Kathryn Lindeman
Assistant Professor
Director, Law and Philosophy initiative
University of South Carolina
MHC Class of 2005

"The Priority of Plural Action"

We’re used to thinking about moral obligations, like the duty to keep a promise—but we also have moral powers. I can release you from a promise or give you permission to borrow my car. Where do these powers come from? This talk explores the idea that both obligations and powers are grounded in an understanding of moral agency that is essentially social. How particular moral obligations and powers might come from clearly identifiable plural action is fairly straightforward. Consider promising: it isn’t something you do alone. Your part is the promising; mine is the accepting. One person can no more make a promise than one person can dance a tango. And it in acting together that we find ourselves in normative relation to each other with particular normative obligations and powers. I argue, however, even categorical obligations and powers are grounded in plural action. Agents like us, who live lives coordinated with and around others, who recognize the possibility of promising, permitting, and tangoing, are always participating in a vast, ongoing structure of plural action. And like promising or tangoing, this form of action cannot be performed alone. Moral agents are not isolated individual agents who sometimes find themselves affecting or interacting with others. Both our moral obligations and moral powers are explained by the fact that our action is structured by massive ongoing plural action.