[Forthcoming 2026 in *Ontology of the Social: Agency, Attitudes and Ethics*, edited by Bhaskarjit Neog, and published by Routledge. For a penultimate draft, please email the author.] Assuming a causal theory of action, this chapter argues that the distinctive feature of joint intentional activity is that each participant’s contribution is rationalised and guided by a ‘we-intention’. It contends that such we-intentions can be reduced to ordinary mental states with collective content, in accordanc…
Read more[Forthcoming 2026 in *Ontology of the Social: Agency, Attitudes and Ethics*, edited by Bhaskarjit Neog, and published by Routledge. For a penultimate draft, please email the author.] Assuming a causal theory of action, this chapter argues that the distinctive feature of joint intentional activity is that each participant’s contribution is rationalised and guided by a ‘we-intention’. It contends that such we-intentions can be reduced to ordinary mental states with collective content, in accordance with the ‘content approach’. The chapter proposes two jointly minimally sufficient conditions for an agent to possess a we-intention: (1) the agent intends that she and the others J, by way of each agent’s intentions that they J together, and by way of co-realisable sub-plans (this is Michael Bratman’s intention condition); and (2) she assumes or believes that the end that they J together is shared, such that she and the others each intend it (the doxastic shared end condition). The chapter then addresses objections according to which such a content account cannot explain how we-intentions can arise from ‘team reasoning’—a form of practical reasoning that sometimes leads individuals to engage in joint intentional activity. The chapter argues that these objections fail and that the content approach to we-intentions is fully compatible with theories of team reasoning.
