Social Action: A Teleological Account

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Social Action Most human action is social action of some sort. Yet the analysis of social, as opposed to individual, action has been somewhat neglected by philosophers. This book provides philosophical analyses of fundamental categories of human social action, including cooperative action, conventional action, social norm-governed action, and the actions of the occupants of organisational roles. A distinctive feature of the book is that it applies these theories of social action categories to some important moral issues that arise in social contexts, such as the collective responsibility for humanitarian intervention and the collective rights of minority groups. Avoiding both the excessively atomistic individualism of rationalchoice theorists and implausible collectivist assumptions, this important book will be widely read by philosophers of the social sciences, social philosophers, ethicists, political scientists, and sociologists. Seumas Miller is Director of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, Charles Sturt University.

Social Action A Teleological Account

SEUMAS MILLER Charles Sturt University

          The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, United Kingdom    The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 2RU, UK 40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia Ruiz de Alarcón 13, 28014 Madrid, Spain Dock House, The Waterfront, Cape Town 8001, South Africa http://www.cambridge.org © Seumas Miller 2004 First published in printed format 2001 ISBN 0-511-03114-9 eBook (Adobe Reader) ISBN 0-521-78316-X hardback ISBN 0-521-78886-2 paperback

In Memory of My Father Crawford Miller (1913–2001) Who Introduced Me to Philosophy

Contents

page ix

Acknowledgments

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Introduction Theories of Social Action Joint Action Conventions Social Norms Organisations, Agency, and Action Social Institutions and Social Groups Collective Rights Collective Responsibility

1 18 53 91 123 160 181 210 234

Notes Bibliography Index

259 289 299

vii

Acknowledgments

The following have offered helpful comments on various parts of the manuscript: Andrew Alexandra, John Blackler, Tony Coady, Dean Cocking, Tom Ernst, Richard Freadman, Allen Hazen, David Lewis, Ian Macdonald, Pekka Makela, Steve Matthews, Crawford Miller, Ewen Miller, Kaarlo Miller, James Nickel, Raimo Tuomela, Kerry Zubrinich, and various anonymous referees, including from Cambridge University Press. Thanks also to Professor John Braithwaite and the Reshaping Institutions Project for providing a visiting fellowship at the Australian National University to undertake work on parts of the manuscript; thanks likewise to Professor Henry Shue and the Centre for Ethics and Public Life at Cornell University. The following articles and books contain or constitute earlier versions of material published in this book. Thanks to the editors and publishers involved. “Lewis on Conventions.” Philosophical Papers 11, 2 (1982). “Conventions and Speech Acts” (University of Melbourne Ph.D., 1985, Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1986). “Conventions, Interdependence of Action and Collective Ends.” Nous 20, 2 (1986). “Conventions, Expectations and Rationality.” Southern Journal of Philosophy 25 (1987). “Rationalising Conventions.” Synthese 84, 1 (1990). “Foucault on Discourse and Power.” Theoria 76 (1990). “On Conventions.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 70, 4 (1992). “Joint Action.” Philosophical Papers 21, 3 (1992). ix

Acknowledgments Rethinking Theory: A Critique of Contemporary Literary Theory and an Alternative Account (co-author Richard Freadman). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. “David Luban on the Obligation to Obey the Law.” Bulletin of the Australian Society of Legal Philosophy 18, 60 (1993). “Intentions, Ends and Joint Action.” Philosophical Papers 24, 1 (1995). “Socio-Political Action, Ethics and the Power of Literature.” Philosophy and Social Criticism 21, 3 (1995). “Corporate Crime, the Excesses of the 80’s and Collective Responsibility.” Australian Journal of Corporate Law 5, 2 (1995). “Social Norms,” in Ghita Holmstro¨m-Hintikka and Raimo Tuomela (eds), Contemporary Action Theory, Volume 2: Social Action. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997. Police Ethics (co-authors J. Blackler and A. Alexandra). Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1997. “Individualism, Collective Responsibility and Corporate Crime.” Business and Professional Ethics Journal 16, 4 (1997). “Collective Responsibility, Armed Intervention and the Rwandan Genocide.” International Journal of Applied Philosophy 12, 2 (1998). “Authority, Discretion and Accountability: The Case of Policing,” in C. Sampford, N. Preston, and C. Bois (eds), Public Sector Ethics: Finding and Implementing Values. London: Routledge, 1998. “Collective Rights.” Public Affairs Quarterly 1, 4 (1999). “Social Norms and Practical Reason.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 31, 3 (1999). “Collective Rights and Minorities.” International Journal of Applied Philosophy (Fall 2000). “Collective Responsibility.” Public Affairs Quarterly 15, 1 (2001). “Collective Responsibility and Omissions.” Business and Professional Ethics Journal 20, 1 (2001). “Social Institutions,” in M. Sintonen and P. Ylikoski (eds), Realism in Action: Festschrift for Raimo Tuomela. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001. Special and more personal thanks go to the following: Ewen Miller for preparing the bibliography and the index and for his work in x

Acknowledgments relation to editing and proofing and my father, Crawford Miller, who first introduced me to philosophy and whose intellectual input over many years was very important in shaping my philosophical outlook. I dedicate this book to his memory.

xi

Introduction

If a hungry, thirsty, itchy person eats some food, or drinks some water, or intentionally scratches an itch, this is individual action. That is, it is the intentional behaviour of an ordinary individual human person; other human beings are not necessarily involved.1 If a person takes a walk down the road by herself for exercise, or eats an ice cream for pleasure, or takes a shower on a hot day, this is also individual action. Such action is not action in cooperation with, or necessarily directed at, other individuals. On the other hand, if an individual kicks or throws a football to a teammate in the course of a game of football, or puts a motion forward at a committee meeting, then this is social action. Most human action is in fact at some level, or to some extent, or in some sense, social action. Even these actions of eating, drinking, eating ice cream, individually walking down the road, or having a shower typically presuppose social forms or objects, such as farms, ice cream parlours, cups, roads, and shower rooms. But the de facto presupposition of social forms does not of itself vitiate the distinction between individual and social action. More generally, the sociality of most human action does not vitiate the distinction; it merely serves to illustrate the need to develop a more elaborate set of distinctions in this area. There is nothing to be gained from insisting that no actions are individual and/or that all actions are social, just because it might in fact be that all the actions of human beings connect in some way, however indirectly, with the actions of other human beings and with social forms and social objects. Of course it might be argued that all action is necessarily social, because sociality is a logical presupposition of action.2 But this strong claim is implausible. We need the concept of an action – and specifically that of an individual action – in order to make sense of the concepts of sociality, rather than concepts of sociality to make sense 1

Social Action of the concept of action. Indeed, this book is an attempt to fashion a particular individualistic concept of human action, and to use it as a building block in the construction of a variety of philosophical conceptions of social action types, including conventional, normgoverned, and institutional action. This process is in two stages. First, I help myself to an individualistic concept of action for the purpose of developing a philosophical account of a particular species of action, namely, joint action, where I understand joint action to be a species of interpersonal action, but not necessarily social action. I will say a good deal more about joint action, but, roughly speaking, a joint action comprises the actions of two or more individuals directed to a shared end. So members of a rowing team are engaged in joint action, as are two men moving a piece of furniture, or a group of thieves robbing a safe. Second, I use this notion of joint action to analyse a range of central kinds of social action, including conventional, norm-governed, and institutional action. In addition, I use the notion of joint action to illuminate some fundamental issues in collective morality, including the issues of collective rights and collective responsibility. Social actions are the actions of ordinary individual human persons. These include the actions of individuals performed in accordance with conventions, rules and norms, and the actions of individuals qua occupants of social, institutional, and professional roles. Some theorists claim that the category of social actions includes the “doings” of corporate entities such as governments or nations; for example, the United States declaring war on Iraq, or the Australian Federal Government introducing a new tax, such as the goods and services tax. I do not accept this claim. Accordingly, in this book I will, in effect, be concerned only with the actions of ordinary individual human beings.3 Granted that my concern is only with the actions of individual human beings, and that the concept of an individual action is logically prior to that of a social action, there is still a need for distinctions to be made between social action and other sorts of action of a nonsocial (or contingently social) sort and clarification of the concept (or concepts) of social action itself. In what follows I will introduce some intuitive distinctions between what I will term social actions and other sorts of action. The point of this is in large part to

2

Introduction demarcate my area of concern in this book. I cannot here offer exhaustive defences of these distinctions. Actions that are not necessarily social include individual actions (as already mentioned). Of these some are what might be termed natural actions. A natural action is one that is performed by virtue simply of needs and dispositions that the agent has through being a member of the human species as distinct from, say, some social group. Obvious examples are eating and drinking. Eating and drinking are not actions that logically presuppose, or logically imply, social forms. Another category of actions that are not necessarily social, or, if you like, that are social in a different sense of social, are what I will term interpersonal actions. An interpersonal action is an individual action that is interdependent with the action of some other single person, or is otherwise directed to a single person. Here the action is directed to the other person qua particular person, or qua member of the human species; it is not directed at the other person qua member of a social group or occupant of a social role or the like. So the contrast is with actions that are performed in accordance with a social form, or are directed to a number of other persons qua members of a social group, or actions directed to a single person qua member of some social group or occupant of a social role or the like. Typically, sexual acts or acts of intimate friendship or the behaviour of a newborn infant in relation to his or her mother are predominantly interpersonal actions in this sense, but institutional acts of conferring degrees or conforming to conventions of dress are not. Moreover, some of these natural, interpersonal actions are also moral actions. Consider actions motivated by instinctual feeling of sympathy for a fellow human being qua human being – as opposed to qua fellow member of one’s social group. Interpersonal actions presuppose the existence of that relationship that obtains when, so to speak, one mind confronts another mind. Such “confrontations” are everyday occurrences, but paradigmatic examples are situations in which one person is said to look the other in the eye. Here one person is aware of the other person, including being aware that the other person is aware of them. Such mind to mind interactions need to be distinguished from, on the one hand, mind to own mind (introspective) and mind to material

