Collective Responsibility: Types and Modes of Application

In this article on collective responsibility, the concern is twofold. First, several types of collective responsibility are distinguished: principally, collective natural, institutional, and moral responsibility. Second, numerous modes of application of various kinds of collective responsibility are identified and analyzed, including collective responsibility for the outcomes of joint institutional mechanisms (such as voting systems), for organizational action (by multi-layered structures of joint action), and the outcomes of chains of institutional responsibility (such as the verdicts of juries in criminal trials). Throughout, the concept of collective responsibility as joint responsibility is used.