This paper assesses the viability of the model of ”collective action’ for the understanding of the doctrine of the inseparability of trinitarian operations, broadly conceived within a Social-Trinitarian framework. I argue that a ”loose’ understanding of this inseparability as ”unity of intention’ is insufficiently monotheistic and that it can be ”tightened’ by an understanding of the ontology of triune operations analogically modelled after collective actions of a ”constitutive’ kind. I also show that attention to the ”description relativity of action ascriptions’ (...) can potentially move us beyond the impasse of the doctrine of appropriation. Finally, I respond to potential objections. (shrink)

In an earlier paper, I argued for an account of the metaphysics of grace which was libertarian in nature but also non-Pelagian. My goal in the present paper is to broaden my focus on how the human and divine wills relate in graced activities. While there is widespread agreement in Christian theology that the two do interact in an important way, what’s less clear is how the wills of two agents can be united in one of them performing a particular (...) action via a kind of joint or unitive willing. Insofar as the goal in these unitive willings is to have the human will and the divine will operating together in the human bringing about a particular action, I refer to this kind of volition as ”cooperative agency’. I explore two different models -- an identificationist model and an incarnation model -- regarding how the human agent is aligned with God in cooperative agency. I then argue that there are significant reasons for preferring the incarnational model over the identificationist model. (shrink)

Shared intention normally leads to joint action. It does this, it is commonly said, only because it is a characteristically stable phenomenon, a phenomenon that tends to persist from the time it is formed until the time it is fulfilled. However, the issue of what the stability of shared intention comes down to remains largely undertheorized. My aim in this paper is to remedy this shortcoming. I argue that shared intention is a source of moral and epistemic reasons, that responsiveness (...) to such reasons on the part of each individual reinforces her own relevant attitudes, and that this enhances the stability of the shared intention as a whole. We thus discover an important self-reinforcing and stability-enhancing mechanism at the heart of shared intention and action. It follows from this proposal that the psychological commitment that an individual exhibits in joint action is normally a function not only of her own participatory intention, as often maintained, but also of her endorsement of the reasons created by her group’s shared intention to so act. (shrink)

The problem of cooperation for rational actors comprises two sub problems: the problem of the intentional object (under what description does each actor perceive the situation?) and the problem of common knowledge for finite minds (how much belief iteration is required?). I will argue that subdoxastic signalling can solve the problem of the intentional object as long as this is confined to a simple coordination problem. In a more complex environment like an assurance game signals may become unreliable. Mutual beliefs (...) can then bolster the earlier attained equilibrium. I will first address these two problems by means of an example, in order to draw some more general lessons about combining evolutionary theory and rationality later on. (shrink)

There seems to be a difference between drinking coffee alone at home and drinking coffee in a café. Yet, drinking coffee in a café is not a joint action. It is an individual action done in a social environment. The café, with each person minding their own business next to others, is what I call a gregarious state of affairs. Gregariousness refers to the warmth of the social world. It is the difference between studying alone at home and studying in (...) the library. This light form of sociality is precisely what we were deprived of during the coronavirus lockdowns. Gregariousness cannot be explained as interaction or coordination, and neither can it be grasped solely as a normative aspect of the environment. This is why gregariousness cannot be explained using the concepts of strategic equilibrium, shared planning agency, joint commitment, we-intention, or second-person standpoint. In this paper, I will also provide a prospective theory of gregariousness. The aim of this paper is not to provide a definitive theory of gregariousness, nor to demonstrate that other theories of joint action are incorrect, but rather to draw attention to this aspect of the social world that has been largely neglected. (shrink)

Philosophers often talk as though each ability is held by exactly one agent. This paper begins by arguing that abilities can be held by groups of agents, where the group is not an agent. I provide a new argument for—and a new analysis of—non-agentive groups’ abilities. I then provide a new argument that, surprisingly, obligations are different: non-agentive groups cannot bear obligations, at least not if those groups are large-scale such as ‘humanity’ or ‘carbon emitters.’ This pair of conclusions is (...) important, since philosophers who endorse large-scale non-agentive groups’ abilities almost universally endorse their obligations. More importantly, the twin arguments (one for abilities, one against obligations) make the following novel contribution: abilities imply agency-involving explanations, while obligations imply action-guidance. This general conclusion should be of interest beyond social ontology. (shrink)