3

Social Action world (for example, perceptual) interactions, and, on the other hand, from mind to social world (social) interactions. Following C. D. Broad, I will call such mind to mind interactions “extraspective” interactions.4 In claiming the existence of extraspective interactions I am not committing myself to any particular analysis or theory of them, nor am I committing myself to the existence of controversial species of extraspective interactions, such as telepathy. Extraspective interactions are a perfectly ordinary phenomenon, albeit one that unfortunately has suffered neglect in recent times by philosophers.5 Indeed, most people are more certain of the existence of, and their interaction with, other minds than they are of any other sort of entity or interaction. And there is good reason for this. Extraspective states are not logically posterior to mind to material world interactions. Or at least they are not logically posterior in the manner required by the so-called argument from analogy. The argument from analogy assumes that my knowledge of the external material world (as well as my knowledge of the contents of my own mind) is logically prior to my knowledge of other minds. Accordingly, I must infer the existence of other minds on the basis of this prior knowledge of the external material world (taken in conjunction with my prior knowledge of own mind). Extraspective interactions are the most basic species of interpersonal interaction. However, interpersonal interactions include interactions that are only indirectly extraspective since there are interpersonal interactions between individuals who are not co-present in space and time, for example interactions by telephone or electronic mail. In these latter cases the extraspective interaction is between agents who are spatially and/or temporally distant from one another, and the interaction is mediated by, say, telephone wires. Indeed, extraspective interactions are so basic that they exist in the subhuman animal world. Dogs, tigers, pigs, and so on engage in extraspective interactions by virtue of their possession of primitive minds; these animals have mental states and a degree of consciousness, or awareness, of the external world and of one another. On the other hand, computers and the like do not have minds and therefore do not engage in extraspective interactions. (I reject the currently popular view – typically based on exclusively causal analy-

4

Introduction ses of mental states – that computers have beliefs, intentions, and the like.) I will assume that not all individual human actions directed at other persons qua entities with minds are interpersonal action. For example, if I intentionally hit you in order to harm you, and do so when you are immobilised by a drug (and therefore unable to respond), then this is individual, but not interpersonal, action. Moreover, it is individual action, even if you are aware that I have hit you. This assumption of mine is stipulative, but not unmotivated. It is motivated by the thought that we ought to reserve the term “interpersonal” for cases in which two or more agents actually perform different, but interdependent, actions; or at least for cases in which one agent performs an action with the intention that the other (or others) perform a second action by way of response. From the point of view of this book the most important species of interpersonal interaction is joint action: action that involves two or more agents performing individual action in the service of a shared end. And, as I will argue, joint actions are not necessarily social actions. The picture that has emerged thus far comprises the following categories of human action: (1) individual actions, that is actions involving mind to material world interactions, and actions involving mind to mind interactions that are not responded to, or not intended to be responded to, or both; (2) interpersonal actions, that is actions that involve mind to mind interactions, and are not simply individual actions, such as joint actions; (3) natural actions, that is individual or interpersonal actions which are performed by virtue simply of needs and dispositions that the agent (or agents) has through being a member of the human species.

What now of social actions? Roughly speaking, mind to social world interactions take place when one or more individual actors interact with, or direct their actions to, other individual actors (who might or might not be co-present), but do so qua parties to a convention or social norm, qua occupants of an institutional role, or qua mem-

5

Social Action bers of a social group or other social form. In other words, social actions are human actions performed in accordance with social forms such as conventions, social norms, institutions, social groups, and the like. The philosophical analysis of some of the central kinds of social action is the main concern of this book. My philosophical analysis of each of these social action categories will in each case be a reductive analysis of a certain kind. Social actions are reducible to various species of interpersonal action. For example, conventional actions will be analysed in terms of joint actions. However, these reductive analyses will not involve the reduction of social entities and the relationships between social entities. So the fact that irreducible social entities might figure in the intentional content of mental states – mental states that are in part constitutive of social and other actions – is in itself not a matter of concern. Indeed, on the conception presented here, it is to be expected. What is a matter of concern is the view held by some theorists, including Peter French and Margaret Gilbert, that social entities are themselves agents that possess mental states and perform actions. For such actions, if they existed, would be social actions, and irreducibly so. I will counter the arguments of these theorists. Social actions involve a certain kind of interdependence of action and of attitude between the members of sets of individuals, and this interdependence in turn creates the possibility of social groups. The existence of social groups, thus understood, in turn enables a certain new kind of social relationship that is not to be identified with interpersonal relationships (in the sense of mere one-to-one relationships between individuals), but rather presupposes them. This new kind of social relationship is a relationship between an individual and “the rest of the group.”6 This relation of an individual to the rest of the group arises in the context of interdependence of action and of attitude between all (or most of) the members of the group, including the individual in question. So each individual is separate from, but related to, the rest of the group. Moreover, this social relationship is not in any straightforward way an aggregate of oneto-one relationships obtaining between the members of a set of individuals. In the context of a social group, and of this social relationship between an individual and the rest of the group, the actions of individual persons can be powerfully influenced by social

6

Introduction attitudes, such as social approval and disapproval. So social phenomena, including social attitudes, do have causal impact on individual and interpersonal action. I have distinguished between two fundamental species of human action, namely individual and interpersonal action. And I have offered characterisations of natural and social actions. The terms “natural” and “social,” as I use them, are contrasting terms. However, they both presuppose the concept of action, interpersonal as well as individual action. So we have at least three kinds of action: natural individual action; natural interpersonal action; and social interpersonal action (social action). What of social individual action? First order natural individual action and first order natural interpersonal action initially give rise to social action as prior nonsocial action governed by social forms; this social action comes into existence as second order action. Consider convention-governed sexual interaction. There is the further interaction between different (n order) social actions which gives rise to (n⫹1 order) social actions as prior social action governed by higher order social forms. For example, conventions that govern action that is already conventiongoverned, such as conventions governing one’s linguistic communication at a formal ceremony. Since social action necessarily involves mind to mind interactions it is necessarily interpersonal action. So prior natural individual actions, such as eating, take on an interpersonal, indeed social, aspect once they are regulated by, say, a convention to eat with a knife and fork. However, it is important to note that the prior individual action still exists, so to speak, at the core of the newly existent social action. So it is individual action with a social aspect; it is, so to speak, social individual action. And the same point can be made in relation to prior interpersonal actions that are regulated by social forms; a sexual act still exists at the core of a marital sexual act. So marital sexual actions are social interpersonal actions. So we have at least four kinds of human action: natural individual action; natural interpersonal action; social interpersonal action; and social individual action. This fourfold distinction reflects the fact that all human actions are in the first instance either individual or interpersonal actions; natural and social are contrasting qualifications of individual and of interpersonal action. However, it can be

7

Social Action confusing to refer to action as social individual action or as social interpersonal action. So I will refer to the latter two kinds of human action simply as social action. Someone might want to insist that interpersonal actions per se are a species of social action. I do not have any strong objections to people arguing this, so long as they are not insisting that what I am calling interpersonal action logically presupposes or implies what I am calling social action. In particular, just as mind to material world (for example perceptual) interactions cannot be reduced to social interactions, so mind to mind (extraspective) interactions and natural interpersonal interactions cannot be reduced to social interactions. Indeed, social actions, in my sense, presuppose extraspective interactions, including natural interpersonal interactions (as well as mind to material world interactions). (It is, of course, also true that many mind to material world, and mind to mind, interactions are to an extent socially conditioned.) At any rate, henceforth I will use the term “social action” to designate those actions types that I want to contrast with natural individual actions and with natural interpersonal actions. Accordingly, I assert that not all human action is necessarily social action. With respect to actions that I am now calling social actions, a distinction is often made between actions that are (allegedly) constitutively social, and actions that are social in some other sense or senses. Roughly speaking, a constitutively social action is an action the social dimension of which makes it the action that it is; its social property or properties define it. It is a matter of controversy whether there are any actions that are constitutively social in this sense. Candidates for being constitutively social would be actions performed in highly formalised settings such as wedding ceremonies, debutante balls, law courts, and trophy presentations. I do not want to become embroiled in this controversy beyond making two points. First, I reject the proposition that there is a category of constitutively social actions in the sense of actions that are wholly – as opposed to, in large part, or essentially – constituted by social properties. Second, even if there is a category of constitutively social action, it is not nearly as important a category as the writings of many (including postmodernists and social psychologists) make out. As I have demonstrated, not all actions are social. Moreover, of those that are social, not all are constitutively social. Obviously the 8

