Margaret Gilbert

Modeling Collective Belief

What is it for a group to believe something? A summative account assumes that for a group to believe that p most members of the group must believe that p. Accounts of this type are commonly proposed in interpretation of everyday ascriptions of beliefs to groups. I argue that a nonsummative account corresponds better to our unexamined understanding of such ascriptions. In particular I propose what I refer to as the ‘joint acceptance’ model of group belief. I argue that group beliefs according to the joint acceptance model are important phenomena whose aetiology and development require investigation. There is an analogous phenomenon of social or group preference, which social choice theory tends to ignore.

Agreements, Coercion, and Obligation

Typical agreements can be seen as joint decisions, inherently involving obligations of a distinctive kind. These obligations derive from the joint commitment that underlies a joint decision. One consequence of this understanding of agreements and their obligations is that coerced agreements are possible and impose obligations. It is not that the parties to an agreement should always conform to it, all things considered. Unless one is released from the agreement, however, one has some reason to conform to it, whatever else is true. In this sense, one is under an obligation to the other parties. The relevance of these points to the issue of political obligation is discussed.

Joint commitment : how we make the social world

CONTENTS PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS SOURCES INTRODUCTION PART I SHARED AGENCY Ch. 1 Acting Together Ch. 2 Considerations on Joint Commitment Ch. 3 Whos to Blame? Ch. 4 Rationality in Collective Action Ch. 5 Two Approaches to Shared Intention PART II COLLECTIVE ATTITUDES Ch. 6 Belief and Acceptance as Features of Groups Ch. 7 Collective Epistemology Ch. 8 Shared Values, Social Unity, and Liberty Ch. 9 Social Convention Revisited Ch. 10 Collective Guilt Feelings PART III MUTUAL RECOGNITION, PROMISES, AND LOVE Ch. 11 : a contractual model Ch. 12 The problem of promisees rights Ch. 13 Three dogmas about promising Ch. 14 Mutual Recognition PART IV POLITICAL LIFE Ch. 15 A Real Unity of Them All Ch. 16 Pro Patria: an Essay on Patriotism Ch. 17 De-moralizing Political Obligation Ch. 18 Commands and Their Practical Import BIBLIOGRAPHY OF AUTHORS WORKS INDEX

Is an Agreement an Exchange of Promises

This paper challenges the common assumption that an agreement is an exchange of promises. Proposing that the performance obligations of some typical agreements are simultaneous, interdependent, and unconditional, it argues that no promise-exchange has this structure of obligations. In addition to offering general considerations in support of this claim, it examines various types of promise-exchange, showing that none satisfy the criteria noted. Two forms of conditional promise are distinguished and both forms are discussed. A positive account of agreements as joint decisions founded in a joint commitment is sketched. It is argued that the example agreements represent especially clearly the normative structure of social union.

Collective guilt and collective guilt feelings

Can collectives feel guilt with respect to what they have done? It hasbeen claimed that they cannot. Yet in everyday discourse collectives areoften held to feel guilt, criticized because they do not, and so on.Among other things, this paper considers what such so-called collectiveguilt feelings amount to. If collective guilt feelings are sometimesappropriate, it must be the case that collectives can indeed beguilty. The paper begins with an account of what it is for a collectiveto intend to do something and to act in light of that intention.According to this account, and in senses that are explained, there is acollective that intends to do something if and only if the members of agiven population are jointly committed to intend as a body to do thatthing. A related account of collective belief is also presented. It isthen argued that, depending on the circumstances, a groups action canbe free as opposed to coerced, and that the idea that a collective assuch can be guilty of performing a wrongful act makes sense. The ideathat a group might feel guilt may be rejected because it is assumed thatto feel guilt is to experience a ``pang or ``twinge of guilt –nothing more and nothing less. Presumably, though, there must becognitions and perhaps behavior involved. In addition, the primacy, eventhe necessity, of ``feeling-sensations to feeling guilt in theindividual case has been questioned. Without the presumption that it isalready clear what feeling guilt amounts to, three proposals as to thenature of collective guilt feelings are considered. A ``feeling ofpersonal guilt is defined as a feeling of guilt over ones own action.It is argued that it is implausible to construe collective guiltfeelings in terms of members feelings of personal guilt. ``Membershipguilt feelings involve a group members feeling of guilt over what hisor her group has done. It is argued that such feelings are intelligibleif the member is party to the joint commitment that lies at the base ofthe relevant collective intention and action. However, an account ofcollective guilt in terms of membership guilt feelings is found wanting.Finally, a ``plural subject account of collective guilt feelings isarticulated, such that they involve a joint commitment to feel guilt asa body. The parties to a joint commitment of the kind in question may asa result find themselves experiencing ``pangs of the kind associatedwith personal and membership guilt feelings. Since these pangs, byhypothesis, arise as a result of the joint commitment to feel guilt as abody, they might be thought of as providing a kind of phenomenology forcollective guilt. Be that as it may, it is argued the plural subjectaccount has much to be said for it.

Rationality in collective action

Collective action is interpreted as a matter of people doing something together, and it is assumed that this involves their having a collective intention to do that thing together. The account of collective intention for which the author has argued elsewhere is presented. In terms that are explained, the parties are jointly committed to intend as a body that such-and-such. Collective action problems in the sense of rational choice theory—problems such as the various forms of coordination problem and the prisoner’s dilemma—are then considered. An explanation is given of how, when such a problem is interpreted in terms of the parties’ inclinations, a suitable collective intention resolves the problem for agents who are rational in a broad sense other than the technical sense of game theory.

Rationality, Coordination, and Convention

Philosophers using game-theoretical models of human interactions have, I argue, often overestimated what sheer rationality can achieve. (References are made to David Gauthier, David Lewis, and others.) In particular I argue that in coordination problems rational agents will not necessarily reach a unique outcome that is most preferred by all, nor a unique coordination equilibrium (Lewis), nor a unique Nash equilibrium. Nor are things helped by the addition of a successful precedent, or by common knowledge of generally accepted personal principles. Commitments like those generated by agreements may be necessary for rational expectations to arise. Social conventions, construed as group principles (following the analysis in my book On Social Facts), would suffice for this task.

Rationality and Salience

A number of authors, including Thomas Schelling and David Lewis, have envisaged a model of the generation of action in coordination problems in which salience plays a crucial role. Empirical studies suggest that human subjects are likely to try for the salient combination of actions, a tendency leading to fortunate results. Does rationality dictate that one aim at the salient combination? Some have thought so, Thus proclaiming that salience is all that is needed to resolve coordination problems for agents who are rational in the sense of game theory. I argue against this position; rational agents will not necessarily aim for the salient. It remains to explain how the salient comes to be chosen by human beings. Various possibilities are noted. One involves a mechanism invoked by Hume and Wittgenstein in other contexts: we may project an unreasoned compulsion onto reason, falsely believing that rationality dictates our choice of the salient.

Folk Psychology Takes Sociality Seriously

Comments on Caporael, et. al, Selfishness Examined: Cooperation in the Absence of Egoistic Incentives, Behavioral and Brain Sciences 12, 1989.

Collective Preferences, Obligations, and Rational Choice

This paper defends the authors plural subject account of collective preferences as these are ordinarily conceived of against objections raised by rational choice theorist Robert Sugden in his paper Team Preferences. It argues, in particular, that it is no objection to the account that collective preferences as it characterizes them involve obligations in some sense of the term. On the contrary, an adequate account should entail such involvement. The final section addresses aspects of the relationship of collective preferences to the situations of interpersonal interaction of interest to classical game theory.