Course The Ontology and Ethics of Social Groups

Course description

In this intensive seminar, we explore the ontological structure and the normative status of social groups. In particular, we will engage with recent debates about the following questions:

• What are social groups?
• Can groups be agents in their own right?
• Can groups be moral agents that bear moral responsibility irreducibly?
• Can unorganized groups bear responsibility?

There are lively debates about these issues in current social ontology, ethics, social and political philosophy. Much seems to depend on how we treat the problems posed by social groups. For instance, it matters to our understanding and explanation of social phenomena how we describe social groups and whether we regard some of them (in some way) as agents. And it is consequential for moral, political, and legal theory whether any groups have a moral status or can bear responsibility in a way that is not just an aggregate of their members' individual responsibility. Moreover, how we capture the ontological and moral status of groups is not just interesting in theory and regarding how we understand the foundation of the social sciences, it is relevant to our conception of individual agents whose life unfolds in, and depends to a large extent on, social groups.

The plan for this course is to discuss key texts that respond to the four guiding questions, develop an overview of the main positions, and identify the most promising views.

The course consists of an online preparatory meeting on 10 December 2026 and two in-person sessions on 21–22 January 2027, with an optional online presentation at 24 February.

Aim/Learning outcomes

By the end of the course, participants will be able to:

• critically reconstruct leading accounts of the ontology of social groups, including debates about group identity, structure, membership, and persistence;
• assess arguments for and against treating groups as agents, moral agents, and bearers of irreducible moral responsibility;
• apply concepts from social ontology, ethics, and social and political philosophy to evaluate cases involving organized and unorganized groups, collective action, and collective responsibility;
• (for participants who give a presentation) develop and defend an original line of argument on a topic in the ontology or ethics of social groups before a specialist audience.

Requirements for participation

• Participants must submit four written reading responses to the course lecturers by 20 January 2027, immediately before the in-person sessions. For each of the four sections of the course, participants submit a response to one of the assigned core readings. Each response should be approximately one page in length. The responses are ungraded and are not assessed as written assignments; their purpose is to support preparation, reflection, and seminar discussion. A good response should not merely summarize the text, but identify what the participant takes to be especially interesting, important, or puzzling in the argument. It should also raise points for clarification and indicate where the participant would challenge, qualify, or further develop the author’s position.
• Participants who wish to earn the additional ECTS credit may give an online presentation, to be scheduled before 1 June 2027. Presentations should critically discuss a selected topic from the course on the basis of the assigned readings and, where appropriate, additional literature. Guidance and support will be provided for participants who choose to prepare a presentation.

Target group/Participants

• PhD students in Philosophy, and PhD students in closely related fields (such as Sociology or Political Science) who have prior training in analytic philosophy. Prior knowledge of social ontology or collective responsibility is helpful but not required.

Workload

• Course/teaching hours: c. 17 hours (online preparatory meeting, c. 3 hours; in-person sessions, c. 14 hours)
• Preparation hours: c. 55 hours (core readings for the four sections)
• Written assignments etc.: c. 12 hours (four reading responses)
• Participants who also give the online presentation should expect a further c. 25 hours
• This gives a total of 84 hours w/o presentation, equivalent to 3.5 ECTS, or 109 hours with presentation, equivalent to 4.5 ECTs

Language 

• English

Lecturers

• Nicolai Knudsen, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy and History of Ideas, Aarhus University
• David Schweikard, Postdoc, Department of Philosophy and History of Ideas, Aarhus University

Literature

All literature will be distributed after the application deadline. NB: this selection is provisional and maybe revised before the preparatory meeting.

Section 1: What are social groups?

Core readings

• Epstein, Brian. “What Are Social Groups? Their Metaphysics and How to Classify Them.” Synthese 196, no. 12 (2019): 4899–4932.
• Ritchie, Katherine. “What Are Groups?” Philosophical Studies 166, no. 2 (2013): 257–272.
• Thomasson, Amie L. “The Ontology of Social Groups.” Synthese 196, no. 12 (2019): 4829–4845.

