You are reintroducing group guilt concepts, discussed higher in this thread. Groups do not have guilt, individuals do. When someone is wronged by a corporation, that is an individual.
If you remain attracted to group guilt as being valid, some thought games. Does someone white who migrates to america thereby adopt guilt for wrongs? Does that person become liable due to the move? What about someone black who migrates? What about their child? Should the child be guilty or half guilty? Should the tax system be adjusted to compensate? What about descendants of former slave owners who are not american citizens? What if their parent was disinherited along the way? How about for gender issues? Does a man inherit responsibility for past wrongs done to women?
If you accept group guilt or intergenerational guilt you are constructing a cast society, where people are defined by their lineage and physical characteristics, rather their actions as an individual. This entrenches social divisions and undermines individual agency and freedom. Western culture, nations and law are grounded in individual responsibility not group identity and are the better for it.
Only those that have proxies to accountable individuals, as in the example of the corporation, and with its exceptions such as with limited liability. Or an association, which has a board and a charter.
> Consider the opposing argument - groups have no responsibility for anything. Does that seem like a reasonable position?
Apart from formal corporations/associations, that is the reasonable position. In the context of the case, "Asian Americans" have no moral or legal responsibility to give up opportunities to "African Americans".
So, as an extreme case, should we jail Asian Americans because of the crimes of Unit 731? They're part of the same group, no?
One quibble with the word 'group' there, too: Ethnic groups are reference categories, not groups in the sense it'd make sense to think of groups as eg. decisionmaking entities that can be responsible for something.
If groups have responsibility as you say, then Blacks as a group would have tremendous culpability for excess ratio of interracial murder committed by that group.
That of course, is a racist idea, because it assigns group responsibility to the murders committed by individuals.
If you remain attracted to group guilt as being valid, some thought games. Does someone white who migrates to america thereby adopt guilt for wrongs? Does that person become liable due to the move? What about someone black who migrates? What about their child? Should the child be guilty or half guilty? Should the tax system be adjusted to compensate? What about descendants of former slave owners who are not american citizens? What if their parent was disinherited along the way? How about for gender issues? Does a man inherit responsibility for past wrongs done to women?
If you accept group guilt or intergenerational guilt you are constructing a cast society, where people are defined by their lineage and physical characteristics, rather their actions as an individual. This entrenches social divisions and undermines individual agency and freedom. Western culture, nations and law are grounded in individual responsibility not group identity and are the better for it.