Philosophers often talk as though each ability is held by exactly one agent. This paper begins by arguing that abilities can be held by groups of agents, where the group is not an agent. I provide a new argument for—and a new analysis of—non-agentive groups’ abilities. I then provide a new argument that, surprisingly, obligations are different: non-agentive groups cannot bear obligations, at least not if those groups are large-scale such as ‘humanity’ or ‘carbon emitters.’ This pair of conclusions is (...) important, since philosophers who endorse large-scale non-agentive groups’ abilities almost universally endorse their obligations. More importantly, the twin arguments (one for abilities, one against obligations) make the following novel contribution: abilities imply agency-involving explanations, while obligations imply action-guidance. This general conclusion should be of interest beyond social ontology. (shrink)

Neste artigo iremos sistematizar os conceitos-chave da chamada epistemologia coletiva, apontando as diferentes teorias que explicam nossa prática de atribuição de estados cognitivos a grupos. Na introdução levantaremos o problema central que motiva a área, a saber: a atribuição de estados cognitivos a grupos tem como referente o grupo enquanto grupo ou os indivíduos que o compõe? Na primeira seção apresentaremos os melhores argumentos em favor do individualismo, aqueles que defendem que as atribuições se reduzem aos indivíduos. Na segunda, terceira (...) e quarta seções apresentaremos modelos coletivistas, que defendem uma certa autonomia do grupo frente aos indivíduos, o conjunto de membros que o compõe. Na quinta e sexta seções apresentaremos como modelos coletivistas explicam a atribuição de justificação e conhecimento a grupos. Nós concluímos notando que os ataques coletivistas ao individualismo são bastante efetivos, fazendo com que essa abordagem seja difícil de sustentar, e apontando outros elementos que são necessários para a construção de um modelo coletivista completo. (shrink)

Since the Phaedo characterizes Socrates’s death as a punishment by Athens, many scholars argue that he could neither have been responsible for nor have intended his death, so that his death was not suicide. This is no mere semantic quibble: the question turns on issues of responsible and intentional action. I argue that the dialogues portray Socrates as committing suicide. To do so, I use a Platonic account of responsibility and intention to show how Athens and Socrates were jointly responsible (...) for Socrates’s death and that his intention was not only to do what justice requires but also to kill himself. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer an analysis of ‘group intentions.’ On our proposal, group intentions should be understood as a state of equilibrium among the beliefs of the members of a group. Although the discussion in this paper is non-technical, the equilibrium concept is drawn from the formal theory of interactive epistemology due to Robert Aumann. The goal of this paper is to provide an analysis of group intentions that is informed by important work in economics and formal epistemology.

Writers on collective action are in broad agreement that in order for a group of agents to form a collective intention, the members of that group must have beliefs about the beliefs of the other members. But in spite of the fact that this so-called "interactive knowledge" is central to virtually every account of collective intention, writers on this subject have not offered a detailed account of the nature of interactive knowledge. In this paper, we argue that such an account (...) is necessary for any adequate analysis of collective intention. Furthermore, we argue that an application of Robert Aumann's theory of interactive knowledge may be used to address several puzzling features of collective intention. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Many of the things we do are, or could be, done with others. Mundane examples favoured by philosophers include painting a house together (Bratman 1992), lifting.

In two articles, Smits, Buekens, and du Plessis have argued that John Searle’s account of institutional facts suffers serious flaws and should be replaced with a reductive account they call “incentivization.” We argue against their view in two ways. First, the specific flaws they find in Searle are based on misunderstandings. Second, “incentivization,” as they present it, fails as a reduction of strict collective actions and, thus, cannot account for institutional facts such as money or property.

In two articles, Smits, Buekens, and du Plessis have argued that John Searle’s account of institutional facts suffers serious flaws and should be replaced with a reductive account they call “incentivization.” We argue against their view in two ways. First, the specific flaws they find in Searle are based on misunderstandings. Second, “incentivization,” as they present it, fails as a reduction of strict collective actions and, thus, cannot account for institutional facts such as money or property.