Introduction above-mentioned nonsocial action types are not constitutively social. However, most concrete actions of these types are social in some other way. What other way might this be? Most actions of eating, drinking, and having sex, for example, are in fact social in some sense, although they are also at some level natural actions. The most important sense in which an action might be social is that it is socially conditioned. By the term “socially conditioned” I do not mean that the action is necessarily the effect of some deterministic causal process. Nor do I mean that there are supraindividual social entities that causally determine the actions of individual human beings. Rather, I simply mean that the action is performed in accordance with some pre-existing social form, such as a convention, or social norm, or ritual, or social role, or social group, or socially given purpose, or whatever. An action that is social in this sense is not necessarily constituted by its social dimension. Rather, in the case of an action that is socially conditioned (in this sense), a nonsocial action takes on a social aspect. Or, at least, a social action takes on an additional social aspect. But if we remove the social aspect, or aspects, of any given such action and thereby conceive of the action prior to its social conditioning, then ultimately we will come to a nonsocial action. Some examples might give an intuitive sense of what I have in mind. Eating with one’s mouth closed because of the convention to keep one’s mouth closed while eating is a case of social conditioning. The basic and prior action of eating is not social. However, the action of eating with one’s mouth closed is social in the sense that the way of performing it is governed by a convention, and this convention might serve the social purpose or ends of social facilitation and bonding that conventions of politeness typically serve. In a second example, two members of a particular society having sex involves social conditioning. The basic instinctual action of having sex is not in itself social; rather, it is natural. (It is also typically or often interpersonal rather than individual; it is interpersonal by virtue of the fact that it is directed at another individual person qua particular person and qua member of the male or female gender.) However, when two members of the same social group have sex their action is typically regulated and structured in various ways by the conventions and norms in force in that social group, and by observing these conventions and norms various social purposes or 9

Social Action ends will no doubt be served. Most actions are social, and of the actions that are social, most are social in the sense that they are conditioned by social forms of one kind or another. On this conception most actions are in fact social, but natural individual, and natural interpersonal, actions are logically prior to social actions. The social dimension principally consists in the regulation, but not the constitution, of prior individual, natural, and interpersonal actions. Moreover, the interpersonal actions in question include joint actions. There is a further important point. Many actions governed by social forms are, nevertheless, not fully determined by those forms. For example, the conventions of the English language dictate that strings of English words be ordered in certain ways and not in others. But these conventions do not fully determine which words will be used. Rather, individuals can choose which sentence to utter and choose from an infinity of possible sentences. The set of structures of social forms that constrain, but do not fully determine, human action constitutes a framework. Within this framework individual human beings can perform individual and interpersonal actions of their own choosing; they do so while continuing to comply with the relevant social forms. I do not claim that the category of mind to material world interactions is logically prior to the category of mind to mind interactions; that is, I do not claim that individual actions are logically prior to interpersonal actions in general. Nevertheless, I do claim that individual actions – including mind to material world and some extrospective interactions – are logically prior to joint actions in particular (joint actions being a species of interpersonal interaction). Notwithstanding the logical priority of individual actions over joint actions, individual ends and interests are not explanatorily prior to collective ends and interests. So the existence of collective ends is not necessarily to be explained (causally or rationally) by recourse to prior purely individual ends; nor is the motivation for the performance of joint actions necessarily ultimately to be given by recourse to some purely individual self-interest. Accordingly, I am not an atomist, but rather (in some sense) a holist;7 interpersonal interaction – including joint action – and interpersonal relationships exist, so to speak, at the ground level of explanation. 10

Introduction On this conception, then, social forms are constructions out of prior nonsocial (especially natural) individual and interpersonal actions; but once constructed these social forms become a regulating, though not fully determining, framework within which higher order individual and interpersonal human actions are performed. To be sure, these higher order actions have a social aspect; but they are individual and interpersonal actions nonetheless. So individual human beings perform their individual actions, and pursue their personal goals, within a social framework of conventions, social norms, and institutions. And individual human beings also perform their interpersonal actions – including joint actions and competitive actions – and also pursue their interpersonal goals within such a social framework.8 Moreover, the social regulation, adjustment, and structuring of prior nonsocial individual and interpersonal – including joint – actions enables the possibility of higher level thought and other rational activity, including moral deliberation. Individual human beings are agents who can think and act in rudimentary ways simply by virtue of their natural inclinations and intuitions, including their moral instincts and intuitions. However, it is their induction into the social world of conventions and norms – including the conventions governing language and the norms governing moral behaviour – that enables higher level thought and moral decision making. I do not mean to suggest that human beings do not at birth have the basic capacity for such higher level thought or moral decision making prior to induction into the social world; clearly humans have these and other capacities, while subhuman animals do not. My point is rather that these capacities require such induction if they are ever to be realised in practice; it is one thing to be born with a capacity to learn a human language, it is another to actually learn one. The conception I am offering is also in some sense collectivist in complexion; individual and joint activity, if they are to exist above very rudimentary levels, depend on social forms. By contrast, the individual and joint activity of subhuman animals remains at rudimentary levels because such activity continues to be driven only by natural instincts. Because subhuman animals lack the requisite capacities for higher level thought and moral decision making, enabling social forms do not, and cannot, develop. Consider a pack of 11

Social Action hyenas attacking a large zebra to kill it and eat it. No one hyena acting alone could kill the zebra. So not only are their individual actions caused by beliefs and intentions (or some primitive mental analogues of beliefs and intentions), but their actions are coordinated in the service of a shared purpose – to kill the zebra. This is both natural action and primitive joint action. But it is not social action in my sense. For it is not action regulated and structured by conventions, norms, institutions, and the like; and it is not action performed in accordance with higher level thought or moral decision making. Here again the contrast is between the social and the natural. Further, the social forms and objects that condition (in my sense) the actions of individual persons predate and post-date the actions, interactions, and indeed lives, of particular generations of individual persons. Moreover, social forms and objects undergo change by virtue of the joint participation in them over long periods of time of different particular individuals and different sets of interpersonally connected individuals, by virtue of changes to other connected social forms and objects, and by virtue of the different nonsocial conditions, including physical conditions, through which they persist. Accordingly, individual persons are not simply inducted into a social world; they are inducted into a sociohistorical world. This makes my conception historicist in some sense, but not necessarily historical determinist. So in what sense is my conception historicist? Individuals are inducted into the social forms of the past – including socially communicated theories, quasi-theories, and moral narratives. But these social forms do not constitute a monolithic structure; rather they comprise a miscellany of sometimes competing conventions, norms, institutions, and socially conditioned theories and narratives. The residue of the past consists in more than social forms; it also contains the memories and handed down skills that derive from the individual – as opposed to collective – lives of past generations. For example, a mother might have had personal moral experiences particular to herself, which she might make known to her daughter, but not to others. And there is this further point. Individuals do not confront the residue of the social forms of the past as atoms; they confront it – or rather participate in it – jointly. It does not follow from this that any 12

Introduction given generation of individuals can simply abandon these social forms; far from it. However, it does follow that these social forms are to a greater or lesser extent subject to change, and in some instances rejection; indeed, they are often changed and rejected in accordance with more or less rational processes. At any rate, these processes of change do not involve actions other than the actions of individual human beings. Also, these processes consist in large part of the joint activity of individual actors. An important corollary of the conception I am offering is that joint activity can take place over an extended period of time – including intergenerationally – and not simply over space. The building of the Great Wall of China and of cathedrals in the Middle Ages, the creation of the Roman Empire, the development of Western philosophy and of the literary form of the novel are in each case intergenerational joint projects. The jointness of the activity – including intellectual activity – exists across space and across extended periods of time. I would like to foreshadow here the teleological element in the account of social action that I will develop in later parts of this book. As I have mentioned, I start with the notion of an individual human action and the elements of intention, belief, end, and behaviour. Here the notion of an end is crucial; in my view ends are not reducible to intentions, on the one hand, or to desires, on the other hand; ends are an irreducible conative notion. These elements can be used to provide a philosophical account of a species of interpersonal action, namely, joint action, and in turn this notion of a joint action can be used to provide philosophical analyses of a variety of central types of social action. Roughly speaking, joint actions are comprised of individual actions performed to realise a shared end; so my conception is teleological. The end involved in joint actions is a shared or collective end; it is not simply an individual end. The possession of a collective end is not necessarily to be explained in terms of some prior motivating individual end; motivationally speaking, collective ends are sui generis. Neither individual action (directed to individual ends) nor interpersonal action (often directed to collective ends) is necessarily explanatorially basic relative to the other; as I have explained, human beings enter the world not only capable of performing, but also predisposed to perform, both types of action. 13

