Kaarlo Miller

Realism in Action is a selection of essays written by leading representatives in the fields of action theory and philosophy of mind, philosophy of the social sciences and especially the nature of social action, and of epistemology and philosophy of science. Practical reason, reasons and causes in action theory, intending and trying, and folk-psychological explanation are some of the topics discussed by these leading participants. A particular emphasis is laid on trust, commitments and social institutions, on the possibility of grounding social notions in individual social attitudes, on the nature of social groups, institutions and collective intentionality, and on common belief and common knowledge. Applications to the social sciences include, e.g., a look at the Erklären-Verstehen controversy in economics, and at constructivist and realist views on archeological reconstructions of the past

This chapter presents an analysis of collective goals that extends the ideas that Tuomela in particular has developed over the past three decades. The chapter is concerned with understanding the apparent variety of collective goals and set out to explicate what makes a goal collective. The chapter argues that collective goals are collectively accepted and that a collective goal is such that it is satisfied for one member of a collective only if it is satisfied for all. The chapter argues that conceptions of collective goals are important not only to a number of social sciences but also for political philosophy, and points out a number of similarities between the notion of a collective goal and Rousseau’s conception of a general will.

Paradigmatically, a we-intention is a participatory intention of a group member to do her part of a joint action, together with the other members, while believing that there is a mutual belief (awareness, understanding) concerning this action. She takes her contribution as a means for satisfying the group’s end. When she intends to perform her share as her part of the joint action, she intends to perform her part and believes that the others will do theirs in circumstances of mutual awareness. She cannot we-intend to perform her part, unless she also intends to perform it with the purpose of the joint action coming about. The paper also discusses various reasons for introducing the notion of we-intention, and suggests that we-intentions have a central role in the basis of social theory or theories. In addition to the basic notion of we-intention, also conditional we-intentions are discussed. These are relevant for analyzing the notions of standing in reserve and free-riding. The paper provides an appendix that argues for the requirement that the we-intending agent needs to believe that the members are mutually aware of the requirements of their joint attempt.

People sometimes think in terms of ‘we’ referring to a group they belong to. When making decisions, they frame the decision problem as: ‘What should we do?’ instead of ‘What should I do?’.We study one particular approach to such ‘we-reasoning’, economist Michael Bacharach’s theory of ‘team reasoning’, and relate it to philosopher Raimo Tuomela’s distinction between ‘Imode’ reasoning and ‘we-mode’ reasoning.We argue that these theories complement each other: Tuomela’s philosophical theory provides a conceptual framework augmenting Bacharach’s theory, and Bacharach’s mathematical results support Tuomela’s view on the irreducibility of the we-mode to the I-mode. We-mode reasoning can explain some kinds of human cooperative behaviour left unexplained by standard game theory. Standard game theory is not wellequipped to deal with we-mode reasoning but it can be extended by the methods developed by Bacharach. However, we argue that both standard game theory and Bacharach’s theory require more attention to the information-sharing stages that precede actual decision making, and we describe a stage-based model of we-reasoning.

A person can intend to achieve his own personal aims and ends, but he can also intend to promote the goals of his groups or collectives. In many cases of collective action these two types of intention will coincide, but they need not, and when they clash, collective action dilemmas, like free-riderism, will emerge. In this paper we discuss and analyze a central kind of group-intentions termed we-intentions, and distinguish between absolute and conditional we-intentions. The analyses of the latter are then applied to a study of two related social phenomena: the agent's standing in reserve and free-riding.It is our claim that when the agent is intentionally in reserve, this involves his having a specific conditional we-intention to participate in the group's action. On the other hand, if he intends to free-ride, he intends not to participate. We also discuss and analyze different types of free-rider intentions. A person can also have a more complex intention concerning the group's action: He can have a conditional personal intention to free-ride combined with a conditional reserve member's we-intention to participate in the group's action. This may indicate that his motives are confused or mixed, but in most cases it can be taken to express his uncertainty of the fulfillment of the relevant conditions of his actions.

The paper begins with a discussion of Philip Pettit's distinction between individualistic and collectivistic reasoning strategies. I argue that many of his examples, when correctly analysed, do not give rise to what he calls the discursive dilemma. I argue for a collectivistic strategy, which is a holistic premise-driven strategy. I will concentrate on three aspects of collective reasoning, which I call the publicity aspect, the collective acceptance aspect, and the historical constraint aspect: First, the premises of collective reasoning, unlike the premises of a private individual, have to be public in some sense. Second, the group members collectively accept the public premises, and thereby commit themselves to following them in their collective practical reasoning.Third, a person need not be consistent with his earlier private judgements, he is free to change his mind, but prior collective judgements, if not collectively abandoned, constrain the member's future judgements and decisions. I conclude that collective practical reasoning can be accounted for without collectivist ontological commitments.

In the paper “We-intentions and Social Action” conceptual issues related to intentional social action are studied. By social actions we here mean actions that are performed together by two or more agents. The central concept of we-intention is introduced and applied to the analysis of simple social practical reasoning. An individualistic analysis of the notion of we-intention is proposed on the basis of the agents’ I-intentions and beliefs. The need and indispensability of we-intentions and we-attitudes in general in a theory of intentional social action is emphasized along with the fact that we-intending leads to action in suitable circumstances.