Miguel Garcia-Godinez

Although proxy agency is a common social phenomenon (consider, e.g., a landlord selling property through a real estate agent or a jury delivering a verdict through a foreperson), the conditions under which principals and proxies can be held responsible for their participation in proxy actions remain underexplored in contemporary social philosophy. This article addresses this gap by offering a comprehensive account of proxy agency: it clarifies the elements that constitute proxy actions and examines the normative basis for attributing responsibility to principals and proxies for their contributions to the corresponding intentional collective acts. Building on this analysis, it proposes a general framework for proxy responsibility, grounded in the intentional participation that underpins both constitutive agency and authorship attribution. The article thereby provides a systematic conceptualization of the normative structure of proxy relations and their role in enabling key forms of institutional activity, particularly state and corporate actions.

This chapter introduces a conceptual framework for qualitative risk assessment of AI, particularly in the context of the EU AI Act. The framework addresses the complexities of legal compliance and fundamental rights protection by integrating definitional balancing and defeasible reasoning. Definitional balancing employs proportionality analysis to resolve conflicts between competing rights, while defeasible reasoning accommodates the dynamic nature of legal decision-making. Our approach stresses the need for an analysis of AI deployment scenarios and for identifying potential legal violations and multi-layered impacts on fundamental rights. On the basis of this analysis, we provide philosophical foundations for a logical account of AI risk analysis. In particular, we consider the basic building blocks for conceptually grasping the interaction between AI deployment scenarios and fundamental rights, incorporating in defeasible reasoning definitional balancing and arguments about the contextual promotion or demotion of rights. This layered approach allows for more operative models of assessment of both high-risk AI systems and General Purpose AI (GPAI) systems, emphasizing the broader applicability of the latter. Future work aims to develop a formal model and effective algorithms to enhance AI risk assessment, bridging theoretical insights with practical applications to support responsible AI governance.

The Fundamental Rights Impact Assessment (FRIA) mandated by the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) has emerged as a critical tool for evaluating the normative implications of introducing certain high-risk AI systems into the EU market. However, the AIA does not prescribe any specific methodology for conducting FRIAs. To address this gap, this paper proposes a default framework based on defeasible normative reasoning that aims to provide practical guidance in determining whether an AI system falls within an acceptable threshold for fundamental rights protection. By elaborating on how the default framework can serve as a foundation for an appropriate methodology, this study introduces a novel qualitative approach to legal risk assessment.

The EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) aims to provide a uniform legal framework that facilitates the development, marketing, and use of AI systems in the EU. However, in its current state, important adjustments are necessary for it to fully achieve its intended goals. As Novelli et al. (2024) have already noticed, the AIA needs to be complemented with a methodology that can help the relevant actors (in particular, AI providers and deployers) to determine the appropriate risk category of a particular AI system to identify the proportional obligations associated to it. Yet, while their proposal to address this gap is interesting, it is argued here that their view fails to offer a feasible model. The main issues stem from their commitment to both an overly particularist understanding of risk assessment (i.e., that the correct risk model must consider the interplay of multiple factors in specific situations) and a contested method of constitutional adjudication (i.e., that a proportionality test is indispensable for balancing competing fundamental rights). With the intention to submit a more compelling alternative, the paper builds on a default theory of practical reasoning to advance a general framework for decision-making in risk scenarios. The purpose of supplying the AIA with this methodology is to introduce a fine-grained approach to the application of its harmonised directives, especially in relation to the requirement of conducting adequate risk assessments and implementing the corresponding risk management measures, without compromising its generality and flexibility.

We live in an institutional world, where our identity is significantly shaped by our membership in institutional groups (from sports clubs and condo boards to state and international organisations). As such, then, understanding what those groups are and how they affect our reality through their actions is imperative. To that end, some philosophers have taken on the task of elucidating ‘institutional agency' (the capacity of institutional groups to act). Most recently, for example, Michael Bratman has introduced a theory of institutional agency, according to which an institutional group can act if the relevant participants act on an institutional intention (viz., a decision output that satisfies certain rationality constraints). Crucially, he develops this approach on the assumption that ‘planning agency' is the core capacity involved across various forms of human practical organization: individual, social, and institutional. However, this paper shows that while true that planning agency may be a basic element of individual and shared intentionality, it is not so relevant for institutional intentionality. In fact, contra Bratman’s intuitions, it argues that institutional agency is constructed out-of-group attitudes and actions, for which group agency, but not planning agency, is the core capacity.