These are replies to the discussions by Kirk Ludwig, Elizabeth Pacherie, Björn Petersson, Abraham Roth, and Thomas Smith of Michael E. Bratman, Shared Agency: A Planning Theory of Acting Together (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Can a collective be an agent in its own right? Can it be the bearer of moral and other properties that we have traditionally reserved for individual agents? The answer, as one might expect, is ‘In some ways yes, in other ways no.’ The way in which the answer is ‘Yes’ has been described recently by Copp; I intend to discuss his position and defend it against objections. This describes a fairly weak form of autonomy that I will claim does (...) not require the abandonment of methodological individualism or our commonplace intuitions about individual responsibility. I will also discuss, and reject, a stronger conception of autonomy suggested especially by the work of Pettit that would result in methodological individualism. (shrink)

According to a widely accepted constraint on the content of intentions, here called the exclusivity constraint, one cannot intend to perform another agent’s action, even if one might be able to intend that she performs it. For example, while one can intend that one’s guest leaves before midnight, one cannot intend to perform her act of leaving. However, Deborah Tollefsen’s (2005) account of joint activity requires participants to have intentions-in-action (in John Searle’s (1983) sense) that violate this constraint. I argue (...) that the exclusivity constraint should not be accepted as an unconditional constraint on the contents of intentions-in-action: one may intend to perform a basic action that belongs both to oneself and to another agent. Based on the phenomenology of tool use, I first argue that intentions-in-action of one’s basic actions may be technologically extended, meaning that their contents are not restricted to concern the agent’s bodily movements. In analogy with this, I then argue that the phenomenology of some skillful joint activities supports the idea that one’s basic intentions-in-action may be socially extended, in violation of the widely accepted exclusivity constraint. Tollefsen’s account is specifically constructed to account for the joint activities of infants and toddlers who lack the capacity to think of others as planning agents and grasp their plan-like intentions (a capacity required by Michael Bratman’s (1992, 1993, 2009a, b) influential account of joint activity). At the end of the paper, I raise some doubts regarding the extent to which infants and toddlers have socially extended intentions-in-action. (shrink)

This paper argues for two models of agreement which develop the idea that there is an agreement where one party gives a conditional undertaking and the other responds with an unconditional undertaking. The models accommodate plausible justifications for making and complying with agreements.

The specter of the ‘group mind’ or ‘collective subject’ plays a crucial and fateful role in the current debate on collective intentionality. Fear of the group mind is one important reason why philosophers of collective intentionality resort to individualism. It is argued here that this measure taken against the group mind is as unnecessary as it is detrimental to our understanding of what it means to share an intention. A non-individualistic concept of shared intentionality does not necessarily have to get (...) stuck with some collectivist super-agent. Rather, the specter of the group mind arises from a deep-seated ‘Cartesian’ preconception concerning intentionality, which we should try to overcome. (shrink)

Philosophers and economists write about collective action from distinct but related points of view. This paper aims to bridge these perspectives. Economists have been concerned with rationality in a strategic context. There, problems posed by “coordination games” seem to point to a form of rational action, “team thinking,” which is not individualistic. Philosophers’ analyses of collective intention, however, sometimes reduce collective action to a set of individually instrumental actions. They do not, therefore, capture the first person plural perspective characteristic of (...) team thinking. Other analyses, problematically, depict intentions ranging over others’ actions. I offer an analysis of collective intention which avoids these problems. A collective intention aims only at causing an individual action, but its propositional content stipulates its mirroring in other minds. (shrink)

In this open access book, Timothy Aylsworth and Clinton Castro draw on the deep well of Kantian ethics to argue that we have moral duties, both to ourselves and to others, to protect our autonomy from the threat posed by the problematic use of technology. The problematic use of technologies like smartphones threatens our autonomy in a variety of ways, and critics have only begun to appreciate the vast scope of this problem. In the last decade, we have seen a (...) flurry of books making “self-help” arguments about how we could live happier, more fulfilling lives if we were less addicted to our phones. But none of these authors see this issue as one involving a moral duty to protect our autonomy. (shrink)

The leading reductive approaches to shared agency model that phenomenon in terms of complexes of individual intentions, understood as plan-laden commitments. Yet not all agents have such intentions, and non-planning agents such as small children and some non-human animals are clearly capable of sophisticated social interactions. But just how robust are their social capacities? Are non-planning agents capable of shared agency? Existing theories of shared agency have little to say about these important questions. I address this lacuna by developing a (...) reductive account of the social capacities of non-planning agents, which I argue supports the conclusion that they can enjoy shared agency. The resulting discussion offers a fine-grained account of the psychological capacities that can underlie shared agency, and produces a recipe for generating novel hypotheses concerning why some agents do not engage in shared agency. (shrink)