Recommended readings

• Ásta. Categories We Live By: The Construction of Sex, Gender, Race, and Other Social Categories. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
• Effingham, Nikk. “The Metaphysics of Groups.” Philosophical Studies 149, no. 2 (2010): 251–267.
• Fine, Kit. “The Identity of Social Groups.” Metaphysics 3, no. 1 (2020): 81–91.
• Gilbert, Margaret. On Social Facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
• Horden, John, and Dan López de Sa. “Groups as Pluralities.” Synthese 198, no. 11 (2021): 10237–10271.
• Hyska, Megan. “What Is Social Organizing?” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 110, no. 2 (2025): 460–496.
• Kaspers, Tom, Jacob LiBrizzi, Duccio Calosi, and Yoichi Kobe. “Speak No Ill of the Dead: The Dead as a Social Group.” Synthese 200 (2022): article 210.
• Pham, Quyen. “Social Groups, Structure, and Change.” Journal of Social Ontology 11, no. 1 (2025): 92–116.
• Ritchie, Katherine. “The Metaphysics of Social Groups.” Philosophy Compass 10, no. 5 (2015): 310–321.
• Ritchie, Katherine. “Social Structures and the Ontology of Social Groups.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 100, no. 2 (2020): 402–424.
• Schirripa, Giulia. “Social Groups and Classical Extensional Mereology.” Synthese 207 (2026): article 156.
• Sheehy, Paul. The Reality of Social Groups. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.
• Strohmaier, David. “Group Membership and Parthood.” Journal of Social Ontology 4, no. 2 (2018): 121–135.
• Thomasson, Amie L. “Foundations for a Social Ontology.” Protosociology 18/19 (2003): 269–290.
• Tuomela, Raimo. The Importance of Us: A Philosophical Study of Basic Social Notions. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995.
• Uzquiano, Gabriel. “The Supreme Court and the Supreme Court Justices: A Metaphysical Puzzle.” Noûs 38, no. 1 (2004): 135–153.

Section 2: Can groups be agents in their own right?

Core readings

• List, Christian, and Philip Pettit. Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011 [selections].
• Silver, Kenneth. “Group Action Without Group Minds.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104, no. 2 (2022): 321–342.
• Tuomela, Raimo. Social Ontology: Collective Intentionality and Group Agents. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013 [selections].

Recommended readings

• Bratman, Michael E. Shared Agency: A Planning Theory of Acting Together. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
• Collins, Stephanie. “Decision-Making Procedures Explain Group Agency.” Inquiry, online first (2025): 1–20.
• Corver, Fabian. “Explaining Collective Agency: A Defense of Internalist Corporate Interpretivism.” Philosophical Quarterly, advance article (2025): pqaf028.
• Crone, Katja, and Max Gab. “Are Groups Agents? A Critique of Interpretivism.” Cogent Arts & Humanities, online first (2025).
• Gilbert, Margaret. On Social Facts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
• Hess, Kendy M. (2025). Re-bunking corporate agency. Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 68 (3):979-999.
• Hindriks, Frank. “Collective Agency: Moral and Amoral.” Dialectica 72, no. 1 (2018): 3–23.
• Hindriks, Frank. “How Autonomous Are Collective Agents? Corporate Rights and Normative Individualism.” Erkenntnis 79, no. 9 (2014): 1565–1585.
• Hirvonen, Onni. “The Problem of the First Belief: Group Agents and Responsibility.” Journal of Social Ontology 6, no. 1 (2020): 1–20.
• Huebner, Bryce. Macrocognition: A Theory of Distributed Minds and Collective Intentionality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.
• Lasagni, Giulia. “On What Makes a Social Group a Group Agent.” Philosophical Inquiries 10, no. 2 (2022): 59–81.
• List, Christian. “Do Group Agents Have Free Will?” Inquiry 68, no. 3 (2025): 1021–1048.
• List, Christian. “Group Agency and Artificial Intelligence.” Philosophy & Technology 34, no. 4 (2021): 1213–1242.
• Ludwig, Kirk. From Individual to Plural Agency: Collective Action I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
• Ludwig, Kirk. From Plural to Institutional Agency: Collective Action II. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.
• MacArthur, Amy L. “Kantian Group Agency.” Journal of Business Ethics 154, no. 4 (2019): 917–927.
• Moen, Lars J. K. “Redundant Group Agency.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 49, no. 5 (2019): 364–384.
• Moen, Lars J. K. “Eliminating Group Agency.” Economics and Philosophy 39, no. 1 (2023): 43–66.
• Moen, Lars J. K. “Groups as Fictional Agents.” Inquiry 68, no. 3 (2025): 1049–1068.
• Pettit, Philip. “Groups with Minds of Their Own.” In Socializing Metaphysics: The Nature of Social Reality, edited by Frederick F. Schmitt, 167–193. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.
• Rovane, Carol. The Bounds of Agency: An Essay in Revisionary Metaphysics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
• Rust, Joshua. “Minimal Group Agency: A Bio-Social Ontology.” Journal of Social Ontology 11, no. 1 (2025): 28–62.
• Strohmaier, David. “Two Theories of Group Agency.” Philosophical Studies 177, no. 7 (2020): 1901–1918.
• Tollefsen, Deborah Perron. “Organizations as True Believers.” Journal of Social Philosophy 33, no. 3 (2002): 395–410.
• Tollefsen, Deborah Perron. Groups as Agents. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015.

