Groups are often said to bear responsibility for their actions, many
of which have enormous moral, legal, and social significance. When
children were separated from their parents or guardians at the
U.S.-Mexico border as part of America's immigration policy, for
example, the Trump Administration was said to be responsible for the
harms these families suffered as a result. But are groups subject to
normative assessment simply in virtue of their individual members
being so, or are they somehow agents in their own right? Answering
this question depends on understanding key concepts in the
epistemology of groups, as we cannot hold the Trump Administration
responsible without first determining what it believed, knew, and
said. Deflationary theorists hold that group phenomena can be
understood entirely in terms of individual members and their states.
Inflationary theorists maintain that group phenomena are importantly
over and above, or otherwise distinct from, individual members and
their states. In The Epistemology of Groups Jennifer Lackey argues
that neither approach is satisfactory. Groups are more than their
members, but not because they have 'minds of their own,' as the
inflationists hold. Instead, she shows how group phenomena--like
belief, justification, and knowledge--depend on what the individual
group members do or are capable of doing while being subject to
group-level normative requirements. This framework allows for the
correct distribution of responsibility across groups and their
individual members.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780192637901
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Oxford University Press Academic UK
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter