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Hirvonen

Onni Hirvonen

MSSc University of Jyväskylä

email: ahirvonen01@qub.ac.uk

Thesis title: Groups as Moral Persons and Subjects in Recognition Relationships

The basis of my research is in the contemporary discussion on recognition, which is about persons who struggle to be taken as something. The central theories are motivated by a thought that being in recognition relationships has positive consequences for persons by affecting their identities and capacities. Being in recognition relationships with others is also connected to how participants of the relation see themselves, to their relations-to-self.

Recognition is usually conceived to be something that happens between individuals, but my approach is to find out if groups are capable subjects in recognition relationships. Many authors in the field of social ontology have claimed that groups are, indeed, something different that just a set of their members. In addition to this, the morality and responsibility of groups are widely discussed in politics and legal relations. For example states are said to recognize each other or, sometimes, to wrong each other or some particular class might be appreciated while some faction is repressed.

The recognition theory states that reciprocal recognition is a constitutive part of being a moral subject or a moral person. By investigating groups as moral subjects in recognition relationships we can make clear if groups really are moral persons in the same way as individuals are, or if this is just a case of metaphorical speech. This main research question divides in four smaller and distinct questions. The first of them is: what are groups and can they be subjects in any sense?

The second question concerns what we mean by respect as one mode of recognition and what is its relation to moral personhood. Thirdly I will consider the conditions that subjects have to fulfil in order to be moral persons and part of respect relationships. In the fourth part of the study I will examine, by the light of the answers of the previous parts, how groups fulfil, if they fulfil, the conditions for moral subjects in recognition relationships.

If the recognition theory is to be taken seriously, it has to considerate the social-ontological ideas of groups as subjects. In my research I will try to bring the group-view into the contemporary discussion on recognition theory.

Supervisors:

Cillian McBride and Shane O'Neill