•  868
    Intention, Expectation, and Promissory Obligation
    Ethics 127 (1): 88-115. 2016.
    Accepting a promise is normatively significant in that it helps to secure promissory obligation. But what is it for B to accept A’s promise to φ? It is in part for B to intend A’s φ-ing. Thinking of acceptance in this way allows us to appeal to the distinctive role of intentions in practical reasoning and action to better understand the agency exercised by the promisee. The proposal also accounts for rational constraints on acceptance, and the so-called directedness of promissory obligation. Fin…Read more
  •  668
    Shared agency and contralateral commitments
    Philosophical Review 113 (3): 359-410. 2004.
    My concern here is to motivate some theses in the philosophy of mind concerning the interpersonal character of intentions. I will do so by investigating aspects of shared agency. The main point will be that when acting together with others one must be able to act directly on the intention of another or others in a way that is relevantly similar to the manner in which an agent acts on his or her own intentions. What exactly this means will become clearer once we understand what it is to act direc…Read more
  •  397
    Practical Intersubjectivity
    In F. Schmitt (ed.), Socializing Metaphysics : The Nature of Social Reality, Rowman & Littlefield, 65-91. pp. 65-91. 2003.
    The intentions of others often enter into your practical reasoning, even when you’re acting on your own. Given all the agents around you, you’ll come to grief if what they’re up to is never a consideration in what you decide to do and how you do it. There are occasions, however, when the intentions of another figure in your practical reasoning in a particularly intimate and decisive fashion. I will speak of there being on such occasions a practical intersubjectivity of intentions holding between…Read more
  •  392
    Shared activity is often simply willed into existence by individuals. This poses a problem. Philosophical reflection suggests that shared activity involves a distinctive, interlocking structure of intentions. But it is not obvious how one can form the intention necessary for shared activity without settling what fellow participants will do and thereby compromising their agency and autonomy. One response to this problem suggests that an individual can have the requisite intention if she makes the…Read more
  •  382
    Entitlement to Reasons for Action
    In David Shoemaker (ed.), Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility Volume 4, Oxford University Press. pp. 75-92. 2017.
    The reasons for which I act are normally my reasons; I represent goal states and the means to attaining them, and these guide me in action. Can your reason ever be the reason why I act? If I haven’t yet taken up your reason and made it mine by representing it for myself, then it may seem mysterious how this could be possible. Nevertheless, the paper argues that sometimes one is entitled to another’s reason and that what one does is to be explained in terms of it. The case for this draws on aspec…Read more
  •  368
    The stability of social categories
    European Journal of Philosophy 31 (1): 297-309. 2021.
    One important thesis Ásta defends in Categories We Live By is that social properties and categories are somehow dependent on our thoughts, attitudes, or practices—that they are inventions of the mind, projected onto the world. Another important aspect of her view is that the social properties are related to certain base properties; an individual is placed in a category when the relevant base properties are thought to hold of them. I see the relationship between the social and the base as connect…Read more
  •  349
    Indispensability, the Discursive Dilemma, and Groups with Minds of Their Own
    In Sara Rachel Chant, Frank Hindriks & Gerhard Preyer (eds.), From Individual to Collective Intentionality, Oxford University Press. pp. 137-162. 2014.
    There is a way of talking that would appear to involve ascriptions of purpose, goal directed activity, and intentional states to groups. Cases are familiar enough: classmates intend to vacation in Switzerland, the department is searching for a metaphysician, the Democrats want to minimize losses in the upcoming elections, and the US intends to improve relations with such and such country. But is this talk to be understood just in terms of the attitudes and actions of the individuals involved? …Read more
  •  324
    Collective Responsibility and Entitlement to Collective Reasons for Action
    In Saba Bazargan-Forward & Deborah Tollefsen (eds.), Routledge Handbook for Collective Responsibility, Routledge. pp. 243-257. 2020.
