it does
not logically follow that these rogue cells gave genuine support to Johnny’s
human sacrifices, that is, not when the support they contributed for the
practices were used to further weaken the body and its ability to carry out
more sacrifices. Eventually, the body had to subsist on new and even perhaps
more ethical sources of nutrients. Though, Johnny and his cells did eventually
meet their demise, imagine the fictionalized group of Western society as not
necessarily having to meet this same fate, but rather the death of its old ways
of thinking and likeminded practices.
5b. Irreducibility to Roles Within
Collective Personalities and Joint Commitments
As the above shows, joint commitments coincide with
Clause 1 or C1 such that joint action (JA) doesn’t require physical proximity
for such acting to be possible, yet they fail to correspond to Clause 2 (C2). On
the rogue opposition thesis, I reject C2 to at least one degree, insofar as JCs
can have parts, contrary to what Gilbert says.[xxxi]
To the contrary, Gilbert insists JC is not singularist (2015, 6).[xxxii]
But, what if a new counter joint commitment is entered into? Does not the
singularist act of going rogue count as a first intention? The JC in our
fictionalized case has two parts, namely something like Pogge’s Global
Institutional Order and by extension Consumerism. Suffice it to say, jointly
committing, intending, and acting are warranted by those being harmed as well,
yet, as I shall not discuss here, organization indeed is of the essence.[xxxiii]
But, what about Narveson’s argument from irreducibility against collective
responsibility?
As I showed, something like a metaphysical and moral
collective entity can jointly commit, intend, and act and without prior
agreements from individuals, namely when the initiators of the JC are all long
dead. Rather, first intentions to rid oneself of what has been called, ad
naseum, “Others” or what I’ll coin here as ‘strangers’ could be deemed unfit to
hold the privilege to respect one’s human health. When ideas like this subsist
they serve as the foundation for the guilty group’s moral climate or collective
personality. This in-and-of-itself manifests a basis for a kind of agency that
is irrespective of strict individualist accounts of intentions and actions.
Moreover, when one intends to kill en masse, he does not intend merely to
murder the amount he could or will, rather he intends to contribute to a larger
score, namely to eradicate a group, not individuals, as Narveson seems to
insist.
6. Conclusion
In the forgoing, I demonstrated the failure of
Raikka’s genuine opposition thesis against (1) Counterexamples stemming from
its own anachronistic problems and (2) Counterexamples from its developmental
problems. Surely, one cannot be blamed for not being able to forecast the
future, yet an applicable concept of moral responsibility ought to prove itself
timeless. Raikka’s genuine opposition thesis does not. If nothing else, its
fatal flaw was in not considering far enough something like moral taint, namely
as something that predicates its moral subjects. On the counterproposal given
here, group members may be morally tainted and collectively responsible for a
practice as far as every fabric of their existence is predicated on it, yet
they may disassociate from guilt only if they demonstrate genuine opposition.
For insofar as genuine opposition is using one’s privileged position to help
end systematic evil practices by (I) opposing them in a timely manner, (II)
creating opportunities to oppose them in a way that is evident and efficient,
and (III) opposing them in a way that stands to reduce harm, she is not genuinely
supporting the practices. For while it surely does not follow that one is not
tainted when everyone is said to be tainted by an evil practice, it does follow
that one cell though tainted by these practices is not guilty for genuinely
supporting the practice even when every cell is supposedly tainted via
predication.
Notes
[i] Juha Raikka. 1997. “On Disassociating Oneself from
Collective Responsibility.” Social Theory & Practce, Vol. 23, No. 1
(Spring, 1997), p. 100
[ii] Larry May. 2006, “State Aggression, Collective Liability, and Individual
Mens Rea” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XXX: 314-315
[iii] I would like to thank [an] anonymous
referee(s) for suggesting I broaden my thesis a bit by involving it more in the
‘larger discussion’ over moral responsibility.
