In this talk, I describe a challenge for accounts of the structure of joint duties that originates in indeterminacies regarding the ascription and allocation of duties within a group. I discuss possible answers to this challenge and argue that the intuitively least welcome answer is ultimately the most adequate.

There is a kind of situation in which only some members of a group ought to perform a certain joint action, but it is indeterminate who is to discharge this duty. What if, for example, three people are each able and ready to perform a rescue maneuver, but it can only be performed by two of them jointly?

This suggests that the three together bear a joint duty to coordinate and that only a duplet bears a joint duty to perform the rescue. Crucially, it is indeterminate which of the three possible duplets bear the latter duty. And whereas each individual is party to the joint duty to coordinate, it is indeterminate whether they are to contribute to or refrain from contributing to the rescue.

Given these indeterminacies, who has a duty to rescue? I shall argue that all the individuals have joint duty until it’s settled who’s released from it.