Social Action In proceeding in a general teleological vein I am to some extent following the rationalist, individualist, philosophy of action tradition which has its roots in Aristotle, Hume, and Kant and is associated with contemporary analytic philosophers such as Elizabeth Anscombe, Paul Grice, and Donald Davidson and, more recently – and in the context of discussions of social action – Michael Bratman, John Searle, and Raimo Tuomela. However, this way of proceeding also has a place outside philosophy, in sociological theory. Broadly speaking, it is the starting point for the voluntaristic theory of action associated with the likes of Max Weber and Talcott Parsons,9 and for the rational choice theory associated with the likes of James Coleman.10 For example, I would accept the following idea expressed by Parsons: “actions do not take place separately each with a separate, discrete end in relation to its situation, but in long complicated ‘chains’. . . . [and]the total complex of means–end relationships is not to be thought of as similar to a large number of parallel threads, but as a complicated web (if not a tangle).”11 On the other hand, my philosophical account of social action differs significantly from these theories. For example, Parsonian functionalism is too committed to notions of supra-individual functions of closed, self-regulating social systems, for my taste, and rational choice theory is too rationalist and atomistic. But the starting points for these theorists are similar to my own and to the philosophical tradition just mentioned. My conception of social action is informed by moral objectivism. In my view morality is not simply a social construction, though many social forms, such as social norms, have a moral dimension. Rather, the fact that social forms typically have a moral dimension is in part to be explained by the fact that there is a moral reality (in some sense) which to a greater or lesser extent informs particular social forms, just as to a greater or lesser extent it informs individual actions. That social forms have a moral dimension is also in part to be explained by the fact that human beings are beings with moral instincts and moral intuitions; human beings are born with moral instincts, even if these instincts exist in an inchoate form. Finally, that social forms have a moral dimension is in part to be explained by the fact that human beings are rational beings. For moral reality

14

Introduction is only able to be adequately grasped by beings who engage in reasoning. So there is a threefold distinction to be made between beings with minds – and agency – in a minimal sense, instrumentally rational beings and moral agents. Both humans and dogs have minds and perform actions, but only humans engage in reasoning, and only humans can grasp moral reality. So only humans are rational and moral agents. I should stress, though, that while instrumental rationality is a necessary condition for moral agency, it is not a sufficient condition. Without moral instincts or beliefs there is nothing for instrumental rationality to get a grip on; the ends to which the actions of merely instrumentally rational agents are directed are not necessarily morally valued. So I reject the claim that the concept of action, including purposive action, in and of itself, entails morality.12 The existence of rational psychopaths adds support to my view. In this book I am concerned with human social action, as opposed to social entities. And even within social action my aims are limited. I do not have the space to provide detailed analyses of all the various categories of social action; for example, I do not offer a detailed account of speech acts. However, the standpoint I would adopt, or have already adopted, in relation to the various categories of social action will be clear from my general account of social action. In relation to speech acts, for example, I have adopted the standpoint of agent-semantics associated with the work of Paul Grice.13 Agent-semantics involves the conceptual construction of linguistic (conventional) meaning from so-called speaker-meaning (what an individual speaker means by uttering something on some occasion). Note that on my account speaker-meaning is a species of interpersonal interaction and that intersubjective communication involves – or in the case of communication between speakers and hearers who are not co-present, presupposes – extraspective interaction. I am also concerned with social action per se, as distinct from, for example, the explanation – including the causal explanation – of social action or (so to speak) the epistemology of social action. My concern is with what social action consists in; it is not with the ultimate reasons why some particular kind of social action is performed under certain conditions or with whether or not there are discov-

15

Social Action erable causal laws that serve as explanations for such actions. Accordingly, I am insisting on a distinction that sometimes gets blurred in the writings of, for example, rational choice theorists. Some such theorists proceed on the assumption that the analysis of social action is simply the analysis of individual action supplemented by the provision of rational justifications for individual actions in contexts involving other individuals. Here the rational justifications of these actions are supposed to serve as the explanations for them. Nor is my concern with how social scientists are to determine what particular social actions are in fact being performed in some society under investigation. In insisting on a sharp distinction between what social action consists in and how we might go about determining what social actions have in fact been performed, I am rejecting the views of certain postmodern theorists who in effect collapse the distinction between the object or action in itself and the knower’s, or interpreter’s, beliefs about, and procedures for acquiring knowledge of, the object or action.14 I am not, however, rejecting in toto subjectivist accounts of social action of the kind espoused by Max Weber15 and, more recently, by John Searle;16 or even more explicitly hermeneutic conceptions, such as the “humans as self-interpreting animals” notion of Charles Taylor.17 Searle’s account combines what he calls ontological subjectivism with epistemic objectivism. On this view, social facts typically exist by virtue of the collective imposition of functions on preexisting objects or persons. For example, a log becomes a bench by virtue of being used as such, and a person becomes married by virtue of uttering the performative “I do” in a certain context. So social facts are ontologically subjective; they exist insofar as members of a social group believe or act as if they exist. Yet social facts are epistemically objective, since whether or not a log is a bench or whether or not someone is married are matters of truth or falsity to be settled by recourse to the (social) facts in question. The truth of the claim that a log is a bench or that someone is married is not dependent on the belief of the person making the claim. My own view is that there is a category of social facts that have the kind of ontological status that Searle ascribes to all (what he terms) institutional facts,18 but that many categories of social facts – including facts about many categories of social action – do not. For example, on my account conventional actions are simply regularities in 16

Introduction individual actions directed to the realisation of certain kinds of ends. Accordingly, the parties to conventions possess mental states, including intentions and beliefs about the actions of the other parties. But from the point of view of ontological categories, or of epistemological inquiry, nothing has changed; there are physical and mental facts, and there are whatever ways of knowing are appropriate for such facts. At any rate, here I simply reiterate that my concern in this book is not with the epistemology of social action or with the ontology of social entities. That said, I agree with John Searle that the concept of social action has a certain priority over the concept of social entity.19 However, it is not part of my brief to offer comprehensive philosophical accounts of social entities or objects, whether the accounts are reductive or otherwise. This is a philosophical study of human social action.

17

1

Theories of Social Action

In the introduction I offered a brief characterisation of an intuitive notion of human social action, contrasting it with notions of nonsocial action – especially natural (individual and interpersonal) action. In this chapter I will consider some of the prevailing theoretical – especially philosophical – approaches to social action. I do so primarily for the purpose of locating my own approach in the larger philosophical context; I do not pretend to offer a comprehensive picture of theories of social action, nor will I seek to provide a complete defence of my own favoured teleological account of social action. In addition, I will briefly introduce the various different species of social action, and related normative phenomena, that are the basic subject matter of this book. social power and social cooperation As will be evident by now, the underlying conception of social action that informs this book is that of cooperative individual actions directed to (collective) ends. The model on offer is what might be termed a teleological cooperation model. Such a model stands in contrast with ones that emphasise social conflict and social power. Let me consider a social power model before looking at the contrasting social cooperation model that I wish to advocate. There is a recent and widespread tendency among social theorists – perhaps more often sociologists than philosophers – to define, in effect, all human action as the exercise of power. Anthony Giddens seems to be a proponent of this view: “Agency refers not to the intentions people have in doing things but to the capability of doing those things in the first place (which is why agency implies power: cf. the Oxford Dictionary definition of an agent, as ‘one who exerts power or produces an effect’).”1 But agency and action should not be identified with power and 18

1. Theories of Social Action the exercise of power. Rather, agents need to be defined in terms of actions, and the notion of an action is logically prior to the notion of an exercise of power. Some actions are power plays, but many are not. Consider the intentional, but gratuitous, movement of one’s little finger; this is certainly not necessarily an exercise of power in relation to someone else; it is not interpersonal or social power. Nor is it an exercise of power in relation to the external world; no recalcitrant external object or force has necessarily been overpowered just because I gratuitiously move my little finger. As far as interpersonal or social relations are concerned, consider one person asking someone else the time of day; this is an interrogative speech act, but it is not necessarily an exercise of power. Moreover, many actions resulting from power relationships are not in themselves exercises of power. This is because many such actions are acts of submission to power. Consider an academic who decides not to criticise the vice-chancellor on the grounds that it might result in his being passed over for promotion. This act of omission is the result of power, but is not in itself an exercise of power. At any rate, I take it that exercises of power are one, but only one, kind of action; action is not the same thing as power or its exercise. In some related social and political theorising there is a tendency to become fixated with the power dimension of social action in particular. On this kind of view it is not that action per se is identified with or defined in terms of power, but rather that the occurrences of particular social actions and activity are to be explained by recourse to power relationships. On this view social action is taken to be principally action driven by sociopolitical forces, including national, racial, gender, cultural, ethnic, economic, class, and institutional forces.2 We are all members of social groups and social organisations (entities), and we are somehow supposedly wholly controlled, or at least causally determined, by social forces permeating these groups and organisations. Moreover, these groups and organisations are locked in conflict with one another. Thus males are supposedly principally engaged in attempting to dominate females, capitalists to dominate workers, whites to dominate blacks, and so on. Human action is understood only, or at least principally, in terms of sociopolitical power struggles. One such influential contemporary social power theorist is Foucault. In Foucault’s view: “Power is everywhere; not because it em19

Social Action braces everything, but because it comes from everywhere.”3 The first thing to note about this is that it attempts to articulate the operation of what might be termed impersonal social power. Impersonal power is power exercised upon individuals. However, it is not power exercised by particular individuals; rather it is power exercised by institutions, social groups, and so forth. Thus, Foucault says: “Power is not . . . one individual’s domination over others or that of one group or class over others. . . . Rather power must be analysed as something which circulates . . . which only functions in the form of a chain. It is never in anybody’s hands.”4 A characteristically Foucaudian example here is the way in which the institution of psychiatry coercively categorises certain individuals as being insane. This mode of power involves a process Foucault and others term “normalisation.” Normalisation is the process by which the individual is not just categorised but also controlled by the power vested in institutions and antecedent social practices.5 Contra Foucault, not all, or even most, conformity to social forms is the consequence of coercion. Clearly, there are all manner of social practices, conventions, and institutional arrangements that arise from voluntary, rational decision making in the service of mutually beneficial outcomes. Examples here would be driving on the left-hand side of the road in countries where this is the legal requirement; casting a vote in a country where one is not legally constrained to do so; undergoing a heart bypass operation in a hospital; conforming to the convention of telling the truth; keeping one’s promises. In such instances, what is at issue is in large part the voluntary participation of rational actors in mutually beneficial, indeed morally desirable, social arrangements; not simply domination and submission. Heart bypass operations and driving on the same side of the road save lives; democratic voting procedures help to control repressive, authoritarian forms of government; general conformity to the practice of speaking the truth is necessary for human communication; general conformity to the practice of keeping one’s promises is fundamental to the maintenance of economic systems based on contractual arrangements. So the attempted reduction of social action to the exercise of power, whether it be sociopolitical power or other kinds of power, is doomed to failure. In the first place, the concept of power presupposes the concept of action, and in the second place, human actions 20

