Who should pay for a state’s wrongdoings?

When states are guilty of human rights violations or other crimes, they often face calls to pay reparations to their victims. But is it fair for the citizens of these states to share the blame for actions they had no personal involvement in? Drawing on a new book, Avia Pasternak explains why it can be reasonable for citizens to take responsibility for the wrongs of the past

Intending to Benefit from Wrongdoing

Some believe that the mere beneficiaries of wrongdoing of others ought to disgorge their tainted benefits. Others deny that claim. Both sides of this debate concentrate on unavoidable beneficiaries of the wrongdoing of others, who are presumed themselves to be innocent by virtue of the fact they have neither contributed to the wrong nor could they have avoided receiving the benefit. But as we show, this presumption is mistaken for unavoidable beneficiaries who intend in certain ways to benefit from wrongdoing, and who have therefore done something wrong in forming and acting on such an intention.Australian Research Council DP110100175

Rethinking corporate agency in business, philosophy and law

While researchers in business ethics, moral philosophy and jurisprudence have advanced the study of corporate agency, there have been very few attempts to bring together insights from these and other disciplines in the pages of the Journal of Business Ethics. By introducing to an audience of business ethics scholars the work of outstanding authors working outside the field this interdisciplinary special issue addresses this lacuna. Its aim is to encourage the formulation of innovative arguments that reinvigorate the study of corporate agency and stimulate further cross-fertilization of ideas between business ethics, law, philosophy and other disciplines.PostprintNon peer reviewe

The Collective Responsibility of Democratic Publics

Towards the end of her seminal work on the notion of representation Hanna Pitkin makes the following observation:At the end of the Second World War and during the Nuremberg trials there was much speculation about the war guilt of the German people. […] Many people might argue the responsibility of the German people even though a Nazi government was not representative. We might agree, however, that in the case of a representative government the responsibility would be more clear-cut.</jats:p

Civic Responsibility in the Face of Injustice

This thesis explores the ways in which citizens of democratic states are responsible for injustices perpetrated by their governments. The attribution of collective responsibility to citizens is common both in theory and practice. Yet there is relatively little thinking about its nature, scope and sources. The thesis develops in three parts. Part 1 identifies three types of responsibility which are relevant to governmental injustices. These are moral responsibility, liability, and counteractive responsibility (namely the responsibility to put an end to an ongoing injustice). It examines the attribution of each type of responsibility to individuals and to groups; and the ways in which the collective responsibilities of groups should be distributed amongst their members. An important distinction is drawn between an equal distribution of collective responsibility, which apportions an equal share to each group member; and a differential distribution, which apportions responsibility in light of group members' contributions to and benefits from collective harms. Part 2 applies these theoretical observations to the case of liberal democracies. It first considers the responsibilities of democratic publics as collective units. It explores the extent to which publics bear collective moral and consequential responsibilities for governmental policies. Such policies are often designed and carried out by relatively autonomous representative governments. The analysis is therefore supported by an account of the different meanings of political representation, and the responsibilities that they involve. The thesis then explores the ways in which the collective responsibilities of the public are to be shared amongst citizens. My core argument is that civic moral responsibility should be attributed in light of citizens' personal behaviour. But, liability and counteractive responsibility can be apportioned equally amongst citizens. The justification concerns the associative obligations of citizens in liberal democracies. The last part draws upon these conclusions in order to assess the legitimacy and necessity of international economic sanctions against 'unjust liberal democracies'. It argues that liberal democracies form amongst themselves a transnational community, and that consequently they have both the right and the obligation to monitor each other's behaviour, and to impose economic sanctions on liberal democracies that violate core democratic norms.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo