Can Collective Responsibility for Perpetrated Evil Persist over Generations?

In the first part of the paper an argument is developed to the effect that (1) there is no moral ground for individual persons to feel responsible for or guilty about crimes of their group to which they have in no way contributed; and (2) since there is no irreducibly collective responsibility nor guilt at any time, there is no question of them persisting over time. In the second part it is argued that there is nevertheless sufficient reason for innocent individual members of a group (that persists over time) to take on responsibility and guilt for the evil other (earlier) members have committed. The reason depends on the acceptability of a particular psychological theory of personal identity.     

Joint Commitments

I question the adequacy of Margaret Gilbert's account of collectivefeelings of guilt as collective judgments which do not necessarilyhave any phenomenological components. I question whether joint commitment theory in its present form helps us to understand orresolve social conflicts.     

JUST WAR THEORY,HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION,AND THE NEED FOR A DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION

The primary purpose of government is to secure public goods that cannot be achieved by free markets. The Coordination Principle tells us to consolidate sovereign power in a single institution to overcome collective action problems that otherwise prevent secure provision of the relevant public goods. There are several public goods that require such coordination at the global level, chief among them being basic human rights. The claim that human rights require global coordination is supported in three main steps. First, I consider Pogge's and Habermas's analyses as alternatives to Hobbesian conceptions of justice. Second, I consider the core conventions of international law, which are in tension with the primacy of state sovereignty in the UN system. Third, I argue that the just war tradition does not limit just causes for war to self‐defense; it supports saving innocent third parties from crimes against humanity as a just reason for war. While classical authors focused less on this issue, the point is especially clear in twentieth‐century just war theories, such as those offered by the American Catholic bishops, Jean Elshtain, Brian Orend, and Michael Walzer. Against Walzer, I argue that we add intractable military tyranny to the list of horrors meriting intervention if other ad bellum conditions are met. But these results require us to reexamine the “just authority” of first resort to govern such interventions. The Coordination Principle implies that we should create a transnational federation with consolidated powers in place of a treaty organization requiring near‐unanimity. But to be legitimate, such a global institution must also be directly answerable to the citizens of its member states. While the UN Security Council is inadequate on both counts, a federation of democracies with a directly elected executive and legislature could meet both conditions.     

‘They will not control us’: Ingroup positivity and belief in intergroup conspiracies

This research examined the role of different forms of positive regard for the ingroup in predicting beliefs in intergroup conspiracies. Collective narcissism reflects a belief in ingroup greatness contingent on others’ recognition. We hypothesized that collective narcissism should be especially likely to foster outgroup conspiracy beliefs. Non‐narcissistic ingroup positivity, on the other hand, should predict a weaker tendency to believe in conspiracy theories. In Study 1, the endorsement of conspiratorial explanations of outgroup actions was positively predicted by collective narcissism but negatively by non‐narcissistic ingroup positivity. Study 2 showed that the opposite effects of collective narcissism and non‐narcissistic ingroup positivity on conspiracy beliefs were mediated via differential perceptions of threat. Study 3 manipulated whether conspiracy theories implicated ingroup or outgroup members. Collective narcissism predicted belief in outgroup conspiracies but not in ingroup conspiracies, while non‐narcissistic ingroup positivity predicted lower conspiracy beliefs, regardless of them being ascribed to the ingroup or the outgroup.     

The Irony of Social Trust: Individual‐level and Contextual‐level Links with Protest Intention and Radical Right Support in Switzerland

This research examines how social trust translates into dynamics of mobilisation for inclusion or exclusion in Swiss cantons by studying how social trust is linked to equality‐directed protest intention versus radical right support, comparing individual‐level and contextual‐level relationships. The study is based on data from the Swiss Household Panel collected between 2002 and 2008. The impact of individual‐level and contextual‐level social trust is analysed in three‐level regression models of repeated observations, nested in individuals who are nested in cantons. The results indicate complex patterns that depend on the level at which social trust is assessed and confirm the need for a contextualised view of social trust and social capital. For individuals, higher social trust is associated with higher protest intention and lower radical right support. However, in cantons characterised by higher rates of social trust, individuals are less likely to engage in protest actions and more likely to support the radical right. Further analyses show that canton‐level social trust is intertwined with other contextual factors, suggesting that in certain configurations, that is, combined with low levels of cultural and social diversity, climates of social trust may be linked to more restricted forms of solidarity and the persistence of inequality. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Protest Against Waste Contamination in the ‘Land of Fires’: Psychological Antecedents for Activists and Non‐activists

The ‘Land of Fires’ is a district in Italy characterized by illegal waste disposal, waste burning, and citizen protests over contamination. This study investigates the relevance of several psycho‐social factors that predict citizens' intention to protest, taking into account different research traditions. In addition, we hypothesize the effect of protest antecedents to be moderated by past participation behaviour (i.e. the level of activism). Hence, our study is a first attempt to explore the effect of protest antecedents as a function of the individual level of activism through a cross‐sectional survey study (N = 306). The results show significant effects of collective identity, sense of injustice, costs of protest, and perceived risk (cognitive dimension) on intention to protest. The effects of collective efficacy and perceived risk (affective dimension) are moderated by participants' level of activism, and these effects are significant only for non‐activists. The relevance of this new approach is discussed, as well as practical implications and possible further developments. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Hijab in the American workplace: visibility and discrimination

While the initial purpose of this article was to outline online collective action (OCA) towards promoting the rights of hijab-wearing Muslim women in the workplace, it became apparent that there were substantial impediments to this solidarity. Thus, the bulk of it takes up these obstacles, arguing that American hijabis face structural discrimination and Muslims in the United States are subjected to heightened discrimination when they are highly visible to the mainstream culture. This article reviews two cases of workplace discrimination against hijabis and the reactions to these incidents on the Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, and hijab-oriented blogs. Findings indicate that intolerance of Muslims is prevalent across various political affiliations and apprehension associated with hijabi rights could be related to the perceived decline of white privilege. The analysis also demonstrates that there may be impediments to solidarity with hijabi rights within Muslim communities due to disagreements on the Qur’anic mandate of modesty, divergent perspectives on how Muslims can best promote their rights and ensure their safety, and misunderstandings related to the rights guaranteed under reasonable accommodation. Despite the various obstacles to solidarity with hijabis, the article traces various forms of OCA at local, national and international levels that were encountered on social media platforms.     

KAGAWA TOYOHIKO (1888–1960): WITNESS TO THE COSMIC DRAMA

At home and abroad, Kagawa Toyohiko was probably the best‐known Japanese Christian evangelist, social reformer, writer, and public intellectual of the twentieth century, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature twice (1947, 1948) and the Nobel Peace Prize three times (1954, 1955, 1956). Appealing to the masses with little knowledge of Christian faith, Kagawa believed that a positive, religio‐aesthetic interpretation of nature and science was a key missiological concern in Japan. He reasoned that a faith rooted in the kenotic movement of incarnation and self‐giving must strongly support the scientific quest. A voracious reader of science and especially biology, he argues for “directionality,” or what he calls “initial purpose” in the long, painful, cosmic journey from matter to life to mind (or consciousness). Through an antireductionistic, a posteriori methodological pluralism that sought to “see all things whole,” this “scientific mystic” employed Christian, Buddhist, Neo‐Confucian, personalist, and vitalist ideas to envision complementary roles for science and religion in modern society.     

Palestinian Educational Philosophy Between Past and Present

The article discuses the education issue as a central and decisive factor inshaping, reproducing and representing individual and collective identity.I present the Palestinian case study because the Palestinian people are atthe present in a very critical period of constructing their national identityand education is part of the nation-building project. I have chosen to studytwo periods in the life of Palestinians, 1972 during the revolution and thepresent 1999 the start of the establishment of an independent Palestinianentity and to examine how the economic, social, political conditions etc.affect the formation of the educational philosophy of those periods; aneducational philosophy that will affect the formation of education and theformation of private and collective consciousness.     

Social relations in crowds: Recognition,validation and solidarity

Social identity research on crowds demonstrates how cognitive self-definition as a crowd member results in conformity to identity-relevant norms. Rather less research has addressed the social-relational changes within a crowd and how these impact collective experience positively. The present study investigates these processes at a month-long mass gathering in India. Analysis of 37 interviews with participants attending the annual Magh Mela pilgrimage evidences the concept of shared identity as underpinning their understanding of this mass gathering. Moreover, a theoretically derived thematic analysis of these interviews shows the value of the analytic concepts of recognition, validation, and solidarity in illuminating the ways in which social relations in the crowd were experienced and contributed to the experience of the event. Through exploring the multi-dimensional nature of relational connectedness in crowds we contribute to an understanding of crowd experience and group processes.