Collective Responsibility: Epistemic and Moral
Organized by the Department of Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy & the PPE Center
Säde Hormio (Helsinki)
Freedom from facts? On the epistemic responsibility of social media platforms
Frank Hindriks (Groningen)
Responsibility Dualism? A Critique of the Target/Audience Distinction
Niels de Haan (Vienna)
Group Agents and the Sincerity Condition on Blame and Praise
Abstracts:
Freedom from facts? On the epistemic responsibility of social media platforms
Säde Hormio
In early January 2025, Meta announced it would eliminate factcheckers from its platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Threads), with Mark Zuckerberg claiming factcheckers were "too politically biased" and framing the change as restoring freedom of expression. This paper examines shifting social norms around facts versus political opinions, focusing on powerful agents driving these normative changes.
Social media companies function as hybrid epistemic institutions—curating content and providing public forums without creating content themselves (Miller 2022). By allowing conspiracy theories and "alternative facts" to proliferate, these companies neglect their epistemic responsibilities, contributing to environments where distinguishing facts from fiction becomes difficult for individuals.
While scholarship on ignorance and epistemic conditions for responsibility has grown (Peels 2023, Robichaud and Wieland 2017), literature on collective ignorance and responsibility remains limited (Clinkenbeard 2023, Hormio 2018, Lackey 2021, Schwenkenbecher 2021). This paper explores how social media companies' organizational epistemic practices affect individual knowledge about causes and effects of actions, examining implications for both individual responsibility (shared responsibility) and collective responsibility. It contributes to emerging debates in social epistemology concerning collective responsibility for tackling post-truth narratives and maintaining epistemic norms.
Responsibility Dualism? A Critique of the Target/Audience Distinction
Frank Hindriks
Can collectives and structures bear moral responsibilities? Insofar as they lack agency, the obvious answer seems to be no. To make this seem less obvious, some have distinguished between the target of responsibility attributions and their audience. According to responsibility dualism, responsibility attributions that are targeted at non-agential collectives and structures have their members as an audience. On the fact of it, this move looks like a trick. Here I ask whether it can be made to work.
Group Agents and the Sincerity Condition on Blame and Praise
Niels de Haan
Blame and praise are important drivers of social change, and, given their power and influence, group agents such as states, corporations and universities could play an important role by partaking in our moral practices. However, there often seems something ‘off’ about blame- or praise-interactions initiated by group agents. To make sense of this, I argue in favor of the Sincerity Condition on praise and blame: The blame- or praise-interaction is appropriate only if the blame or praise is expressed for the right sort of reason. I argue that the inappropriateness of insincere blame cannot be explained in terms of lacking standing, warrant or proportionality. And I argue that insincere praise is distinct from patronizing or hypocritical praise. Finally, I discuss whether and how group agents can satisfy this sincerity condition. I argue that group agents with a high degree of corporate moral concern can in principle satisfy the sincerity condition. Corporate moral concern requires having a substantive set of normatively informed member rules, procedural policies, and operational policies, which enables group agents to perform acts for moral reasons. This opens the door for sincere blame and praise by group agents. However, given that few group agents exhibit adequate moral concern, it is unlikely that many group agents in their current form will satisfy the Sincerity Condition.