Abstract
What should we expect from a theory of collective moral obligations apart from a general level of plausibility? It should ideally confirm our moral intuitions for unambiguous cases and be practically action-guiding. Ideally, the theory would contribute towards an explanation of why we feel on occasion torn between collectively available action and individually available options. One might further think it desirable that an account of collective obligations harmonises with the agency principle and the capacity principle. There are good reasons to prefer accounts that are ontologically as frugal as possible. According to the unification desideratum, collectivist approaches may serve to unify our obligations to act towards collective endeavours. The moral improvement desideratum suggests such a theory should help overcome the individual impotence objection - the view that one does not have a duty to contribute to a collective endeavour where one’s contribution makes no perceptible difference. Finally, there is an aspiration which one might call the ‘moral phenomenology desideratum’: that a moral theory should be congruous with how agents subjectively perceive their moral agency.