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10Acting together, Joint Commitment, and ObligationIn Nikos Psarros & Katinka Schulte-Ostermann (eds.), Facets of Sociality, De Gruyter. pp. 153-168. 2006.
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Collective Intentions, Commitment, and Collective Action ProblemsIn Fabienne Peter (ed.), rationality and commitment, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 258. 2007.
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Collective belief, Kuhn, and the string theory communityIn Michael Brady & Miranda Fricker (eds.), The Epistemic Life of Groups: Essays in the Epistemology of Collectives, Oxford University Press Uk. 2016.
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22The Nature of Agreements: A Solution to Some Puzzles about Claim-Rights and Joint IntentionIn Manuel Vargas & Gideon Yaffe (eds.), Rational and Social Agency: The Philosophy of Michael Bratman, Oxford University Press. pp. 215-255. 2014.
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PERELMAN, Ch. and OLBRECHTS-TYTECA, L. - "The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation", translated by J. Wilkinson and P. Weaver (review)Mind 80 (n/a): 626. 1971.
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48Rights and Demands: A Foundational InquiryOxford University Press. 2018.Margaret Gilbert presents the first full-length treatment of a central class of rights: demand-rights. To have such a right is to have the standing or authority to demand a particular action of another person. Gilbert argues that joint commitment is a ground of demand-rights, and gives joint commitment accounts of both agreements and promises.
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The Mark of the Social: Discovery or Invention? (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1996.Behavior, language, development, identity, and science—all of these phenomena are commonly characterized as 'social' in nature. But what does it mean to be 'social'? Is there any intrinsic 'mark' of the social shared by these phenomena? In the first book to shed light on this foundational question, twelve distinguished philosophers and social scientists from several disciplines debate the mark of the social. Their varied answers will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers,…Read more
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38Plurale Subjekte: Ein Simmelscher AnsatzZeitschrift für Kulturphilosophie 2015 (1-2): 121-142. 2015.This paper discusses certain desiderata for an acceptable »Simmelian« account of social groups, and explains why my own account of social groups as plural subjects is preferable to the accounts considered. With regard to the »we«-intentionality of plural subjects, this theory of social groups should be taken to demand only that some rough general type of shared action or shared cognition must be understood to be in question of all sides. It is hoped, then, that this theory of plural subjects in …Read more
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119Sociality, Unity, ObjectivityThe Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 11 153-160. 2001.Numerous social and political theorists have referred to social groups or societies as “unities.” What makes a unity of a social group? I address this question with special reference to the theory of social groups proposed in my books On Social Facts and Living Together: Rationality, Sociality and Obligation. I argue that social groups of a central kind require an underlying “joint commitment.” I explain what I mean by a “joint commitment” with care. If joint commitments in my sense underlie the…Read more
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34Collective ActionIn Timothy O'Connor & Constantine Sandis (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Action, Wiley-blackwell. 2010.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Observations on Collective Action Approaches to Collective Action The Personal Intentions Approach The ‘We ‐ Intentions’ Approach The Joint Commitment Approach Concluding Remarks Further reading.
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16Book Review:Principles of Scientific Sociology. Walter L. Wallace (review)Ethics 98 (1): 180-. 1987.
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139Scanlon on promissory obligation: The problem of promisees' rightsJournal of Philosophy 101 (2). 2004.This article offers a critique of Thomas Scanlon's well-known account of promissory obligation by reference to the rights of promisees. Scanlon's account invokes a moral principle, the "principle of fidelity". Now, corresponding to a promisor's obligation to perform is a promisee's right to performance. It is argued that one cannot account for this right in terms of Scanlon's principle. This is so in spite of a clause in the principle relating to the promisee's "consent", which might have been t…Read more
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112Rationality and saliencePhilosophical Studies 57 (1): 61-77. 1989.A number of authors, Including Thomas Schelling and David Lewis, have envisaged a model of the generation of action in coordination problems in which salience plays a crucial role. Empirical studies suggest that human subjects are likely to try for the salient combination of actions, a tendency leading to fortunate results. Does rationality dictate that one aim at the salient combination? Some have thought so, Thus proclaiming that salience is all that is needed to resolve coordination problems …Read more
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54Rationality and CoordinationPhilosophical Review 105 (1): 105. 1996.How is one to act so as to do as well as possible according to one’s ranking of the possible outcomes? How—as it may be put—is one to act rationally? Sometimes the possible outcomes are not under one’s own control: an outcome is a combination of one’s own and another agent’s action. Often, then, one must try to work out what the other agent will do, in order to do as well as possible in one’s own lights. It is situations of this sort—situations of “strategic interaction”—that most concern the ga…Read more
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47Practical Reasoning in a Social World: How We Act TogetherPhilosophical Review 113 (1): 130-132. 2004.How does the fact that we are social creatures affect the normative reasons we have for acting? This is the most general question Keith Graham addresses in this wide-ranging book. A normative reason for acting, as Graham understands it, is a consideration about agents or their circumstances, which ought to incline them in the direction of acting in a particular way.
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90Two claims common in wittgenstein exegesis are addressed, With special reference to a well-known discussion by Peter Winch. First: the claim that one person's language must be intelligible to another is ambiguous; one interpretation is intuitively plausible; strong, Less plausible versions are ascribed to Wittgenstein. Inattention to the ambiguity noted could facilitate their acceptance. Second: the claim that the necessity for standards of correctness in the use of language has as a direct cons…Read more
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56Me, you, and us: Distinguishing “egoism,” “altruism,” and “groupism”Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (4): 621-622. 1994.
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