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48Me, you, and us: Distinguishing “egoism,” “altruism,” and “groupism”Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (4): 621-622. 1994.
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35Further Reflections on the Social WorldProtoSociology 35 257-284. 2018.This discussion responds to a collection of papers that relate in one way or another to the author’s work in the philosophy of social phenomena. It focuses on those passages that deal most directly with that work. After making some general points that respond to remarks in several of the papers, it turns to the individual papers. The subjects discussed include coordination, conversation, collective beliefs and emotions, joint commitment, obligations and rights, patriotism, promises, the pronoun …Read more
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21Coordination problems and the evolution of behaviorBehavioral and Brain Sciences 7 (1): 106. 1984.
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471Collective epistemologyEpisteme 1 (2): 95--107. 2004.This paper introduces the author's approach to everyday ascriptions of collective cognitive states as in such statements as we believe he is lying. Collective epistemology deals with these ascriptions attempting to understand them and the phenomena in question.
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273Belief and acceptance as features of groupsProtoSociology 16 35-69. 2002.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 tha…Read more
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773Agreements, coercion, and obligationEthics 103 (4): 679-706. 1993.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 …Read more
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20Responses to Darwall, Watson, Arneson, and HelmreichPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (2): 525-538. 2023.
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14Precis of Rights and Demands: A Foundational InquiryPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (2): 493-498. 2023.
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Part III. Individual and collective epistemology. Social roots of human knowledge / Ernest Sosa ; Belief, acceptance, and what happens in groups : some methodological considerationsIn Jennifer Lackey (ed.), Essays in Collective Epistemology, Oxford University Press. 2014.
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186Is an agreement an exchange of promises?Journal of Philosophy 90 (12): 627-649. 1993.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 …Read more
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28Ulysses Unbound: Studies in Rationality, Precommitment, and ConstraintsMind 111 (442): 399-403. 2002.
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8Review of Walter L. Wallace: Principles of Scientific Sociology (review)Ethics 98 (1): 180-181. 1987.
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77Social Rules: Some Problems for Hart’s Account, and an Alternative Proposal (review)Law and Philosophy 18 (2): 141-171. 1999.What is a social rule? This paper first notes three important problems for H.L.A. Hart's famous answer in the Concept of Law. An alternative account that avoids the problems is then sketched. It is less individualistic than Hart's and related accounts. This alternative account can explain a phenomenon observed but downplayed by Hart: the parties to a social rule feel that they are in some sense 'bound' to conform to it.
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Dialogue and Joint CommitmentIn Maura Priest & Margaret Gilbert (eds.), Les Defis de Collectif. forthcoming.
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246Social RulesIn Byron Kaldis (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences, Sage Publications. 2013.
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503Conversation and Collective BeliefIn Alessandro Capone, Franco Lo Piparo & Marco Carapezza (eds.), Perspectives on Pragmatics and Philosophy, Springer. 2013.
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380Modelling collective beliefSynthese 73 (1): 185-204. 1987.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 th…Read more
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Paul BloomfieldIn Paul Bloomfield (ed.), Morality and Self-Interest, Oxford University Press. 2008.
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1Collective Intentions, Commitment, and Collective Action ProblemsIn Fabienne Peter (ed.), rationality and commitment, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 258. 2007.
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78Sociality as a philosophically significant categoryJournal of Social Philosophy 25 (3): 5-25. 1994.Different accounts of what it is for something to have a social nature have been given. Sociality does not appear to be a category worthy of philosophical focus, given some of these accounts. If sociality is construed as plural subjecthood, it emerges as a category crucial for our understanding of the human condition. Plural subjects are constituted by a joint commitment of two or more persons to do something as a body. Such commitments generate rights and obligations of a special type, and unde…Read more
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