The paper defends the thesis that institutional virtue is properly modeled as a ''consensual'' property, along the lines of the Lehrer-Wagner model of consensus (LWC). In a first step, I argue that institutional virtue is not exhausted by duty-fulfilling, since institutions, contrary to natural individuals, are designed to fulfill duties. To avoid the charge of vacuity, virtue, if attributed to institutions, must be able to motivate supererogatory action. In a second step, I argue against discontinuity of institutional virtue with individual virtue. Two main arguments for discontinuity of collective properties display serious shortcomings when applied to virtues of institutions. Given that motivation for supererogatory action is neither inferred from statutory duties nor accommodates a right of reprobation, modeling institutional virtue on collective rationality or explaining it in terms of joint commitment both prove problematic. In a third step, I argue that LWC has the explanatory potential to account for institutional virtue. Due to its main features, iteration and evaluation, it provides a non-trivial analysis of continuity and thereby satisfies basic constraints on the notion of genuine institutional virtue.

The aim of the present paper is to evaluate the notion of collective guilt feeling both in the light of research in affectivity and in collective intentionality. The paper is divided into an introduction and three main sections. Section 1) highlights relevant features of guilt-family emotions such as the relation between feeling guilt and objective guilt, the relation between feeling guilt and its content, and the relation between feeling guilt and the 'self'. Moreover, the distinction between feeling guilt and feeling regret is given due attention. Section 2) examines Margaret Gilbert's arguments in favor of a collectivist view of collective guilt feeling (displayed as 'We feel guilt for p'), according to which groups do genuinely feel guilt. Against the collectivist position I argue for an individualist 'membership account' of collective guilt feeling in terms of individual members' we-feeling of guilt. The membership account of collective guilt feeling is vindicated on grounds of a naturalist and non-judgmentalist understanding of emotions, as well as on the logic of personal pronouns. It combines individualism regarding the subject of the feeling with collectivism regarding the irreducibility of we-feelings and provides, as I further argue, the required moral force attributed to collective guilt feeling. The concern of section 3) is the question of the appropriate emotional response to collective wrongdoing. I argue against the view that group members are categorically 'committed to feel guilt as a body' for wrongdoings committed by the group. Given that individual members often do not participate in their groups' wrongdoings, it seems unjust to impose a requirement for feeling guilt upon them. I suggest that in a general account of the appropriate assessment of collective wrongdoing, feeling regret is the better candidate than feeling guilt for the role of the minimally required emotional response.

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It is often seen as a truism that social objects and facts are the product of human intentions. I argue that the role of intentions in social ontology is commonly overestimated. I introduce a distinction that is implicit in much discussion of social ontology, but is often overlooked: between a social entity's "grounds" and its "anchors." For both, I argue that intentions, either individual or collective, are less essential than many theorists have assumed. Instead, I propose a more worldly-and less intellectualist-approach to social ontology.

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