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264Belief 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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730Agreements, 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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15Responses 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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178Is 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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115Ulysses 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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76Social 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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224Social RulesIn Byron Kaldis (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Social Sciences, Sage Publications Ltd.. 2013.
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477Conversation and Collective BeliefIn Alessandro Capone, Franco Lo Piparo & Marco Carapezza (eds.), Perspectives on Pragmatics and Philosophy, Springer. 2013.
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373Modelling 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 & Hans Bernhard Schmid (eds.), Rationality and Commitment, Oxford University Press. pp. 258. 2007.
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196Agreements, conventions, and languageSynthese 54 (3). 1983.The question whether and in what way languages and language use involve convention is addressed, With special reference to David Lewis's account of convention in general. Data are presented which show that Lewis has not captured the sense of 'convention' involved when we speak of adopting a linguistic convention. He has, In effect, attempted an account of social conventions. An alternative account of social convention and an account of linguistic convention are sketched.
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76Sociality 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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56One for All: The Logic of Group ConflictPhilosophical Review 107 (1): 135. 1998.Russell Hardin writes from a particular perspective, that of rational choice theory. His broad—and ambitious—overall project is to “understand the sway of groups in our time” or, in an alternative formulation, “to understand the motivations of those who act on behalf of groups and to understand how they come to identify with the groups for which they act”.
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67In search of socialityPhilosophical Explorations 1 (3). 1998.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…Read more
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167Collective 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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436Who'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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