Section 3: Can groups be moral agents that bear moral responsibility irreducibly?

Core readings

• Hess, Kendy M. (2014). “Because They Can: The Basis for the Moral Obligations of (Certain) Collectives.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 38 (1):203-221.
• Moen, Lars J. K. “Against Corporate Responsibility.” Journal of Social Philosophy 55, no. 1 (2024): 44–61.
• Pettit, Philip. “Responsibility Incorporated.” Ethics 117, no. 2 (2007): 171–201.

Recommended readings

• Björnsson, Gunnar, and Kendy M. Hess. “Corporate Crocodile Tears? On the Reactive Attitudes of Corporate Agents.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 94, no. 2 (2017): 273–298.
• Collins, Stephanie. “Group Blameworthiness and Group Rights.” Inquiry 68, no. 3 (2025): 937–957.
• Copp, David. “The Collective Moral Autonomy Thesis.” Journal of Social Philosophy 38, no. 3 (2007): 369–388.
• de Haan, Niels. “Group Agents, Moral Competence, and Duty-Bearers: The Update Argument.” Philosophical Studies 180 (2023): 1691–1715.
• de Haan, Niels. “Collective Moral Agency and Self-Induced Moral Incapacity.” Philosophical Explorations 26, no. 1 (2023): 1–22.
• Feinberg, Joel. “Collective Responsibility.” Journal of Philosophy 65, no. 21 (1968): 674–688.
• French, Peter A. Collective and Corporate Responsibility. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.
• Hess, Kendy M. (2010). “The Modern Corporation as Moral Agent.” Southwest Philosophy Review 26 (1):61-69.
• Hess, Kendy M. “The Free Will of Corporations.” Philosophical Studies 168, no. 1 (2014): 241–260.
• Hess, Kendy M. (2018). “Does the Machine Need a Ghost? Corporate Agents as Nonconscious Kantian Moral Agents.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 4 (1):67-86.
• Hess, Kendy M. “Corporate Moral Responsibility vs. Corporate Social Responsibility: Friedman Was Right.” Journal of Business Ethics 202, no. 3 (2025): 487–502.
• Hindriks, Frank. “Collective Agency: Moral and Amoral.” Dialectica 72, no. 1 (2018): 3–23.
• Isaacs, Tracy. Moral Responsibility in Collective Contexts. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
• Leffler, Olof. “Agent-Switching, Plight Inescapability and Corporate Agency.” Analytic Philosophy 66, no. 2 (2025): 181–197.
• May, Larry. Sharing Responsibility. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992.
• Miller, Seumas. “Against the Collective Moral Autonomy Thesis.” Journal of Social Philosophy 38, no. 3 (2007): 389–409.
• Piovarchy, Adam. “Attributionist Group Agent Responsibility.” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 25, no. 3 (2023): 495–515.
• Rehg, William. “Business Firms as Moral Agents: A Kantian Response to the Corporate Autonomy Problem.” Journal of Business Ethics 183, no. 4 (2023): 999–1009.
• Rönnegard, David. The Fallacy of Corporate Moral Agency. Dordrecht: Springer, 2015.
• Sepinwall, Amy J. “Corporate Moral Responsibility.” Philosophy Compass 11, no. 1 (2016): 3–13.
• Silver, Kenneth. “Corporate Weakness of Will.” Journal of Business Ethics 199, no. 4 (2025): 731–747.
• Thompson, Christopher. “The Moral Agency of Group Agents.” Erkenntnis 83, no. 3 (2018): 517–538.