    What are the implications for agency – and in particular, the idea of acting for reasons – if we are to take seriously the notion of collective responsibility? My thesis is that some cases of individuals subject to a collective form of responsibility and blame will force us to make sense of how it is that an individual can be entitled to collective reasons for action, i.e. entitled to a reason had in the first place by a plurality of individuals together rather than any one of them alone. This e…Read more
  •  321
    Proprietary Reasons and Joint Action
    In A. Fiebich (ed.), Minimal Cooperation and Shared Agency, Springer. pp. 169-180. 2020.
    Some of the reasons one acts on in joint action are shared with fellow participants. But others are proprietary: reasons of one’s own that have no direct practical significance for other participants. The compatibility of joint action with proprietary reasons serves to distinguish the former from other forms of collective agency; moreover, it is arguably a desirable feature of joint action. Advocates of “team reasoning” link the special collective intention individual participants have when acti…Read more
  •  299
    Directed Duty, Practical Intimacy, and Legal Wronging
    In Teresa Marques & Chiara Valentini (eds.), Collective Action, Philosophy and Law, Routledge. pp. 152-174. 2021.
    What is it for a duty or obligation to be directed? Thinking about paradigmatic cases such as the obligations generated by promises will take us only so far in answering this question. This paper starts by surveying several approaches for understanding directed duties, as well as the challenges they face. It turns out that shared agency features something similar to the directedness of duties. This suggests an account of directedness in terms of shared agency – specifically, in terms of the …Read more
  •  167
    What Was Hume’s Problem with Personal Identity?
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61 (1): 91-114. 2000.
    An appreciation of Hume’s psychology of object identity allows us to recognize certain tensions in his discussion of the origin of our belief in personal identity---tensions which have gone largely unnoticed in the secondary literature. This will serve to provide a new solution to the problem of explaining why Hume finds that discussion of personal identity so problematic when he famously disavows it in the Appendix to the Treatise. It turns out that the two psychological mechanisms which respec…Read more
  •  149
    Shared Agency
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2011.
    Sometimes individuals act together, and sometimes each acts on his or her own. It's a distinction that often matters to us. Undertaking a difficult task collectively can be comforting, even if only for the solidarity it may engender. Or, to take a very different case, the realization (or delusion) that the many bits of rudeness one has been suffering of late are part of a concerted effort can be of significance in identifying what one is up against: the accumulation of grievances (no doubt well …Read more
  •  109
    Hume's Psychology of Identity Ascriptions
    Hume Studies 22 (2): 273-298. 1996.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXII, Number 2, November 1996, pp. 273-298 Hume's Psychology of Identity Ascriptions ABRAHAM SESSHU ROTH Introduction Hume observes that we naturally believe ordinary objects to persist through time and change. The question that interests him in the Treatise1 is, What causes such a belief to arise in the human mind? Hume's question is, of course, the naturalistic one we would expect given that the project of the T…Read more
  •  106
    Reasons explanations of actions: Causal, singular, and situational
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (4): 839-874. 1999.
    Davidson held that the explanation of action in terms of reasons was a form of causal explanation. He challenged anti-causalists to identify a non-causal relation underlying reasons---explanation which could distinguish between merely having a reason and that reason being the one for which one acts. George Wilson attempts to meet Davidson’s challenge, but the relation he identifies can serve only in explanations of general facts, whereas reasons explanation is often of particular acts. This sugg…Read more
  •  101
    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.
  •  86
    The Necessity of “Necessity”: Hume’s Psychology of Sophisticated Causal Inference
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 41 (2): 263-287. 2011.
    Much of what Hume calls probable reasoning is deliberate and reflective. Since there are aspects to Hume’s psychology that tempt some commentators to think, on the contrary, that for Hume all such reasoning is simple and immediate, I will be concerned to emphasize Hume’s recognition of the sophisticated sort of probable reasoning (section I). Though some of the details of my case may be new, the overall point of this section should not be news to recent scholarship. But once we recognize that th…Read more
  •  80
    The Evident Connexion: Hume on Personal Identity by Galen Strawson (review)
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 51 (3): 491-492. 2013.
