Thanks for a great answer! But I'll try a second punch, if you don't mind.

Somewhere on this forum I argued that maybe we make judgment calls based on both principles (deontological ethics) and consequences (consequentialism). I know the author is concerned with principles alone, but our brain probably weighs the two, in ways I don't claim to know, to get to an answer of right or wrong.

That said, I throw in the towel on deontological grounds. There is no way to delegate a moral right that you don't have. (Well, unless it was thought in advance that the collective had the moral right to act, but that is another discussion.)

But in terms of consequentialism, things change. It might not be moral for one person to act because he feels he cannot adequately predict the consequences. But if enough people join in, their prediction might be good enough for them to act.

I'll illustrate. Imagine your neighbor's wacky religion makes him treat his kid in a way you disapprove. Questions about his freedom of religion against his kid's rights will pop up on your head and you might find the problem too tough. You might then default to not intervene. (After all, maybe the kid can survive without a blood transfusion.)

A solution to this problem lies in asking for help from the community, so the issue is assessed by more people and more solutions arise. This is not exactly delegating a moral right you don't have - it's more like consolidating a moral imperative - but its end result is the same: the collective may morally act when the individual can't.

I'd just point out the the same principle acts in reverse, in what's called diffusion of responsability. In this phenomenon, people don't act because they believe it is society's responsibility to act. The existence of such a phenomenon is a hint that sometimes it might be moral for the collective to act, even if no individual could.