Section 4: Can unorganized groups bear responsibility?

Core readings

• Albertzart, Maike. “Being Jointly Obligated: A Reductive Account.” Historical Social Research 48, no. 3 (2023): 296–319.
• Collins, Stephanie. “Abilities and Obligations: Lessons from Non-Agentive Groups.” Erkenntnis 88, no. 8 (2023): 3375–3396.
• Wringe, Bill. “Collective Obligations: Their Existence, Their Explanatory Power, and Their Supervenience on the Obligations of Individuals.” European Journal of Philosophy 24, no. 2 (2016): 472–497.

Recommended readings

• Berkey, Brian. “Collective Obligations and Demandingness Complaints.” Moral Philosophy and Politics 6, no. 1 (2019): 113–132.
• Björnsson, Gunnar. “Essentially Shared Obligations.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 38, no. 1 (2014): 103–120.
• Björnsson, Gunnar. “Collective Responsibility and Collective Obligations Without Collective Moral Agents.” In The Routledge Handbook of Collective Responsibility, edited by Saba Bazargan-Forward and Deborah Tollefsen, 127–141. New York: Routledge, 2020.
• Björnsson, Gunnar. “Group Duties Without Decision-Making Procedures.” Journal of Social Ontology 6, no. 1 (2020): 127–139.
• Blomberg, Olle. “What We Ought to Do: The Decisions and Duties of Non-Agential Groups.” Journal of Social Ontology 6, no. 1 (2020): 101–116.
• Collins, Stephanie. “Filling Collective Duty Gaps.” Journal of Philosophy 114, no. 11 (2017): 573–591.
• de Haan, Niels. “On the Relation Between Collective Responsibility and Collective Duties.” Philosophy 96, no. 1 (2021): 99–131.
• Hedahl, Marcus, and Kyle Fruh. “Duties and Demandingness, Individual and Collective.” Journal of Value Inquiry 56, no. 4 (2022): 563–585.
• Held, Virginia. “Can a Random Collection of Individuals Be Morally Responsible?” Journal of Philosophy 67, no. 14 (1970): 471–481.
• Knudsen, Nicolai. “A Pluralist Approach to Joint Responsibility.” Philosophy & Public Affairs 51 (2023): 140–165.
• Kutz, Christopher. Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
• Lawford-Smith, Holly. “The Feasibility of Collectives’ Actions.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 90, no. 3 (2012): 453–467.
• Petersson, Björn. “Collective Omissions and Responsibility.” In Hommage à Wlodek: Philosophical Papers Dedicated to Wlodek Rabinowicz, edited by Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen, Björn Petersson, Jonas Josefsson, and Dan Egonsson. Lund: Department of Philosophy, Lund University, 2007.
• Schulz, Moritz A. “So What’s My Part? Collective Duties, Individual Contributions, and Distributive Justice.” Historical Social Research 48, no. 3 (2023): 320–349.
• Schwenkenbecher, Anne. Getting Our Act Together: A Theory of Collective Moral Obligations. New York: Routledge, 2021.
• Schwenkenbecher, Anne. “How We Fail to Know: Group-Based Ignorance and Collective Epistemic Obligations.” Political Studies 70, no. 4 (2022): 901–918.
• Schwenkenbecher, Anne. “The Epistemology of Group Duties: What We Know and What We Ought to Do.” Journal of Social Ontology 6, no. 1 (2020): 91–100.
• Wringe, Bill. “Global Obligations, Collective Capacities, and ‘Ought Implies Can’.” Philosophical Studies 177, no. 6 (2020): 1523–1538.
• Wringe, Bill. “The Duties of Non-Agential Groups: Some Comments on Stephanie Collins’ Group Duties.” Journal of Social Ontology 6, no. 1 (2020): 117–125.
• Zimmerman, Michael J. “Sharing Responsibility.” American Philosophical Quarterly 22, no. 2 (1985): 115–122.

Venue

• 21 January 2027. 09.00-16.00. Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1481, room 341
• 22 January 2027. 09.00-16.00. Jens Chr. Skous Vej 4 , 8000 Aarhus C. Building 1481, room 341

Course dates:

• 10 December 2026 13:00 - 16:00
• 21 January 2027 09:00 - 16:00
• 22 January 2027 09:00 - 16:00
• 24 February 2027 09:00 - 16:00