    Hume understands identity as “invariableness and uninterruptedness” through a supposed change in time, something true only of objects he calls steadfast. And Hume discerns nothing steadfast about the mind or self—nothing like a substance or soul underlying the changing and interrupted succession of perceptions we experience in ourselves. I nevertheless think of myself as the same person over time. A central concern of the Treatise discussion of personal identity is to give a psychological explan…Read more
  •  67
    The mysteries of desire: A discussion (review)
    Philosophical Studies 123 (3): 273-293. 2005.
  •  55
    Practical Intersubjectivity and Normative Guidance: Bratman on Shared Agency
    Journal of Social Ontology 1 (1): 39-48. 2014.
    In an important new book on shared agency, Michael Bratman develops an account of the normative demand for the coordination of intentions amongst participants in shared agency. Bratman seeks to understand this form of normative guidance in terms of that associated with individual planning intentions. I give reasons to resist his form of reductionism. In addition, I note how Bratman’s discussion raises the interesting issue of the function or purpose of shared intention and of shared agency more …Read more
  •  54
    The self-referentiality of intentions
    Philosophical Studies 97 (1): 11-51. 2000.
  •  28
    Trying Without Willing: An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind (review)
    Philosophical Review 109 (4): 621-624. 2000.
    Maybe God doesn’t have to do anything in order to bring it about that there be light. Most of us, however, have to perform some sort of act like flicking a switch to do so. But some of the things we bring about do not require such mediating acts. For example, it appears that I don’t have to do anything in order to bring about or cause the arm movements I perform in flicking the switch. I just move my arm. Of course, a number of things will happen when I move my arm: neurons fire, muscles flex. B…Read more
  •  22
    Trying without willing: An essay in the philosophy of mind
    Philosophical Review 109 (4): 621-624. 2000.
    Maybe God doesn’t have to do anything in order to bring it about that there be light. Most of us, however, have to perform some sort of act like flicking a switch to do so. But some of the things we bring about do not require such mediating acts. For example, it appears that I don’t have to do anything in order to bring about or cause the arm movements I perform in flicking the switch. I just move my arm. Of course, a number of things will happen when I move my arm: neurons fire, muscles flex. B…Read more
  •  8
    Review: The Mysteries of Desire: A Discussion (review)
    Philosophical Studies 123 (3). 2005.
  •  4
    Causation
    In Saul Traiger (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Hume's Treatise, Blackwell. 2006.
  •  3
    Causation
    In Saul Traiger (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Hume's Treatise, Blackwell. 2006.
    This chapter contains section titled: Causal Inference and Justification The Traditional View: Skepticism and Unreflective Inference Causal Inference is not always Immediate and Unreflective Reflective Causal Inference What was Hume arguing in Treatise 1.3.6? The Skeptical Reading The Anti‐rationalist Reading The Causal/Explanatory Reading (1) The Causal/Explanatory Reading (2) Notes References and further reading.
  •  2
    Where the Action Is
    Dissertation, Princeton University. 1996.
    Before one can give a fully adequate account of action, one must know where the action is. This amounts to understanding the nature of basic or unmediated action, the performance of which does not require performing any other act as a means. There is little consensus on what sort of act is basic. Volitionists such as H. A. Prichard, Brian O'Shaughnessy, Jennifer Hornsby and Carl Ginet, hold that a special type of mental act is basic and underlies all overt bodily action. They believe that action…Read more
  • Is there something special about one’s attitude toward a prospective action when deciding or intending to do it? Philosophers often appeal to the idea of settling to distinguish intention from other attitudes toward some prospective action, such as expecting it, or desiring it. But 'settle' has become a term of art invoked in divergent ways. The first use of the term concerns the more immediate upshot of a decision on the psychology of the agent. Once a decision has been made and an intentio…Read more