Raimo Tuomela

(1940 - 2020)

In the paper “We-intentions and Social Action” conceptual issues related to intentional social action are studied. By social actions we here mean actions that are performed together by two or more agents. The central concept of we-intention is introduced and applied to the analysis of simple social practical reasoning. An individualistic analysis of the notion of we-intention is proposed on the basis of the agents’ I-intentions and beliefs. The need and indispensability of we-intentions and we-attitudes in general in a theory of intentional social action is emphasized along with the fact that we-intending leads to action in suitable circumstances.

This paper is a discussion of the tenability of methodological solipsism, which typically relies on the so-called Explanatory Thesis. The main arguments in the paper are directed against the latter thesis, according to which internal (or autonomous or narrow) psychological states as opposed to noninternal ones suffice for explanation in psychology. Especially, feedback-based actions are argued to require indispensable reference to noninternal explanantia, often to explanatory common causes. Thus, to the extent that methodological solipsism is taken to require the truth of the Explanatory Thesis, it, too, can be regarded as untenable

The paper studies cooperation as joint action, where joint action can, first, be conceptualized either individualistically in terms of the participants' individual goals and beliefs that the joint action is taken to serve. This is individualistic or ‛I-mode’ cooperation. Special version of it is ‛ pro-group I-mode’ cooperation, where the goals are shared. Second, cooperation can be of the kind where a group of persons act together as a group in terms of the non-aggregative ‛ we’ that they form. The results of the paper support the conjecture that we-mode conceptualization and an account of cooperation is needed to complement the individualistic (pro-group) I-mode account(s) in social science theorizing and experimentation.

It is argued in this paper that there can be both normative and nonnormative, merely factual group beliefs. The former involve the whole social group in question, while the latter only relate to the distributions of personal beliefs within the group. The paper develops a detailed theory, called the positional account of group beliefs, to explicate normative, group-involving group beliefs. Normative group beliefs are characterized within this approach in terms of joint acceptances of views by the group members — or their representatives — acting in their right positions and tasks, and in a sense creating group commitments for all the members to accept (and keep accepting) the view in question. Also aggregate accounts of group belief are considered in the paper, especially the shared we-belief approach. Such aggregate accounts purport to account for merely factual group beliefs.