Contra recent, inflationary views, the paper submits a deflationary approach to legal ontology. It argues, in particular, that to answer ontological questions about legal entities, we only need conceptual analysis and empirical investigation. In developing this proposal, it follows Amie Thomasson’s ‘easy ontology’ and her strategy for answering whether ordinary objects exist. The purpose of this is to advance a theory that, on the one hand, does not fall prey to sceptical views about legal reality (viz., that ontological truths about legal entities are established by metaphysical principles); and, on the other, is compatible with common-sense jurisprudence (viz., that there in fact exist legal entities, and they all have important practical implications). While this methodology is common to legal philosophers interested in elucidating the ‘artifactual nature’ of law, the paper departs from their projects by taking a step forward in connecting this deflationary approach to legal ontology with an expressivist account of legal discourse, thus providing enough resources to satisfy the general ambition of jurisprudence, viz., to establish the conditions for the analysis of legal reality and its normative character.

Although social practices are widely considered to be essential building blocks in the construction of our social world, there is not much of an agreement regarding what kind of entities they are and what constitutes their nature. As an attempt to make progress in this direction, I provide here a general account of their ontology. By implementing specific resources from contemporary social ontology and collective intentionality, I argue that social practices are composite, material entities socially constructed by organised social groups through their individual members acting according to collective reasons. With this, I intend to contribute towards the understanding of both the reality of social practices and their role in the construction of other social entities; particularly, artifacts and institutions.

Amie L. Thomasson, currently appointed Daniel P. Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth College and celebrated as one of the most influential living philosophers, has gained international recognition as a leading figure in metaphysics, ontology, phenomenology, and aesthetics. Although her extensive body of work stretches far beyond the topic of this book, it is fair to say that her most notable contributions as well as controversial theses lie in her deflationary approach to ontology, which is why it is the selected theme of this volume.

Raimo Tuomela (1940-2020) was a leading figure within social philosophy and a pioneer of contemporary social ontology. His main research and publications helped define the scholarly agenda of a philosophical investigation of social reality. Working first on (social) scientific realism and (social) action theory, he then developed an unprecedented account of collective intentionality—the kind of intentionality that individual agents require in order for them to perform intentional actions together, as a group.

Although there is already an important discussion regarding social ontology (a first-order investigation about social entities, e.g., social objects, social events, social relations, and social categories), not much attention has been paid to social meta-ontology (a second-order inquiry concerning what it means and how to answer whether there are any such entities). With the intention to contribute towards bringing the latter into the philosophical spotlight, I submit here a brief survey of the meta-ontological issues about two specific kinds of social entities, viz., social and institutional practices. After elaborating on Thomasson’s easy approach to ontology, I argue that it can be extended to account for the existence of those social entities.

Proxy agency is the capacity of individuals and groups to act for other individuals or groups in specific social transactions. For example, a legal team acts as a proxy for a client in a courtroom, or the Prime Minister acts as a proxy for the UK Government when attending international meetings, etc. Although a very common social phenomenon, it has not yet received enough philosophical treatment. Currently, the most developed account of this capacity is Ludwig’s proxy agency in collective action. Yet, his account relies on a deflationary, we-content approach to collective intentionality (á la Bratman). In this chapter, I argue that this approach is far too weak to explain proxy agency in institutional contexts—where the individuals and groups formally authorised to perform rule-guided group activities for the principal hold a strong, non-conditional we-commitment. In order to elucidate this feature, I provide an account of proxy agency based on a more robust, we-mode approach to collective intentionality (á la Tuomela). I suggest with this that, for institutional proxy agency to operate as expected, there must be appropriate conditions of sociality in place—which ultimately coheres with the larger project developed by Tuomela on social ontology.

Amie L. Thomasson, the Daniel P. Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy at Dartmouth College, has gained international recognition as a leading figure within various areas of philosophy. She has recently been celebrated as one of the most influential living philosophers for her significant contributions to metaphysics, ontology, phenomenology, and aesthetics. By engaging critically with her approach to metaphysics, modality, conceptual analysis, and the methodological issues concerning ontological questions about ordinary objects, social entities, and fictional characters, as well as including a chapter from Thomasson herself where she makes explicit the internal connections which run through her body of work, this volume delivers the first thorough discussion of Thomasson’s philosophy.

