In this final chapter I will offer an account of the notion of collective moral responsibility. I will argue that collective moral responsibilities are joint responsibilities of individual human persons. This conception of collective responsibility as joint responsibility presupposes, and is heavily reliant on, the notion of joint action that I presented in Chapter 2. So the unifying and pivotal role of my notion of joint action in this philosophical study of social action continues to the last.

Further, I will argue that collective rights, as defined in Chapter 7, typically generate collective moral responsibilities on the part, not only of other collectives, but also of the bearers of the collective rights themselves. For example, Russian citizens have a collective right to be free of economic domination by organised crime groups. If so, this collective right generates two separate sets of collective responsibilities. It generates a collective responsibility on the part of Russians to put in place law enforcement mechanisms to curtail such domination. It also generates a collective responsibility on the part of members of law enforcement agencies outside Russia to assist the Russians in relation to this crime problem; or at least it does so, given that they are able to assist them, and given that the Russians cannot deal with their crime problem by themselves.

Along with rights go responsibilities. Along with collective rights go collective responsibilities. Before providing these slogans with some content, we need first to be clearer on the notion of (moral) responsibility and then on the notion of collective (moral) responsibility.