Most theories of intentional action agree that if acting for a reason is a necessary condition for the action in question to be an intentional action, the reason need not genuinely justify it. The same should hold for shared intentional action, toward which philosophers of action have recently turned their attention. I argue that some of the necessary conditions proposed for shared intention turn out to require that we deny this claim. They entail that shared intention is possible only if (...) the participating agents form their intentions on the grounds of genuinely rational considerations. Thus, they “over-rationalize,” as I call it, shared intention. (shrink)

I summarize and evaluate the aims of the collection From Individual to Collective Intentionality: New Essays edited by Sara Rachel Chant, Frank Hindriks and Gerhard Preyer in the context of the on-going debate about collective intentionality and group agency. I then consider the individual essays contained therein, both from the perspective of how they advance the collection’s goals and the coherence of their individual arguments.

We develop a theory of joint intention in contexts in which participants have mixed motives that can manifest in all-things-considered reasons to deviate from contributing to the desired project, e.g., contexts with collective action problems. Our theory is based on strategic equilibrium-based reasoning, which links the characterization of joint intention in terms of individual intentions with conditions on strategy profiles of the underlying strategic games. We use elements of equilibrium reasoning to construct a counterfactual account of joint intention in the (...) mixed-motive contexts, which extends the reach of the notion of joint intention considerably beyond that of previous formulations. (shrink)

Abstract: Might knowledge normatively govern conversations and not just their discrete constituent thoughts and (assertoric) actions? I answer yes, at least for a restricted class of conversations I call aimed conversations. On the view defended here, aimed conversations are governed by participatory know-how - viz., knowledge how to do what each interlocutor to the conversation shares a participatory intention to do by means of that conversation. In the specific case of conversations that are in the service of joint inquiry, the (...) view defended is that interlocutors (A, B, ... n) must intentionally inquire together into whether p, by means of an aimed conversation X, only if A,B, ... n know how to use X to find out together whether p. The view is supported by considerations about instrumental rationality, shared intentionality, the epistemology of intentional action, as well as linguistic data. (shrink)

According to one influential philosophical view of human agency, for an agent to perform an action intentionally is essentially for her to manifest a kind of self-knowledge: An agent is intentionally φ-ing if and only if she has a special kind of practical and non-observational knowledge that this is what she is doing. I here argue that this self-knowledge view faces serious problems when extended to account for intentional actions performed by several agents together as a result of a joint (...) decision. This suggests that practical and non-observational knowledge is not essential to intentional action as such, since a theory of intentional action ought to be able to make sense of such paradigm cases of joint intentional action as well as cases of singular intentional action. Existing attempts to extend the self-knowledge view to joint intentional action face an unfortunate trilemma. These attempts must (i) require that participants have non-observational knowledge of each other’s non-observational knowledge, which in turn requires that the participants are either really one and the same agent, or that they are, for all relevant purposes, clones of each other; (ii) limit their explanatory scope to intentional actions performed by groups with a single decision maker at the top of an organisational hierarchy, which arguably are not really shared or jointly performed; or (iii) require that the intention of the group is the result of a public representational act that the group members will have observational knowledge of in a way that is incompatible with a core commitment of the self-knowledge view. I argue that each of these options is unacceptable given a self-knowledge view of intentional action. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue against the popular philosophical thesis---aka the ‘own action condition’---that an agent can only intend one’s own actions. I argue that the own action condition does not hold for any executive attitude, intentions included. The proper object of intentions is propositional rather than agential (‘I intend that so-and-so be the case’ rather than ‘I intend to do such-and-such’). I show that, although there are some essential de se components in intending, they do not restrict the content (...) of intentions to one’s own actions. I then discuss the special way in which one’s own actions can figure in the content of one’s intentions, which shows that the distinction between intending and acting is less stark than it appears at first. This is a conclusion that many defenders of the own action condition might find appealing but which, I argue, is better supported by rejecting the own action condition. (shrink)