1. Theories of Social Action are implicated in relationships between agents other than power relationships, for example actions spawned through friendship. Accordingly, the concept of power cannot be used to define the concept of action, nor can the concept of power be used to fully explain the occurrence of specific social actions and social activity. As is often the case with reductive programs, the net result of either of these attempted reductions is simply the obliteration of important distinctions, and therefore post-reduction there is a need to resurrect these distinctions, albeit by means of different terminology. At any rate, the appropriate response here is not to deny the power dimension of human action – its importance is a matter of common knowledge – but rather to reaffirm a different and contrasting, but nevertheless very fundamental, feature of such action, namely social cooperation.6 There are many kinds of human action which are cooperative. There are joint actions, such as playing in an orchestra or building a house. There are conventions, including linguistic conventions, which enable the collective end of communication. There are institutions and institutional actions of various types. Take the education system. This system has as a collective end the provision of a range of intellectual skills and the acquisition of certain kinds of knowledge. People learn to read, write, and count, and they acquire a body of knowledge. So an education system serves the collective end of education. Moreover, the education system relies on interdependence of action and hence cooperation. The pupils work at learning on condition the teachers work at teaching, and vice versa. Enough has been said by way of demonstrating what is in fact rather obvious; joint action, and cooperation in the service of collective ends more generally, are pervasive features of human life. But the recourse to social forms, such as conventions, social norms, and institutions, is designed to underpin a stronger claim, namely that social forms provide the framework within which most individual and interpersonal human action takes place. On this conception individuals entering the social world find themselves in a complex web of cooperative action none of which in the first instance is of their making. Since this complex web of interaction – this network of conventions and social norms and structure of institutions – constitutes the background and medium in which they act, it makes no sense to speak of individuals rejecting 21

Social Action or transforming the web in its entirety. This is really a logical point; change or rejection of any particular convention or institution is possible at any one time, but the change or rejection of the social fabric in its entirety is not.7 Immanuel Kant uses the image of a bird to make this kind of point: “The light dove cleaving in free flight the thin air, whose resistance it feels, might imagine that her movements would be far more free and rapid in airless space.”8 In their preoccupation, indeed obsession, with the repressive nature of conventions, institutions, and other social forms, many contemporary theorists make the mistake of Kant’s dove. They fail to understand that without, for example, the conventions of language, money, and literature, there would be no communication, no economy, and no literature. Just as air is necessary for birds to fly, so conventions are necessary for poetry. Notwithstanding appearances, my teleological cooperation model of social action accommodates the contrasting dimension of social action, namely conflict and power. The social world thus modelled is a sociopolitical world. Individuals, institutional actors, organisations, classes, and factions spend a great deal of time and energy in competition and conflict. In the course of these power struggles some individuals and groups amass considerable power, wealth, and status. Moreover they often do so at the expense of other individuals and groups and in part by ideological manipulation. However, the fact remains that these power struggles take place within a framework of cooperation between individuals and groups, the exploited and the exploiters, at many different levels, including the communicative level of language, the economic level of business enterprises, and the political level of government. The fact that a framework of conventions and institutions constitutes a set of enabling mechanisms for communication, education, material well-being, and so on, is entirely consistent with the sometimes widespread use, or rather abuse, of conventions, norms, and organisations to repress or coerce.9 In fact, repression of particular groups is often achieved more by excluding them from participation in educational and communicative institutions than by coercing them once they have gained entry to such institutions. The systematic exclusion of black South Africans from educational institutions during apartheid is a well-known case in point. At any rate, my claim 22

1. Theories of Social Action that language is fundamentally a conventional mechanism for enabling communication is not undermined by the fact that this same mechanism is also deployed at times in order to propagandise and manipulate. Again, my claim that democratic government is fundamentally an institution that enables the provision of various collective goods, such as stability and order, is not undermined by the fact that some such governments at times engage in repression of their citizens. Nor is my teleological cooperation model undermined by the admittedly widespread existence, and longstanding history, of wars between groups who belong to different societies. For such conflict is typically in large part outside a social framework. Moreover, protracted war has a disintegrative effect on societies and on conventions, social norms, and institutions; it is literally antisocial. This is exactly as one would expect on a cooperation model of social action. This teleological cooperation model is by no means inimical to fundamental social change. Rather, the point is that fundamental change cannot be brought about by one agent acting alone; it can only be brought about by agents acting collectively in the service of different ends or by using different means to the same ends. A single agent cannot change conventions or social norms, or transform institutions, all by themselves. Not even a very powerful political figure can transform the system of linguistic conventions overnight, and even if she can transform the political system reasonably quickly, she can do so only in cooperation with her political supporters. a taxonomy of social actions, social entities, and sociomoral properties In this section I introduce the basic taxonomy of social actions, and of the associated social entities and sociomoral properties that are my concern in this book. I distinguish between what I will term joint action, spheres of activity, conventions, social norms, rules, social groups, organisations, and institutions. Most of these types will receive comprehensive treatment later on. Specifically, I will offer detailed analyses of joint action (Chapter 2), conventional actions (Chapter 3), actions governed by social norms (Chapter 4), the actions of members of organisations (Chapter 5), and the actions of 23

Social Action members of social institutions and social groups (Chapter 6). I also offer analyses of the sociomoral properties of collective moral right (Chapter 7) and of collective moral responsibility (Chapter 8). I do not claim to offer an exhaustive or especially fine-grained taxonomy of types of social action and social entity. For example, I do not offer analyses of customs or traditions. Nor do I claim that my taxonomy is the only possible one, even at its own level of crudity. Indeed, there are other more exhaustive taxonomies available.10 Rather, I claim that the particular taxonomy that I provide, while to some extent prescriptive, has utility when it comes to understanding social action.11 Joint actions consist of the individual actions of a number of agents directed to the realisation of a collective end. A collective end – notwithstanding its name – is a species of individual end; it is an end possessed by each of the individuals involved in the joint action. However, it is an end that is not realised by the action of any one of the individuals; rather, the actions of all or most realise the end. Examples of joint action are two people lifting a table together and two men jointly pushing a car. So joint actions can be analysed in terms of individualist notions.12 Since it will turn out that on my account joint actions are the basic building blocks of social action, it is important to be clear about the nature of joint action. Earlier I distinguished between social actions and interpersonal actions. Social actions are constructions out of basic joint actions, and joint actions are not necessarily social actions. However, joint actions are necessarily interpersonal actions. Accordingly, individual and interpersonal actions are logically prior to social actions. Moreover, I hold that the individualist notions needed for the analysis of joint actions do not necessarily bring with them a normative dimension, above and beyond the minimal normativity of instrumental rationality. By instrumental rationality I mean the rationality of undertaking an action that is the means to one’s end; I ought to do x for the reason that x is the means to my end, e. Accordingly, I conclude that joint actions do not necessarily have a normative dimension (other than in this minimal sense).13 I also conclude that while joint action logically implies agents – specifically, instrumentally rational agents – it does not logically imply moral agents. Here my point is not that the joint actions performed 24

1. Theories of Social Action by human beings do not as a matter of contingent fact often possess a moral dimension; clearly they do. Rather my claim is that action per se, whether it be individual or joint action, does not necessarily have a moral dimension; the concept of action, including the concept of joint action, is logically prior to the concept of morality.14 We can further elaborate the notion of joint action by introducing the notion of joint activity. Roughly speaking, a joint activity is a complex of differential, interlocking, joint actions and individual actions directed to some overarching collective end. So building cathedrals and sailing ocean liners are joint activities. We can further distinguish between different, albeit connected and overlapping, generic kinds of joint activity, including communicative, economic, educative, sexual and religious activity. The repetition over time and duplication in space of any one of these different kinds of generic joint activity can give rise to a more or less connected, and more or less continuous, stretch of joint activity which I will term a sphere of activity.15 So the ongoing series of economic transactions across Australia constitutes a sphere of activity. Spheres of activity (by stipulative definition) are regulated by conventions. They thereby take on different specific forms according to the specific conventions that structure them. Often, though not necessarily, they are also regulated by explicit rules, including laws. And they are also often – but again, not necessarily – regulated by social norms. Here I distinguish between rules, conventions, and social norms.16 A rule is a (typically explicitly formulated) directive issued by some authority to those who are subject to it to undertake a certain course of action in certain circumstances. So laws are a species of rule. A convention is a regularity in action performed by a set of individual agents and directed to a collective end. More precisely, conventions are joint procedures, where a procedure is (roughly speaking) a habit – the automatic repetition of an action in a recurring situation. So a joint procedure is a procedure that is jointly followed because it realises a collective end. Moreover, in my view conventions qua conventions are normatively neutral – other than in the minimal sense involved in instrumental rationality. I maintain that conventions are normatively neutral notwithstanding the fact that agents can be held to have failed to conform to any given convention. On my account a conventional 25

