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169Collective preferences, obligations, and rational choiceEconomics and Philosophy 17 (1): 109-119. 2001.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, ind…Read more
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438Who's to blame? Collective moral responsibility and its implications for group membersMidwest Studies in Philosophy 30 (1). 2006.No abstract available
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32Complicity (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (1): 236-239. 2003.Review of CHRISTOPHER KUTZ. Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
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25Social Rules: Some Problems for Hart’s Account, and an Alternative ProposalLaw 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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673Rationality in collective actionPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 36 (1): 3-17. 2006.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…Read more
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45This paper criticises a line of argument adopted by peter winch, Karl popper, And others, To the effect that the course of human history cannot be predicted. On this view it is impossible to predict in a particularly detailed way certain events ('original acts') on which important social developments depend. We analyze the argument, Showing that one version fails: original acts are in principle predictable in the relevant way. A cogent version is presented; this requires a special definition for…Read more
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220Group Membership and Political ObligationThe Monist 76 (1): 119-131. 1993.This is how A. John Simmons sets the scene for his discussion of political obligation in his book Moral Principles and Political Obligations, one of the best known contemporary philosophical treatments of the subject.
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2802Belief, Acceptance, and What Happens in Groups: Some Methodological ConsiderationsIn Jennifer Lackey (ed.), Essays in Collective Epistemology, Oxford University Press. 2014.This paper argues for a methodological point that bears on a relatively long-standing debate concerning collective beliefs in the sense elaborated by Margaret Gilbert: are they cases of belief or rather of acceptance? It is argued that epistemological accounts and distinctions developed in individual epistemology on the basis of considering the individual case are not necessarily applicable to the collective case or, more generally, uncritically to be adopted in collective epistemology.
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124Two Approaches to Shared Intention: An Essay in the Philosophy of Social PhenomenaAnalyse & Kritik 30 (2): 483-514. 2008.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 s…Read more
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1Acting togetherIn Georg Meggle (ed.), Social Facts and Collective Intentionality. Philosophische Forschung / Philosophical research, Dr. Hänsel-hohenhausen. 2002.
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155Sociality and Responsibility: New Essays in Plural Subject TheoryRowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2000.One of the most distinguished living social philosophers, Margaret Gilbert develops and extends her application of plural subject theory of human sociality, first introduced in her earlier works On Social Facts and Living Together. Sociality and Responsibility presents an extended discussion of her proposal that joint commitments inherently involve obligations and rights, proposing, in effect, a new theory of obligations and rights. In addition, it demonstrates the extensive range and fruitfulne…Read more
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543On Social FactsRoutledge. 1989.This book offers original accounts of a number of central social phenomena, many of which have received little if any prior philosophical attention. These phenomena include social groups, group languages, acting together, collective belief, mutual recognition, and social convention. In the course of developing her analyses Gilbert discusses the work of Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, Max Weber, David Lewis, among others.
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188Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social WorldOup Usa. 2013.This new essay collection by distinguished philosopher Margaret Gilbert provides a richly textured argument for the importance of joint commitment in our personal and public lives. Topics covered by this diverse range of essays range from marital love to patriotism, from promissory obligation to the unity of the European Union
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104This essay explores the nature of an important collective emotion, namely, collective remorse. Three accounts of collective remorse are presented and evaluated. The first involves an aggregate of group members remorseful over acts of their own associated with their group's act; the second an aggregate of persons remorseful over their group's act. The third account posits, in terms that are explained, a joint commitment of a group's members to constitute as far as is possible a single remorseful …Read more
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95Can a Wise Society Be a Free One?Southern Journal of Philosophy 44 (S1): 151-167. 2006.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 …Read more
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94Shared values, social unity, and libertyPublic Affairs Quarterly 19 (1): 25-49. 2005.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 commit…Read more
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156Remarks on collective beliefIn Frederick F. Schmitt (ed.), Socializing Epistemology: The Social Dimensions of Knowledge, Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 235-56. 1994.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 bo…Read more
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364Obligation and Joint CommitmentUtilitas 11 (2): 143. 1999.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 obligati…Read more
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193Game Theory and “Convention‘Synthese 46 (1). 1981.A feature of David Lewis's account of conventions in his book "Convention" which has received admiring notices from philosophers is his use of the mathematical theory of games. In this paper I point out a number of serious flaws in Lewis's use of game theory. Lewis's basic claim is that conventions cover 'coordination problems'. I show that game-Theoretical analysis tends to establish that coordination problems in Lewis's sense need not underlie conventions.
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111Socializing Metaphysics: The Nature of Social RealityRowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2003.Socializing Metaphysics supplies diverse answers to the basic questions of social metaphysics, from a broad array of voices. It will interest all philosophers and social scientists concerned with mind, action, or the foundations of social theory.
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13Critical notice: Gilbert Harman and Judith Jarvis Thomson, Moral Relativism and Moral Objectivity (review)Noûs 33 (2): 295-303. 2002.
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267Vices and self-knowledgeJournal of Philosophy 68 (15): 443-453. 1971.Towards an account of character traits in self-Knowledge, With an assessment of the sartrean thesis ("spectatorism") that character trait concepts are fitted for other-Ascription rather than self-Ascription. The logic of ascriptions of evil character and specific vices is dealt with. The relationship of self-Ascription to self-Falsification and "seeing oneself as an object" is examined. Self-Ascription has peculiarities, But at most a very mild form of spectatorism is born out.
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255What is it to do something with another person? In the author's book On Social Facts and elsewhere, she has conjectured that a special type of commitment - joint commitment - lies at the root of acting together and many other central social phenomena. Here she surveys some data pertinent to this conjecture, including the assumption of those who act together that they have associated rights against and obligations towards each other. She explains what joint commitment is, how it relates to the da…Read more
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332Social convention revisitedTopoi (1-2): 5-16. 2008.This article will compare and contrast two very different accounts of convention: the game-theoretical account of Lewis in Convention, and the account initially proposed by Margaret Gilbert (the present author) in chapter six of On Social Facts, and further elaborated here. Gilbert’s account is not a variant of Lewis’s. It was arrived at in part as the result of a detailed critique of Lewis’s account in relation to a central everyday concept of a social convention. An account of convention need …Read more
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255Pro Patria: An Essay on PatriotismThe Journal of Ethics 13 (4): 319-346. 2009.This essay focuses on what patriotism is, as opposed to the value of patriotism. It focuses further on the basic patriotic motive: one acts with this motive if one acts on behalf of one's country as such. I first argue that pre-theoretically the basic patriotic motive is sufficient to make an act patriotic from a motivational point of view. In particular the agent need not ascribe virtues or achievements to his country nor need he feel towards it the emotions characteristic of love. Why should o…Read more
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5Larry May and Stacey Hoffman, eds., Collective Responsibility: Five Decades of Debate in Theoretical and Applied Ethics Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 13 (4): 168-170. 1993.
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196This is a review essay of Christopher Kutz's Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age, and Jonathan Bass's Stay The Hand of Vengeance: The Politics of War Crimes Tribunals. Topics addressed include the nature of collective intentions and actions, the possibility of collective guilt, the moral responsibility of individuals in the context of collective actions.
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