Philosophers of action of different persuasions have suggested that there is a tight connection between the phenomenon of intending and the phenomena of “being settled on” and of “settling” a course of action. For many, this connection supports an important constraint on intention: one may only intend what one takes one’s so intending as settling. Traditionally, this has been understood as a doxastic constraint on intention: what one takes one’s intention as settling is what one believes one’s so intending as (...) settling. This paper proposes an alternative conception of such a constraint. The idea is to conceive of it in terms of the attitude of reliance, rather than of belief. The aim of the paper is three-fold: to clarify the connection between intending to act and the phenomena of being settled on and of settling a course of action, to provide support for the reliance conception of the cited constraint, and to show that this conception drives a wedge in the familiar dispute, between doxastic and conative accounts of intention, as to whether intending to act necessarily involves the belief that one will so act. (shrink)

In this chapter, we turn our attention to the effects of the attention economy on our ability to act autonomously as a group. We begin by clarifying which sorts of groups we are concerned with, which are structured groups (groups sufficiently organized that it makes sense to attribute agency to the group itself). Drawing on recent work by Purves and Davis (2022), we describe the essential roles of trust (i.e., depending on groups to fulfill their commitments) and trustworthiness (i.e., the (...) property of a group that makes trusting them fitting) in autonomous group action, with particular emphasis on democratic institutions (which we view as group agents) and democratic legitimacy (which depends on trust and trustworthiness). We then explain how engagement maximization promotes polarization, which is detrimental to trust and trustworthiness and, in turn, democratic legitimacy and democratic institutions. We close by considering what groups might do to protect themselves from the threat posed to them by the attention economy. (shrink)

Shared agency is a distinctive kind of sociality that involves interdependent planning, practical reasoning, and action between participants. Philosophical reflection suggests that agents engage in this form of sociality when a special structure of interrelated psychological attitudes exists between them, a set of attitudes that constitutes a collective intention. I defend a new way to understand collective intention as a combination of individual conditional intentions. Revising an initial statement of the conditional intention account in response to several challenges leads to (...) a specification of the properties these intentions need to have in order to be genuine commitments. I then show how a structure of conditional intentions with these properties settles a collection of agents on engaging in social interactions that display all the features typically associated with shared agency. (shrink)

Mutual perceptual knowledge is a prevalent feature of our everyday lives, yet appears to be exceptionally difficult to characterise in an acceptable way. This paper argues for a renewed understanding of Stephen Schiffer’s iterative approach to mutual knowledge, according to which mutual knowledge requires an infinite number of overlapping, embedded mental states. It is argued that the charge of ‘psychological implausibility’ that normally accompanies discussion of this approach can be offset by identifying mutual knowledge, not with the infinite iterations themselves, (...) but with the finite base which Schiffer proves is capable of generating those iterations. An understanding of this finite base as a primitive, relational property holding between two or more people, allows us to understand the iterations as an implicit and ‘harmless’ intrapersonal feature of what is an interpersonal phenomenon. The paper concludes by relating the account to joint attention in infant interaction. (shrink)

Crito thinks Socrates should agree to leave the prison and escape from Athens. Socrates is also determined that he and Crito should have a ‘common plan of action’ (koinē boulē: 49d3), but he wants Crito to share his preferred plan of remaining and submitting to the court’s sentence. Much of the drama of the Crito is generated by the interplay of these two old friends, both determined that they should come to an agreement, but differing radically in what they think (...) the two of them should agree to do. I show how agreements of various kinds—including agreements about how to agree—play important roles in the dialogue and how Socrates’ commitment to a certain method for determining what to do underpins his own integrity. What’s more, attention to that theme helps to explain one of the most pressing questions for any interpretation of the Crito: Why does Socrates choose, at the end of the dialogue, to present to Crito a speech in the voice of the personified laws of Athens? (shrink)

“How can I, who am thinking about the entire, centerless universe, be anything so specific as this: this measly creature existing in a tiny morsel of space and time?” This metaphysically self-deprecating question, posed by Thomas Nagel, holds an insight into the nature of personhood and the ordinary ways we value it, in others and in ourselves. I articulate that insight and apply it to the phenomena of friendship, companionship, sexuality, solitude, and love. Although love comes in many forms, I (...) say, it always involves a sense of wonder at a finite creature thinking infinite thoughts. (shrink)

Just as our scientific inquiries are framed by our prior conception of what can be observed ? that is, of observables ? so our practical deliberations are framed by our prior conception of what can be done, that is, of doables. And doables are socially constructed, with the result that they vary between societies. I explore how doables are constructed and conclude with some remarks about the implications for moral relativism.

