Abstract

Collectivity: Ontology, Ethics, and Social Justice brings new voices and new approaches to under-developed areas in the philosophical literature on collectives and collective action. The essays in this volume introduce and explore a range of topics that fall under the more general concept of collectivity, including collective ontology, collective action, collective obligation, and collective responsibility. A number of the chapters link collectivity directly to significant issues of social justice.

The volume addresses a variety of questions including the ontology and taxonomy of social groups and other collective entities, ethical frameworks for understanding the nature and extent of individual and collective moral obligations, and applications of these conceptual explorations to oppressive social practices like mass incarceration, climate change, and global poverty. The essays draw on a variety of approaches and disciplines, including feminist and continental approaches and work in legal theory and geography, as well as more traditional philosophical contributions.

Hess, Igneski, and Isaacs have assembled an exceptional collection of new papers exploring the issues of ontology, ethics and social justice with respect to collectives. Many of the chapters advance and deepen prior analyses of the way collective entities should be considered from the point of view of moral responsibility, practically and theoretically. Collectivity makes provocative moves in the direction of aligning moral assessment and ontological considerations with the real world of corporations, organizations, groups, nations, and other collectives that control much of the social, political, and economic events that shape our lives for good or ill.

Peter A. French, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Arizona State University
This is a very fine collection of essays by a group of prominent scholars who together both deepen our philosophical understanding of collective responsibility and open our eyes to the importance of taking oppression, group identity, and social justice seriously in ascribing of it.
Marion Smiley, J. P. Morgan Chase Chair in Ethics, Brandeis University
Tracy Isaacs is Professor of Philosophy, Women’s Studies and Feminist Research at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. She is the author of Moral Responsibility in Collective Contexts (2011) and co-editor, with Richard Vernon, of Accountability for Collective Wrongdoing (2011).

Kendy M. Hess is the Brake Smith Associate Professor of Social Philosophy and Ethics at the College of the Holy Cross.

Violetta Igneski is Associate Professor of Philosophy at McMaster University.