In Praise of Collective Agents

Abstract Collective agents can be praiseworthy without any of their members being praiseworthy. To support this “discontinuity thesis,” we consider the role that motivation plays in the attribution of moral responsibility. An agent who is praiseworthy must have had the appropriate moral motivation. We argue that it is possible that the collective agent was appropriately motivated, while its members were not. Subsequently, we develop an account of corporate moral concern, which gives substance to this second discontinuity thesis, about the moral motivation of collective agents.