Abstract
We can often achieve together what we could not have achieved on our own.
Many times these outcomes and actions will be morally valuable; sometimes
they may be of substantial moral value. However, when can we be under an
obligation to perform some morally valuable action together with others, or to
jointly produce a morally significant outcome? Can there be collective moral
obligations, and if so, under what circumstances do we acquire them?
These are questions to which philosophers are increasingly turning their
attention. It is fair to say that traditional ethical theories cannot give a satisfying
answer to the questions, focusing as they do on the actions and attitudes of
discreet individual agents. It should also be noted that the debate surrounding
collective moral obligations is ongoing and by no means settled.
This chapter discusses and compares the different attempts to date to
answer the above questions. It proposes a set of meta-criteria—or desiderata—
for arbitrating between the various proposals.