[iv]
Margaret Gilbert.2015. ‘Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World.’ Oxford
University Press, 2015: 24
[v]
Ibid, 26
[vi]
Peter French. 1979. ‘The Corporation as a Moral Person.’ American Philosophical
Quarterly, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Jul., 1979), 211
[vii] On
that line of reasoning, it appears I am toeing the line if not fully committing
to metaphysical concepts of ethnic groups. In the larger scheme, beyond this
small-scale work, I am. To the chagrin of collective and individual responsibility
sympathizers alike (e.g., Reiff, Narveson, and Iris Young) I am implying—but
not discussing here—a thesis of objective borders amongst ethnic groups as
extending from colonialism to contemporary times.
[viii]
Though to be fair, I’ve never read this work. For this proposition, I cite the
following entry: Smiley, Marion, "Collective Responsibility", The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta
(ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/collective-responsibility/>.
[ix]
Jan Narveson. 2002, “Collective Responsibility,” Journal of Ethics, 6: 184-85.
[x]
Ibid, 184-85.
[xi] May, Larry. 1987, The
Morality of Groups: Collective Responsibility, Group-Based Harm, and Corporate
Rights, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 211
[xii] As an aside, this thesis is bolstered by an
evolutionary biology via the warrior theory and talk of the mirror neuron.
[xiii] I derive this notion of a negative duty not to harm
the global poor from: Thomas
Pogge. 2002. World poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and
Reforms. (Cambridge Polity Press, 2002), 3
[xiv] Raikka, ‘Disassociating Oneself from Collective
Responsibility,’ 95
[xv] Ibid, 96
[xvi] For one thing, Western nations are inherently individualistic due to things
like bills of rights or cultural attitudes based on individual rights or
liberty, yet many individuals in these groups would regard things like taxation
for social spending and the public good as positive if not necessary for a just
community.
[xvii] Janna Thompson. 2006, “Collective Responsibility for
Historic Injustice” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XXX: 155.
[xix] Judith Lichtenberg. 2013. ‘Negative Duties, Positive
Rights, and “New Harms” Ethics (The University of Chicago Press, 2010), 2
[xx] Raikka, ‘Disassociating Oneself from Collective
Responsibility,’ 100
[xxi] Jan Narveson. 1993. ‘Moral Matters.’ (Lewiston, NY:
Broadview Press), 168
[xxii] Narveson, ‘Moral Matters,’ 168
[xxiii] Reiff, ‘Terrorism, Retribution, and Collective
Responsibility,’ 224
[xxiv] Gregory Mellema. 1997. ‘Collective Responsibility.’
(Rodopi: Amsterdam; Atlanta, GA), 75
[xxv]
Indeed, I am speaking of what is known as ‘body positivity’ and ‘fat acceptance’
as well as each one’s dubious, albeit congruent, connection with mainstream or
“intersectional” feminism. I speak more on this connection elsewhere in a
conference paper that is also under review.
[xxvi] Katherine Ritchie. 2015. “The Metaphysics of Social
Groups.” Philosophy Compass 10 (5): 310-321
[xxvii] Ritchie correctly remarked James as playing for the
Cleveland Cavaliers at the time she published paper (Ibid, 2015, pp. 6).
[xxviii] Though, I do not think it is necessary for LeBron
James to be African-American in all possible worlds in which he exists, that
is, such that his parents could raised him elsewhere in any world similar to
this one.
[xxix] I understand Hobbes’s Leviathan to hold a
contemporary interpretation a bit distinct from what he had initially intended
insofar as it contemporary discussions of groups as Leviathans has modified
this concept from an authoritative monarchy to something more freely entered
into and maintained. As such something like plural subjects spring to mind:
Margaret Gilbert. 2002. ‘Guilt and Collective Guilt Feelings’. The Journal of
Ethics, Vol. 6, No. 2, pp. 115-143
[xxxii]
Gilbert.2015. ‘Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World,’ 6
[xxxiii]
I would argue, if called upon, that the Zapatista Liberation Front or EZLN, for
example, as the organizational head of all descendants of pre-Colombian
peoples. I would base this claim on the Spanish Casta system among other
metaphysical considerations.
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