Margaret Patricia Gilbert

In everyday discourse groups or collectives are often said to believe this or that. The author has previously developed an account of the phenomenon to which such collective belief statements refer. According to this account, in terms that are explained, a group believes that p if its members are jointly committed to believe that p as a body. Those who fulfill these conditions are referred to here as collectively believing* that p. Some philosophers – here labeled rejectionists – have argued that collective belief* is not belief but rather acceptance. This paper presents several arguments against rejectionism. One has to do with the proper methodology for arriving at an account of belief. Two address rejectionist claims to the effect that collective beliefs* lack key features of belief in general, the features in question being “aiming at truth” and having a particular relation to the will. A fourth notes that there is a phenomenon more apt for the label of “collective acceptance” than is the phenomenon of collective belief*

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.

One of us [Gilbert, M.. “Collective Belief and Scientific Change.” Sociality and Responsibility. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. 37-49.] has proposed that ascriptions of beliefs to scientific communities generally involve a common notion of collective belief described by her in numerous places. A given collective belief involves a joint commitment of the parties, who thereby constitute what Gilbert refers to as a plural subject. Assuming that this interpretive hypothesis is correct, and that some of the belief ascriptions in question are true, then the members of some scientific communities have obligations that may act as barriers both to the generation and, hence, the fair evaluation of new ideas and to changes in their community’s beliefs. We argue that this may help to explain Thomas Kuhn’s observations on “normal science”, and go on to develop the relationship between Gilbert's proposal and several features of a group of physicists working on a fundamental physical theory called “string theory”, as described by physicist Lee Smolin [Smolin, L.. The Trouble with Physics. Mariner Books: New York.]. We argue that the features of the string theory community that Smolin cites are well explained by the hypothesis that the community is a plural subject of belief.

The author develops and elaborates on her account of collective belief, something standardly referred to, in her view, when we speak of what we believe. This paper focuses on a special response hearers may experience in the context of expressions of belief, a response that may issue in offended rebukes to the speaker. It is argued that this response would be appropriate if both speakers and hearers were parties to what the authors calls a joint commitment to believe a certain proposition as a body. This joint commitment puts speakers under an obligation to refrain from speaking in certain ways, and gives hearers a correlative right to such refraining, and hence a basis for offended rebukes.

I argue that obligations of an important type inhere in what I call 'joint commitments'. I propose a joint commitment account of everyday agreements. This could explain why some philosophers believe that we know of the obligating nature of agreements a priori. I compare and contrast obligations of joint commitment with obligations in the relatively narrow sense recommended by H. L. A. Hart, a recommendation that has been influential. Some central contexts in which Hart takes there to be obligations in his sense are contexts in which there are obligations of joint commitment. Nonetheless, different senses of 'obligation' appear to be at issue

Can teams and other collectivities have preferences of their own, preferences that are not in some way reducible to the personal preferences of their members? In short, are collective preferences possible? In everyday life people speak easily of what we prefer, where what is at issue seems to be a collective preference. This is suggested by the acceptability of such remarks as ‘My ideal walk would be . . . along rougher and less well-marked paths than we prefer as a family’. One can imagine, indeed, that each member of a given family prefers something other than what the family prefers. What, then, do the collective preferences of everyday understanding amount to?

This article invokes the idea of a wise society, something that has received little attention from contemporary philosophers. It argues that, given plausible interpretations of the relevant terms, the wiser a society is, the less free it is. Even if one prefers a different account of a wise society, the argument in question is significant, for on this account a wise society possesses features that would seem to be desirable whatever their relationship to wisdom in particular: it makes many true value judgments. What is it for a society to make a true value judgment? An account is offered, and it is argued that all else being equal, a society that increases its stock of true value judgments so understood becomes less free. A number of questions that this argument may prompt are discussed.

This article explores the question: what is it for two or more people to intend to do something in the future? In a technical phrase, what is it for people to share an intention ? Extending and refining earlier work of the author’s, it argues for three criteria of adequacy for an account of shared intention (the disjunction, concurrence, and obligation criteria) and offers an account that satisfies them. According to this account, in technical terms explained in the paper, people share an intention when and only when they are jointly committed to intend as a body to do such-and-such in the future. This account is compared and contrasted with the common approach that treats shared intention as a matter of personal intentions, with particular reference to the work of Michael Bratman.

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.

This paper reviews some of the growing body of work in the analytic philosophy of social phenomena, with special reference to the question whether adequate accounts of particular social phenomena can be given in terms that are individualistic in a sense that is specified. The discussion focusses on accounts of what have come to be known as shared intention and action. There is also some consideration of accounts of social convention and collective belief. Particular attention is paid to the need to explain the association of certain rights and obligations with the phenomena at issue.

Drawing on earlier work of the author that is both clarified and amplified here, this article explores the question: what is it for two or more people to intend to do something in the future? In short, what is it for people to share an intention? It argues for three criteria of adequacy for an account of shared intention (the disjunction, concurrence, and obligation criteria) and offers an account that satisfies them. According to this account, in technical terms explained in the paper, people share an intention when and only when they are jointly committed to intend as a body to do such-and-such in the future. This account is compared and contrasted with the common approach that treats shared intention as a matter of the correlative personal intentions, with particular reference to the work of Michael Bratman.

Do people have obligations by virtue of the fact that a given country is their country? Actual contract theory says they do because they have agreed to act in certain ways. Contemporary philosophers standardly object in terms of the 'no agreement' objection and the 'not morally binding' objection. I argue that the 'not morally binding' objection is not conclusive. As for the 'no agreement' objection, though actual contract theory succumbs, a closely related plural subject theory of political obligation does not. Plural subject theory may be the truth in actual contract theory and should be explored in its stead.

Some psychologists argue that in general we self-ascribe characteristics according to others' perceived reactions to us. In illustration michael argyle cites a case involving the self-Ascription of popularity. But popularity is what I here call a 'reaction-Determined characteristic, That is, A characteristic such that certain others' reacting to someone in a certain way is logically sufficient for his having it. The general import of cases involving such characteristics needs careful examination and I argue that in fact argyle's case does not support the general thesis in question. I conclude that 'ordinary language' analysis is important for the evaluation of psychological data.

Two radically different, general accounts of human character traits - the "essentialist" and the "summary" accounts - are given critical consideration. The former account is characterized in terms of Saul Kripke's conception of metaphysical essence. Both accounts are discussed with reference to Jean-Paul Sartre's treatment of character traits. The essentialist account cannot withstand considerations relating to personal identity over time. The summary account is also rejected, as is a certain kind of dispositional account. An approach to at least some character traits in terms of persisting aims, beliefs, and so on is recommended.

May social unity - the unity of a society or social group - be a matter of sharing values? Political philosophers disagree on this topic. Kymlicka answers: No. Devlin and Rawls answer: Yes. It is argued that given one common 'summative' account of sharing values a negative answer is correct. A positive answer is correct, however, given the plural subject account of sharing values. Given this account, those who share values are unified in a substantial way by their participation in a joint commitment. Some consequences of such sharing of values for the liberty of the people involved are noted.

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.