I propose a minimal account of authorship that specifies the fundamental nature of the author-relation and its minimal domain composition in terms of a three-place causal-intentional relation holding between agents and sort-relative works. I contrast my account with the minimal account tacitly held by most authorship theories, which is a two-place relation holding between agents and works simpliciter. I claim that only my view can ground productive and informative principled distincitons between collective production and collective authorship.

This paper gives an up-to-date account of we-intentions and responds to some critics of the author’s earlier work on the topic in question. While the main lines of the new account are basically the same as before, the present account considerably adds to the earlier work. For one thing, it shows how we-intentions and joint intentions can arise in terms of the so-called Bulletin Board View of joint intention acquisition, which relies heavily on some underlying mutually accepted conceptual and situational (...) presuppositions but does not require agreement making or joint intention to form a joint intention. The model yields categorical, unconditional intentions to participate in the content of the we-intention and joint intention (viz. shared we-intention upon analysis). The content of a we-intention can be, but need not be a joint action. Thus a participant alone cannot settle and control the content of the intention. Instead the participants jointly settle the content and control the satisfaction of the intention. These and some other features distinguish we-intentions from “action intentions”, viz. intentions that an agent can alone settle and satisfy. The paper discusses weintentions (and other “aim-intentions”) from this perspective and it also defends the author’s earlier account against a charge of vicious circularity that has been directed against it. (shrink)

Mind reading (i.e. the ability to infer the mental state of another agent) is taken to be the main cognitive ability required to share an intention and to collaborate. In this paper, I argue that another cognitive ability is also necessary to collaborate: representing others’ and ones’ own goals from a third-person perspective (other-centred or allocentric representation of goals). I argue that allocentric mind reading enables the cognitive ability of goal adoption, i.e. having the goal that another agent’s achieve p (...) because and as long as another agent has that goal that p. Having clarified the relevance of mutual goal adoption for acting jointly, I argue that when an intention is shared between several agents, each individual has an intention in favour of the joint action and one in favour of a joint mode of reasoning. This mode of reasoning is allocentric reasoning. Finally, I elaborate on the consequences of this view for the scientific study of human collaboration. (shrink)

In the paper, I distinguish the bottom-up strategy and the intentional stance strategy of analyzing group intentional states, and show that the thesis of distributed group subject of knowledge could be accommodated by either of them. Moreover, I argue that when combined with virtue reliabilism the thesis satisfactorily explains the phenomenon of group knowledge. To justify my argument, in the second part of the paper, I distinguish two accounts of justification pointing to conditions of group knowledge. The first, which I (...) call the belief-centered approach to group intentional states, determines the concept of group belief and group justificatory reason. The second, the process-centered approach represented by S. Orestis Palermos, employs the theory of virtue reliabilism and focuses on the group knowledge-conducive process. In the paper, I argue in favor of the latter as the internalism associated with the former appears to lack sufficient explanatory power. The theory of virtue epistemology runs into considerable difficulties when trying to deal with an extended epistemic subject composed of one individual and her cognitive artifact. In the two last parts of the paper, I consider the most important difficulties and argue that these obstacles are overcome once one adopts an approach combining virtue epistemology and the thesis of distributed group epistemic subject. (shrink)

In everyday discourse and in the context of social scientific research we often attribute intentional states to groups. Contemporary approaches to group intentionality have either dismissed these attributions as metaphorical or provided an analysis of our attributions in terms of the intentional states of individuals in the group.Insection1, the author argues that these approaches are problematic. In sections 2 and 3, the author defends the view that certain groups are literally intentional agents. In section 4, the author argues that there (...) are significant reasons for social scientists and philosophers of social science to acknowledge the adequacy of macro-level explanations that involve the attribution of intentional states to groups. In section 5, the author considers and responds to some criticisms of the thesis she defends. (shrink)

Standard accounts in social ontology and the group cognition debate have typically focused on how collective modes, types, and contents of intentions or representational states must be construed so as to constitute the jointness of the respective agents, cognizers, and their engagements. However, if we take intentions, beliefs, or mental representations all to instantiate some mental properties, then the more basic issue regarding such collective engagements is what it is for groups of individual minds to share a mind. Somewhat surprisingly, (...) this very issue has not received much attention in the respective debates and when it has, typically the outlook has been skeptical or outright negative. In this paper, I argue that it is epistemologically possible for a group of individuals to literally share a single mental unit. In particular, I will put forward and defend what I shall call the zombie conception of group minds. (shrink)

