•  471
    Collective epistemology
    Episteme 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.
  •  3
    Book Reviews (review)
    Mind 103 (412): 560-563. 1994.
  •  49
    Book reviews (review)
    with E. D. Klemke, E. D. Klemke, and Charles E. M. Dunlop
    Philosophia 12 (3-4): 423-445. 1983.
  •  24
    Book reviews (review)
    Mind 103 (412): 423-445. 1994.
  •  272
    Belief and acceptance as features of groups
    ProtoSociology 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
  •  756
    Agreements, coercion, and obligation
    Ethics 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
  •  16
    Responses to Darwall, Watson, Arneson, and Helmreich
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (2): 525-538. 2023.
  •  14
    Precis of Rights and Demands: A Foundational Inquiry
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (2): 493-498. 2023.
  •  186
    Is 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
  •  13
    Promising, Intending, and Moral Autonomy
    Philosophical Review 100 (2): 315. 1991.
  •  77
    Social 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.
  •  138
    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 obl…Read more
  •  30
    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…Read more
  •  94
    Collective Belief, Kuhn, and the String Theory Community
    In Michael S. Brady & Miranda Fricker (eds.), The Epistemic Life of Groups, Oxford University Press. pp. 191-217. 2016.
    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 s…Read more
  •  154
    Group wrongs and guilt feelings
    The Journal of Ethics 1 (1): 65-84. 1997.
    Can it ever be appropriate to feel guilt just because one's group has acted badly? Some say no, citing supposed features of guilt feelings as such. If one understands group action according to my plural subject account of groups, however, one can argue for the appropriateness of feeling guilt just because one's group has acted badly - a feeling that often occurs. In so arguing I sketch a plural subject account of groups, group intentions and group actions: for a group to intend (in the relevant …Read more
  •  1070
    Walking Together: A Paradigmatic Social Phenomenon
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 15 (1): 1-14. 1990.
    The everyday concept of a social group is approached by examining the concept of going for a walk together, an example of doing something together, or "shared action". Two analyses requiring shared personal goals are rejected, since they fail to explain how people walking together have obligations and rights to appropriate behavior, and corresponding rights of rebuke. An alternative account is proposed: those who walk together must constitute the "plural subject" of a goal. The nature of plural …Read more
  •  187
    Does one have special obligations to support the political institutions of one’s own country precisely because it is one’s own? In short, does one have political obligations? This book argues for an affirmative answer, construing one’s country as a political society of which one is a member, and a political society as a special type of social group. The obligations in question are not moral requirements derived from general moral principles. They come, rather, from one’s participation in a speci…Read more
  •  521
    Shared intention and personal intentions
    Philosophical Studies 144 (1). 2009.
    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 intent…Read more
  •  152
    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 comm…Read more
  •  378
    Modelling collective belief
    Synthese 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
  • Paul Bloomfield
    with Diana Meyers, Joel Kupperman, Sonia Michel, and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong
    In Paul Bloomfield (ed.), Morality and Self-Interest, Oxford University Press. 2008.