Raimo Tuomela, late Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Philosophy of Social Sciences (TINT), University of Helsinki, is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of our time. He published extensively on various topics within social philosophy; particularly, on social action, cooperation, group belief, group responsibility, group reasoning, social practices, and institutions. To celebrate his legacy, this volume engages with and delves deeply into his philosophy of sociality. By gathering original essays from a world-class line-up of social ontologists, social action theorists, and social philosophers, this collection provides the first comprehensive and critical treatment of Tuomela's outstanding contribution to social ontology and collective intentionality.

In recent years, some prominent legal philosophers have argued both that law (as a legal system) is a certain kind of abstract artifact and that we can elucidate its nature by elucidating its artifactual properties (e.g., authorship, functionality, etc). In this chapter, I present an objection to their arguments and show that law is not an abstract artifact, but rather a composite, concrete entity. I do so by arguing that law is an institutional practice, the purpose of which is for legal organisations to produce legal artifacts (e.g., laws, legal judgements, international treaties, etc) through the performance of legal activities. Based on this, I next provide an ontological analysis of these artifacts by elaborating on the conditions for their creation and maintenance. By distinguishing law as an institutional practice from legal artifacts as institutional objects created by legal organisations, I intend to advance a more precise ontological account of legal phenomena.

In a recent contribution to legal ontology, Kenneth Ehrenberg identifies a puzzle concerning _the basic validity rule_ of legal systems: If formal institutions require a codified foundational constitutive rule, then legal systems cannot be formal institutions, since their foundational constitutive rule is necessarily an uncodified basic validity rule. To solve this puzzle, Ehrenberg suggests taking this rule as ‘a foundational and self-identifying institutional fact’. Here, I challenge his solution and the very existence of this puzzle. By arguing, contra Ehrenberg, that the basic validity rule is not the foundational constitutive rule of a legal system, but only the foundational constitutive rule of legal validity; that its codification in fact contributes towards the institutionalisation of a legal system; and that the true foundational constitutive rule of a legal system is the formal group structure of the higher-constitutional organisations, I submit an alternative account of the institutional nature of legal systems.

This project develops an ontological analysis of law. It starts by characterising law as a layered practice constituted by the performance of various types of group activities at two levels: the social and the institutional. At the social level, it examines the conditions for social groups to create and sustain standards of conduct through normative social practices of recognition. At the institutional level, the investigation moves to the conditions required for legal organisations to carry out the legal activities that constitute a legal practice. These two levels are studied through the lenses of ontological accounts of social groups, group action, and collective intentionality. In the first part of the project, Hart’s Social Practice Theory of Law is discussed. His theory is used to present a social facts-based explanation of law’s reality and to introduce a fundamental element in the social construction of law: the internal point of view. Though this theory provides the groundwork for the analysis of certain essential properties of law, this project argues that it lacks an account of how legal organisations are created. To fill in this gap, this project considers next MacCormick’s Institutional Theory of Law. By discussing each of its main elements, it is shown that, while his theory improves on Hart’s by introducing an explanation of both how institutional groups come into existence and how they are involved in the creation and maintenance of an institutional normative order, it needs further development. Specifically, an account of the different forms of group structures and the participatory intentions involved in the performance of legal activities is needed. This is addressed in the second part of the project, which is dedicated to advancing a thorough analysis of the social construction of law based on the merits of these prominent legal theories. In the last three chapters of this thesis, novel accounts of collective intentionality and the ontology of social groups and group action are explored and used to provide the elements missing in MacCormick’s legal institutionalism. In particular, this project considers Thomasson’s work on the metaphysics of artifacts to address problems concerning the ontological status of social constructions; Tuomela’s theory of social practices and we-intentions to develop an explanation of how sociality is constructed out of group attitudes and group actions; Ludwig’s analysis of institutional agency to explain the constitutive elements based on which institutional groups perform rule-governed group activities; and Ritchie’s theory of organised groups to clarify the various kinds of group structures involved in law-activities. The result of this project is a fresh, interdisciplinary theory of the institutional nature of law.