The speaker: Dr Stephanie Collins is a Senior Research Fellow at the Dianoia Institute for Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne.

She received her BA(Hons) and Master of Public Policy from the University of Auckland.

In 2013, she completed her PhD in Moral, Social, and Political Philosophy at the Australian National University.

From 2013 to 2018, she was Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Manchester in the UK.

In 2018, she moved back to Australia to join the Dianoia Institute. She is the author of two books – The Core of Care Ethics (2015) and Group Duties (2019) – and has published widely on collective responsibility, human rights, and group agency.

The topic: Citizens’ Responsibility for their States’ Actions

When our state does wrong, we are often inclined to distance ourselves from that wrong. For example, we might point out that nothing we could have done would have made a difference.

But when we find ourselves overseas, we might find ourselves defending or explaining our state’s acts.

This raises the question: who’s responsible when the state does wrong?

Is it just the prime minister? The government? The whole legislature? In democracies, are all voters responsible (or, perhaps, just those who voted for the governing parties)?

And what does it mean to be ‘responsible’? I approach these questions via the philosophical literature on collective agency.

I’ll work through three considerations that bear upon the polity’s responsibility for the state’s acts: the polity’s control over what the state does; the polity’s unity; and the influence of individual polity-members.

I’ll suggest that citizens’ responsibility for their states’ actions depends upon two underlying considerations:

(1) the amount of discretion held by the state’s office-holders;

(2) the extent to which the democratic procedure is ‘deliberative’ rather than ‘aggregative.’ And even if citizens lack responsibility in the sense of blameworthiness, I’ll argue that their constitutive agential connections to the state give citizens duties regarding the state’s actions."

There is no need to book - just come along on the night.  After the talk there will be an opportunity for discussion over drinks or dinner at The Beach House for those who wish to participate in this way.

For more information please visit their website: http://www.portmacquariephilosophyforum.com/

Place: Meeting Room Level 2, The Glasshouse, Port Macquarie

Date:  Sunday 20th October, 2019

Time:  6pm to about 7.30pm                              

Entry: $10 general entry including seniors; $5 pensioners and students