Who does wrong when an organisation does wrong?

[Extract] Every time I open a newspaper, I read about organizations doing wrong: a police force violently prevents people from holding an outlawed vote; a national military razes the houses of an ethnic minority; a car manufacturer fiddles its emissions data; and so on. Often, it’s obvious that some (if not all) members of the organization have done wrong—and it’s obvious who at least some of these wrongdoers are. However, how far does this extend throughout the organization? Have those members who remained silent—while not directly enacting the wrong—also done wrong, in the sense of having performed a blameworthy act?

Other cases are even more difficult. Think of systematic discrimination in a company’s hiring processes or in a state’s policies. These wrongdoings are temporally and spatially dispersed. In such cases, it might be clear that some members did wrong in the past.1 However, it is much more difficult to pin down which current members—if any—are doing, or have done, wrong. Current members are my concern here.