Social Action regularity in action does not constitute a standard of behaviour to which agents ought to conform in any stronger sense than that implied in instrumental rationality. Naturally, an agent, by not conforming, might fail to realise the collective end that he or she (jointly) has; the end which is realised by conformity to the convention. However, that would be a mere failure of instrumental rationality. Here it might be helpful to draw attention to distinctions between four related, and quite fundamental, conative notions. First, there is individual action. Second, there is joint action. Third, there is repetitive individual action (including action performed in accordance with procedures). Fourth, there is repetitive joint action (including action performed in accordance with joint procedures). I am reserving the term “convention” for the main species of this fourth fundamental conative notion, namely joint procedures. I am doing so partly because I find it intuitively appealing. But my main reason is a theoretical one: Conventions conceived of as joint procedures have great explanatory power. And this is how it ought to be, given the historical and contemporary explanatory burden that is placed upon the notion of a convention. Consider in this connection Aristotle’s dichotomy between nature and convention and Hume’s discussion of conventions.17 So conventional actions are not necessarily the content of directives issued by authorities. Nor are they necessarily explicitly formulated anywhere. Using chopsticks is a convention in China, for example, but not in most parts of Australia. And driving on the left-hand side is a convention in Australia, though not in the United States of America; it is a regularity in action among Australians, which secures the collective end of avoiding car collisions. As it happens, this convention is also a law, though it might not have been. In this respect it is unlike the convention of using chopsticks. Social norms are regularities that are also norms; agents believe that they ought to conform. Here the “ought” is not that of mere instrumental rationality; it is not simply a matter of believing that I ought to conform because it serves a purpose. Some conventions and all rules are also norms in this strong sense. For example, the convention (and the law) to drive on the left is a norm; people feel that they ought to conform. This strong (and wide) sense of ought includes – but is not exhausted by – the so-called moral ought. 26

1. Theories of Social Action Further, the moral ought obviously applies to many actions directed to ends, including collective ends, and often does so by virtue of the moral significance of those ends. However, the moral dimension of such actions is not generated simply by instrumental rationality; for the ends in question are not mere ends, they are morally significant ends. So we have a threefold distinction in relation to social regularities in action: conventions, rules, and social norms. And it turns out that any given regularity in action could as a matter of contingent fact be simultaneously a convention and a rule and a social norm, or two of these, or, of course, only one of these. It should be noted here that I do not accept the reduction of the moral dimension of actions (or agents) to their social dimension. Rather social “morality” is typically in part constituted by objective morality, and there are objective moral principles and values that transcend the de facto attitudes and regularities in behaviour that constitute specific social groups and institutions. This objective morality is probably only capable of being adequately accessed by beings with an instinctual moral sense who are also deliberative agents. Such beings are not only touched by moral considerations. They are also beings who can imagine different possible courses of action, offer themselves reasons for some of these against others, and act on these reasons. A further point regarding my moral objectivism is that I regard individual human beings as the ultimate sources of moral value and bearers of moral responsibility; I reject the proposition that social forms and entities have intrinsic – as opposed to derived – moral value.18 Notwithstanding this, I am not an advocate of what might be termed individual moral atomism. In my view a large component of the intrinsic value that attaches to individuals attaches to them by virtue of their interpersonal relationships with other individuals, including relations of friendship, love, compassion, and so forth. Moreover – as I will argue in Chapters 7 and 8 – there are important moral rights and moral responsibilities which are jointly possessed. In general terms, I am seeking to drive a wedge between collectivism (including some species of communitarianism), on the one hand, and extreme forms of individualism on the other.19 A social group consists of a set of individuals who participate in a number of spheres of activity and therefore are party to a number 27

Social Action of networks of conventions (each network regulating the interactions in a given sphere of activity). In addition – by stipulative definition – members of a social group have been inducted into a common structure of institutions. However, members of a social group do not necessarily constitute an organisation or even belong to any organisation. I will elaborate the distinction between organisations and institutions, but first let me clarify the distinction between social groups and organisations. The defining elements of social groups are particular individuals standing in certain relations – including normative moral relations – to one another. The defining elements of organisations are (embodied) particular roles standing in relation to one another. By embodied it is meant that these roles are filled by individual persons – though not by any individuals in particular.20 So organisations consist of an (embodied) formal structure of interlocking roles.21 These roles can be defined in terms of tasks, procedures (in my above sense), and conventions. Moreover, unlike social groups, organisations are individuated by the kind of activity that they undertake and also by their characteristic functions or ends. So we have governments, universities, business corporations, armies, and so on. Perhaps governments have as an end or goal the ordering and leading of societies, universities the end of discovering and disseminating knowledge, and so on. It is important to note that on this (stipulative) definition of organisations they are, qua organisations, non-normative entities. In this respect they are analogous to conventions, as I have defined conventions. So being an organisation is not of itself something that is either morally good or bad, any more than being a convention is of itself morally good or bad. I can consistently hold this while maintaining that organisations, like conventions, are a pervasive and necessary feature of human life, being indispensable instruments for realising collective ends. Collective ends are a species of individual end; but merely being an end is of itself neither morally good nor bad, any more than being an intention or a belief is of itself morally good or bad. As in the case of conventions, my definition of organisations is stipulative, but not unmotivated. It is motivated in part by intuition. More importantly, it is motivated by theoretical considerations. For there is a fifth fundamental conative notion. We already have four: 28

1. Theories of Social Action individual action, joint action, repetitive individual action, and repetitive joint action (especially joint procedures). But individuals realise their ends not only by performing joint actions, including repetitive joint actions, but also by specialisation. Assume agent A performs task x, and agent B task y, and agent C task z. Assume also that: A cannot perform y or z (or at least cannot perform y or z without difficulty); B cannot perform x or z; and C cannot perform x or y. Assume finally that if A dies or leaves, B and C will identify some D to replace A; similarly if B or C dies or leaves, then some E or F will be found as a replacement. What we have is an organisation, albeit a primitive one. I hold that this notion of an organisation has great explanatory power. Moreover, it is a conative notion that has been characterised exclusively in terms of instrumental rationality; it is not normative in any stronger sense than this. In particular, it does not necessarily imply moral considerations. While my definition of an organisation does not include any reference to a normative dimension, most organisations do as a matter of contingent fact possess a normative dimension. As was the case with conventions, this normative dimension will be possessed (especially, though not exclusively) by virtue of the particular moral (or immoral) ends that an organisation serves, by virtue of the particular moral (or immoral) activities that it undertakes, and by virtue of the fact that the constitutive roles of most organisations are occupied by moral agents. This will be discussed further in this chapter.22 It should also be noted that the social norms governing the roles and role structures of organisations are typically enshrined in explicit rules, regulations, and laws, including laws of contract. For example, an employee not only believes that he ought to undertake certain tasks and not others, but these tasks are explicitly set forth in his contract of employment. Organisations with the above detailed normative dimension are social institutions.23 So institutions are often organisations, and many systems of organisations are also institutions. For example, capitalism is a particular kind of economic institution, and in modern times capitalism consists in large part in specific organisational forms, including multinational corporations. Nevertheless, some institutions are not organisations, and do not require organisations. For example, the English language is an institution, but not an 29

Social Action organisation. Moreover, it would be possible for a language to exist independently of any organisations specifically concerned with language. Institutions are (by stipulative definition) normative entities, defined in part in terms of normatively described ends, and in part in terms of activities governed by social norms. Moreover, institutions are necessarily inhabited by deliberative agents who are also moral agents (or immoral agents – the contrast is with nonmoral agents). So institutions are unlike organisations. Nevertheless, there are important relations between many institutions and organisations. First, as we saw above, many institutions are also organisations or have organisational elements. Second, organisations exist, or at least ought to exist, to facilitate institutional purposes and, ideally, morally desirable institutional purposes. I have demonstrated that social groups necessarily possess institutions. Moreover, there can be no institutions outside social groups, though the same institution can exist across different social groups, for example the institution of the English language. Further, institutions logically presuppose spheres of activity. An institution is, at least, a structure of conventions and social norms that regulates some form of generic joint activity in accordance with more or less discernible ends. Communicative activity is not necessarily institutional activity, but typically linguistic activity is. Spiritual experiences are evidently not necessarily institutional phenomena, but religious activity – including nonorganisational religious activity – is typically institutional in character. Extramarital sexual activity is not necessarily institutional in character, but marital sex is. Periodic bartering between explorers and members of local tribes is noninstitutional economic activity, whereas Finland’s export of paper and import of cars within the framework of European Union guidelines is institutional activity. A final point about social institutions. (This point is also relevant to social norms and conventions.) As is well known, institutions and other social forms reproduce themselves over time. As Giddens puts it: “In and through their activities agents reproduce the conditions that make their activities possible.”24 However, Giddens and others seem to ascribe the reason for this reproduction of institutions simply to continued interaction between conforming individuals over space and time; reproduction of institutions is a largely unintended 30

