Philosophy & What Matters. Ep. 17: Collective Agents with Holly Lawford-Smith (UniMelb)

"Philosophy & What Matters" deals with questions that matter to us from a philosophical point of view.
In 1999, the US Department of Justice sued several tobacco companies for having misled the public about the risks of smoking. The outcome of this landmark case? In 2006, the US Court of Appeals found Big Tobacco liable for fraudulently covering up the health risks associated with smoking and for marketing their products to children.
One thing to think about this litigation is the parties involved in it and their actions. You have the US DOJ suing and holding Big Tobacco culpable for misleading the public about the hazards of smoking. But how can the US DOJ and Big Tobacco do such intentional actions? Are they even capable of doing anything -- let alone be culpable or responsible for any action?
To talk about the ontological status of these collective agents and why it matters, we have Holly Lawford-Smith, Senior Lecturer of Political Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, and the author of Not In Their Name: Are Citizens Culpable for Their States’ Actions?
The "Philosophy & What Matters" website can be found here: sites.google.c....

[@CatherineKarena]

I think I shouldn't watch stuff that I find interesting that I know zero about. I come away with a lot of questions, and some frustrations. I'm not sure who the audience of this is for. It reminds me of the experiences of youngish men, I read about with a certain Australian aboriginal tribe, they have an ongoing formal conversation that continues on over centuries if I remember correctly. It's like a collective memory library. So anyone entering into the conversation has to wait a time to understand what went before, where the conversation is at, so they're on the same page and can make a contribution to add to the richness of the conversation for the group. Otherwise, you're a clumsy dim-witted oaf who annoys all the elders and get booted out for disrupting the flow.
But at the same time when the main speaker was touching on real-world stuff, it's like well okay actually that's stuff I have to deal with, in designing solutions for small communities. That's exciting if it gives you a different way to see things and opens up possibilities. So yes, good stuff, different perspectives useful. And I'm thinking to myself 'What is this? Are these models you are making are they designed to explain only. And or is it models so you can look to leverage change, make change happen, why? Are the models static? It feels like the model is static. What is the design of your thinking? What informs your models? What type of real-world scenarios can you map them over to...' Very irritating- very interesting, *sigh* Very distracting. I ended up buying the book.