The consensus in the philosophical literature on joint action is that, sometimes at least, when agents intentionally jointly φ, this is explicable by their intending that they φ, for a period of time prior to their φ-ing. If this be granted, it poses a dilemma. For agents who so intend either severally or jointly intend that they φ. The first option is ruled out by two stipulations that we may consistently make: (i) that at least one of the agents non-akratically (...) believes that, all things considered, the agents ought not to φ, and (ii) that an agent is akratic, if she intends a thing that she believes, all things considered, ought not to be done. But the second option seems to entail the existence of a mental state with multiple subjects, which, in turn, seems to commit us to the existence of a group mind modified by that state: an incautious posit to say the least. I resolve the dilemma by noting that ‘They jointly intend’ is indeterminate between ‘They intend, jointly’, which does indeed entail that some mental state is an intention with multiple subjects, and ‘Jointly, they intend’, which entails a weaker claim, viz. that some mental state or states is an intention with multiple subjects. I then sketch an account of how a plurality of mental states, distributed among subjects, might, collectively, do service as their intention that they φ. It makes novel use of notions of participation and of doing a thing jointly with others. A corollary is that either intentions are not attitudes towards propositions, or propositions are individuated more finely than is often assumed. (shrink)

I adapt an old example of Frank Jackson's, in order to show that it is not only possible that actions with different individual agents are sub-optimal when each is not, but that they are impermissible when each is not, and blameworthy when each is not.

Groups behave in a variety of ways. To show that this behavior amounts to action, it would be best to fit it into a general account of action. However, nearly every account from the philosophy of action requires the agent to have mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Unfortunately, theorists are divided over whether groups can instantiate these states—typically depending on whether or not they are willing to accept functionalism about the mind. But we can avoid this debate. (...) I show how a more general view of action captures what is central to action without mentioning mental states, and I argue that a group’s members can fulfill the role in group action that mental states play in our actions. Group behavior is explicable in terms of reasons, regardless of whether the group itself cognizes those reasons. After discussing the kind of reasons at issue and arguing that groups can act in light of them without minds, I assess how this account bears on the question of group responsibility. (shrink)

For a view which grounds norms in the practices of a particular group, determining who is in that group will determine the scope of those norms. Such a view requires an account of what it is to be a member of the group subject to that practice. In this article, the author presents the beginnings of such an account, limiting his inquiry to discursive practices; we might characterize such practices as those which require, as a condition of participation, participants both (...) to exchange reasons with one another and to recognize that practice as a common source of reasons. The author argues that membership in such groups is constituted by the conjunction of shared discursive practices, common recognition of the authority of that practice, and commitments between members. In the case of discursive practices, these features of membership are inseparable. Key Words: practice • commitment • membership • discursive stance. (shrink)

In an important new book on shared agency, Michael Bratman develops an account of the normative demand for the coordination of intentions amongst participants in shared agency. Bratman seeks to understand this form of normative guidance in terms of that associated with individual planning intentions. I give reasons to resist his form of reductionism. In addition, I note how Bratman’s discussion raises the interesting issue of the function or purpose of shared intention and of shared agency more generally. According to (...) Bratman, the function of shared intention is to promote interpersonal coordination of intention and action. I suggest that power sharing amongst participants must also be included as a function of shared intention. (shrink)

Abstract The specter of the ?group mind? or ?collective subject? plays a crucial and fateful role in the current debate on collective intentionality. Fear of the group mind is one important reason why philosophers of collective intentionality resort to individualism. It is argued here that this measure taken against the group mind is as unnecessary as it is detrimental to our understanding of what it means to share an intention. A non-individualistic concept of shared intentionality does not necessarily have to (...) get stuck with some collectivist super-agent. Rather, the specter of the group mind arises from a deep-seated ?Cartesian? preconception concerning intentionality, which we should try to overcome. *I am greatly indebted to Raimo Tuomela for his comments. Also, I wish to thank Michael Bratman, Fabienne Peter, Richard Raatzsch and Katrin Meyer. (shrink)