1. Theories of Social Action consequence of continuous interaction. But this as it stands is unsatisfactory. What is called for is an explanation of this continued conformity. I suggest that collective habit in a context of ongoing interaction is by itself an inadequate explanation.25 My claim is not that unintended consequences do not have an important social role to play here and elsewhere; clearly they do. Rather, the point is that this reproduction of institutions ultimately depends on the continuation of one or both of the following two general kinds of condition. The first kind of condition is that the institution in question continues to effect the purpose or collective ends to which it initially owed its existence – or has come to serve some other collective ends. For example, the conventions of the English language reproduce themselves in large part because adherence to them enables the collective end of communication to be achieved. Here, successful communication is not simply an unintended consequence or outcome of some invisible hand or a (possibly latent) supra-individual function; successful communication is something that individual agents aim at. The second kind of condition is that the institution in question continues to embody a felt moral sentiment. For example, the social norms underpinning apartheid in South Africa were sustained by the view on the part of most whites, and (in all probability) many blacks, that blacks were inferior. Once that view came to be seen as morally objectionable, the various social norms, and indeed institutions, that embodied it underwent a process of disintegration. As I have mentioned, the two main sociomoral properties that I am concerned with in this book are collective moral rights and collective moral responsibilities. Roughly speaking, there are individual moral rights, which attach to individuals qua individuals, and joint moral rights, which attach to individual persons who engage in joint action. For example, the members of a team of bricklayers have a joint moral right to the moneys paid to them for building a brick house. Collective moral rights are a species of joint moral rights, namely rights possessed in part by virtue of membership in a social group. So the right of the Iraqi Kurds to secede, if it exists, is a collective moral right. Note that on my view collective rights are not properties that are possessed by suprahuman collective entities, such as nation states or social groups. Collective moral responsibilities are, in essence, joint moral responsibilities. They are the moral responsibilities that individuals 31

Social Action incur as a consequence of their joint actions; and while these moral responsibilities attach to individual persons, they do so jointly. So if two men jointly beat a third man to the point where he dies, then they are jointly or collectively morally responsible for his death. Each man is morally responsible for the man’s death, and if one is responsible for his death then the other is, and vice-versa. Note that on my view collective responsibilities are not properties that can be ascribed to suprahuman collective entities, such as nation states or social groups or even two men considered as a single entity. philosophical approaches to social action While there is a great deal of highly developed philosophical work in the area of the philosophy of individual action, there is a relative paucity of detailed work in the area of philosophical theory of social action. The main general philosophical works in this area are Raimo Tuomela’s Theory of Social Action, The Importance of Us, and Cooperation, John Searle’s The Construction of Social Reality, and Margaret Gilbert’s Social Facts.26 Each of these authors offers a distinct approach to the theory of social action. Probably the most influential specialised work in the area is David Lewis’s Convention: A Philosophical Study.27 Lewis offers a systematic theory of one species of social action, namely, conventional action. Moreover, his basic approach has been taken over and applied to other species of social action, for example by Ullmann-Margalit and Pettit in relation to action in accordance with social norms.28 These works by Searle, Tuomela, Gilbert, and Lewis embody the main existing philosophical approaches to the theory of social action. Searle’s and Tuomela’s approach basically consists of taking over a particular theoretical approach in the philosophy of individual action and attempting to deploy it in respect of social actions. The approach is that of so-called intention-based action theory. Lewis, Ullmann-Margalit, and Pettit take over the main rival approach in the philosophy of individual action and attempt to deploy it in respect of social action. The approach is that of so-called belief/ desire action theory. Gilbert, by contrast, attempts to develop a non-individualist corporatist theory of social action. Her claim is, in effect, that the

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1. Theories of Social Action existing work in the philosophy of individual action cannot simply be generalised and supplemented, and applied to the case of social action. Social action, she believes, is radically different from individual action. Gilbert develops an account of what she calls a plural subject. Plural subjects are essentially a species of social group. According to Gilbert, plural subjects can be ascribed beliefs and intentions that are not the beliefs and intentions of any of the individual members of the plural subject (social group). Let me make some brief remarks about each of these approaches. Gilbert’s approach is in my view fatally flawed in that it introduces a mysterious and unbridgeable gap between individual human action and social action. How does one and the same individual human person integrate their individual actions with the “actions” they somehow contribute to, or in part constitute, as members of a collective on this view? Matters become even more problematic when one considers the ontological status of the relevant intentions and beliefs involved in such supra-individual “actions.” At this point Gilbert opts for such things as collective beliefs, which can in principle exist even though no individual person actually possesses these beliefs. Suffice it to say that it would be far more satisfactory if an account could be given that explained social actions wholly in terms of the actions of individual human persons and that helped itself only to mental states that existed in the heads of individual persons. Lewis, Ullmann-Margalit, and Pettit have made some theoretical headway. However, their project suffers from an inadequate initial theoretical base. The attempt to understand human action, be it individual or social, purely by recourse to so-called belief/desire theory is misguided. Michael Bratman has shown this.29 What in the end Lewis and colleagues can offer is not theories of social action but at most theories of the rationality underpinning social action, and, specifically, an account of the structure of motivating preferences and desires. I discuss Lewis on conventions in Chapter 3. I favour the intention-based approach. Its strengths are: (1) it is based upon solid existing theoretical work in the philosophy of individual action; (2) individual and social action are taken to be different species of the same genus rather than radically different phenomena. However, as it stands I don’t believe it is sufficiently rich in theoretical machinery to adequately explain social action. In

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Social Action particular, it requires the further teleological notion of a collective end and the notion of a procedure (roughly, a habit) in the service of collective ends. The Definition of Social Action To this point I have assumed that there are distinctions to be made between individual and interpersonal action on the one hand and social action on the other, but I have not attempted to define social action. There are a number of definitions of social action in the literature, and in this section I want briefly to consider the main ones, albeit for the purposes of rejecting them. David-Hillel Ruben and many of the rational choices theorists hold the permissive view that social action is interdependent action.30 Gilbert and, perhaps, Tuomela are committed to the restrictive view that social action is to be identified with joint action.31 There is a third influential view, associated with Wittgenstein, that social action is to be defined in terms of action performed in accordance with rules.32 My own view is somewhat more complicated than any of these. First, I hold with Ruben that social action is necessarily interdependent action. However, I hold that social action is only one species of interdependent action. For example, there are many interpersonal actions that involve interdependence but are not social actions. Ruben offers a specific analysis of interdependence, which he then uses to define social action. My view is that he casts his net too wide and includes actions that are properly speaking interpersonal, but not social. Second, while I hold that joint action is the basic building block for social action, I maintain – contra Tuomela, Gilbert, Searle, and others – that joint action is not necessarily social action. As I have mentioned, joint action is necessarily interpersonal action but not necessarily social action. Third, while it is obvious that action performed in accordance with (social) rules is necessarily social action, such action is only one species of social action. Accordingly, social action cannot simply be identified with such rule-governed action. Furthermore, neither joint nor interdependent action is necessarily social action. Accordingly, social action cannot be defined as joint action or as interdependent action. Roughly speaking, interdependent action is action in which one agent performs an action at least in part in virtue of his beliefs about 34

1. Theories of Social Action the actions, beliefs, or other attitudes of another agent or agents. Ruben has defined social action in terms of interdependent action.33 Let us look at his conception.34 According to Ruben the following four conditions are necessary and sufficient for an action to be a social action. First, there must be at least two agents, A and B, such that one agent has beliefs about the other agent and vice-versa. Second, these beliefs must themselves be part of the content of higher order beliefs. So, for example, A must believe that B has some belief about A. Third, A performs the (social) action in part on the basis of what A believes B believes about A, and vice-versa for B. Fourth, A and B mutually believe that one another’s actions are in part determined by their respective beliefs about what the other believes. (A and B mutually believe some proposition, p, if and only if A believes that p, B believes that p, A believes that B believes that p, and so on in the familiar way.) I will argue against Ruben’s conception by way of counterexample. My counter-example involves conflict of a very pure kind, and it is two individual persons who are in conflict.35 The individuals in question are strangers to one another and belong to quite different societies. These two such strangers confront one another in the desert away from any other people, social institutions, or social objects. There is insufficient water for both. Both seek to kill each other with their bare hands in order to survive, and both know that the other is seeking their death. They both mutually know that each is contriving strategies based on beliefs about what the other believes, and so on, in the manner required by Ruben’s definition. Their actions are interdependent. Moreover, their actions are driven by extreme thirst and are therefore in the first instance natural. Since the one individual directs his actions at the other individual, their actions are interpersonal. Why should this example be considered to be a counter-example? In the first place the interaction between the two individuals does not involve any social forms, such as conventions or social norms, or any social attitudes. Indeed, the social norm proscribing the killing of another person has been abandoned (though not as a result of a process of moral deliberation). So the onus is on Ruben to explain why the interaction should be regarded as social action. The example involves action on the basis of beliefs about the actions of the opposing party. But so might the actions of a man-eating tiger that 35

Social Action is aware it is being hunted by villagers whom it has been seeking to kill and eat. The tiger is not engaged in social action. Of course, Ruben holds that the beliefs in question be higher order beliefs, beliefs about the beliefs of others, and he might insist that he is speaking of beliefs in the sense of mental states with propositional content. Tigers do not have beliefs with propositional content (whether higher or lower order beliefs). But why should a difference in the level of intelligence – whether manifested in the propositional character of mental states or in the fact that they are higher versus lower order mental states – of those involved in conflict make a difference to the sociality of their interaction? Suppose that instead of a tiger and some villagers, we had villagers and a predatory Martian capable of higher order propositional beliefs, that was seeking to kill and eat the villagers. It is hard to see why the interaction would now need to be regarded as social interaction. It might be claimed that propositional attitudes and/or higher order mental attitudes, including beliefs about beliefs, logically presuppose, or imply, human language and hence (linguistic) conventions.36 But I disagree with this. I conclude that Ruben has offered a definition of social action that is too thin to do the job; this is not social action, but something short of social action, namely a species of interpersonal interaction. Let me now turn to joint actions. Joint actions are a species of interdependent action in which there is little or no conflict; joint actions involve a number of agents performing interdependent actions in order to realise some common goal. In Chapter 2 I propound the collective end theory of joint actions.37 Basically on this theory joint actions are actions directed to the realisation of a collective end.38 However, this notion of a collective end is a construction out of the prior notion of an individual end. Roughly speaking, a collective end is an individual end more than one agent has, and which is such that, if it is realised, it is realised by all, or most, of the actions of the agents involved, and is not realised by only one of those actions. Some theorists – including Tuomela and Gilbert – have argued that joint actions are necessarily social, indeed that they are the paradigm of social action. I suggest that joint actions are not necessarily social actions.39 Joint actions are sometimes social. The joint action of wearing a suit on formal occasions, given everyone else 36

1. Theories of Social Action does, is social. However, joint actions are not necessarily social and therefore social actions cannot simply be defined as joint actions. Joint actions can be one-off interpersonal actions performed by persons who are not members of the same society, who are not parties to any of the same conventions or social norms, or members of the same institutions. Suppose, on a single occasion only, I joined with a stranger in removing a fallen tree blocking our pathway. We did not communicate explicitly, went our separate ways thereafter, and my interest in his action was purely as a means to enable me to move the tree blocking my pathway. In this case, our joint action would not be social. To see this, consider the possibility that the “stranger” was a Martian, who shared no social forms with me, had the body shape and size of a doglike robot, and was not capable of any emotional states characteristic of humans, including social emotions such as social approval; the only things the Martian had in common with humans was beliefs, intentions, and ends. Given all this, surely we do not have an instance of social interaction. As we saw in relation to Ruben’s views, it is possible to argue that since this sort of joint action involves higher order mental states – such as beliefs about the beliefs, ends, and intentions of others – then it involves sociality; for it is claimed that the possession of higher order mental states requires the ability to use a language and hence conformity to conventions. However, this argument fails because it is by no means clear that what might be termed basic joint action does necessarily involve convention-governed language. Consider a primitive form of basic joint action, such as a pack of hyenas attacking and killing a large zebra in order to eat it. Here the hyenas have intentions, beliefs about the behaviour of the other hyenas and the zebra, and indeed awareness of the other hyenas and the zebra.40 Here the notion of awareness is not the notion of a propositional attitude; nor does the notion of intended behaviour necessarily bring with it propositional content. However, there are higher order mental states; for example, the hyenas are aware of the zebra’s awareness of them. Nevertheless, possession of the mental states in question does not require recourse to a convention-governed language. Again, consider a maneating tiger adopting a stalking stance in relation to its prey. In some sense the tiger intends to kill its prey, but this intention does not have propositional content. Moreover, the prey, a villager, is at 37

Social Action this point unaware of the tiger. The tiger continues to stalk, but then the villager sees the tiger; indeed, their eyes meet, so to speak. (Here we have a species of extraspective interaction.) The tiger abandons his stalking and pounces; the villager runs. The tiger became aware of the villager’s awareness of the tiger, and this caused the tiger to abandon his stalking action and to go in for the kill. But this higher order awareness is not propositional in character. Accordingly, it is difficult to see why a convention-governed language is necessarily implicated in this scenario. But now let us consider the basic joint action of humans, joint action that involves higher order mental states with propositional content. Does such joint action logically presuppose or imply a convention-governed human language? I take it that Paul Grice, Jonathan Bennett, and other proponents of agent-semantics have demonstrated that semantic facts are reducible to psychological facts about individuals. So the propositional character of conventiongoverned human language is to be explained by the propositional character of thought, rather than the other way around.41 Moreover, I do not accept that higher order propositional attitudes, in particular, logically presuppose or imply convention-governed language. On the contrary, as I outlined in the introduction to this book, I believe that extraspective attitudes – including awareness of the awareness of others, awareness of intentions of others, and so on – are a fundamental feature of human minds, and one that is logically prior to sociality. So, for example, I do not accept the need for an argument from analogy in order to demonstrate the existence of other minds. Nor do I accept the various claims, rightly or wrongly associated with Wittgenstein, that the criteria for the correctness of beliefs are necessarily provided by communities. (For more on this, see the following section on rule-governed action.) I conclude that joint action is not necessarily social action. Rather, it is a species of interpersonal interaction, and as such involves extraspective interaction, but not necessarily social interaction. Margaret Gilbert has argued that joint action examples – of the kind I have put forward as counter-examples to the view that joint action is necessarily social action – involve recourse to corporatist notions such as irreducibly collective intentions and beliefs, and plural subjects.42 My general response to Gilbert is to put forward my theory of joint actions in terms of wholly individualist notions. 38

1. Theories of Social Action In Chapter 2, I deal with some of her more specific examples and arguments to the conclusion that joint actions are irreducibly corporatist and therefore social. I conclude that neither interdependent nor joint action is necessarily social action. These species of action are certainly interpersonal, but not necessarily social. Accordingly, social action cannot simply be defined as interdependent or joint action. Social Action as Rule-Governed Action According to one strand of the analytic philosophical tradition – a strand associated with the later Wittgenstein, Peter Winch, and, in a somewhat different vein, John Searle – social action ought to be construed as rule-governed action.43 The claim here is that social actions are necessarily rule-governed, and, further, that being rulegoverned is sufficient to mark off social actions from nonsocial actions. On pain of circularity, rules in this sense are not by definition social in character. So, theoretically, there could be private rules, rules that only single individuals followed. However, these theorists argue that this is a mere “theoretic” possibility, that in reality there could not be private rules.44 Accordingly, the way is clear to define social action as rule-governed action. But why could there not be private rules? One familiar line of thought here is that thinking involves some sort of representational system, and representation involves a set of rules governing the meaning of the symbols by means of which things are represented. But such meaning rules are held to be necessarily social. A variety of reasons are offered for this claim. Some of the most influential emanate from the work of Saul Kripke.45 Kripke offers, but does not endorse, a variety of sceptical arguments against the possibility of private meaning rules. For example, Kripke’s sceptic suggests that there is nothing that could constitute an agent meaning addition by the plus sign, “⫹”, rather than quaddition (quaddition being the same operation as addition up to, but not beyond, a certain numerical threshold). Since an agent might never get to that threshold there is nothing in his behaviour to distinguish addition from quaddition. More importantly, there is (allegedly) nothing in his mental life to do the job either. The suggestion that the agent at some time in the past t1 intended that “⫹” mean addition supposedly depends on the agent being able to identify his current, t2, intention to mean 39

Social Action addition by “⫹” as being the same intention as the one he had at t1. But an intention does not have any qualitative feature that marks it off from other intentions; there is no feature that makes it the same intention at t2 as it was at t1. Now there is a great deal of confusion surrounding the use of the term “rule” in many of these discussions. Sometimes the notion of a rule in question is something akin to a rule as I have defined it above, namely a prescription or directive issued to someone to perform some kind of action in certain circumstances, although often it is unclear who the authority issuing the rule is, or else the authority in question is implicitly the community, or even the person who is subject to the rule. At other times, the “rule” is akin to a habit or standing intention or disposition; as such it is not obviously prescriptive or normative in character. I am not convinced that the concept of a rule in the sense of some kind of prescription can really do the work that seems to be required of it. This is because the notion of a prescription is itself in need of analysis. Given the limited space that I have here and the size and complexity of the philosophical literature on these issues, I am simply going to sketch a brief outline of the kind of position that I occupy. First, as I have indicated, I am an advocate of agent-semantics. Accordingly, I hold that semantic facts can be reduced to psychological facts and, specifically, Gricean – or Gricean-like – intentions. Second, contra Kripke’s sceptic, I do not see why intentions cannot be regarded as primitive mental states, albeit ones that are not individuated by their possession of some sort of qualitative character. Intentions are not sensations, but they are no less real for that.46 Third (and in Chapter 3 I will develop this argument), contra the anti-private-rule theorists, the notion of a private rule is quite coherent and is simply the notion of a procedure to perform an action in certain circumstances, and to do so indefinitely into the future.47 The key notion here is that of a standing intention to perform a set of actions indefinitely into the future. It is important to note here that a standing intention is not simply a set of different token intentions possessed at different times. So the existence of a standing intention does not necessarily involve the process envisaged by Kripke whereby the members of the set of discrete token intentions are compared with one another in order to determine whether or not they are the “same” intention. 40

1. Theories of Social Action Fourth, although having intentions – including Gricean intentions and my standing intentions – presupposes possession of a concept, this is essentially possession of an ability, and, as McGinn points out, there is no inherent susceptibility of abilities to Kripke’s sceptical arguments.48 Fifth, intentions do not necessarily have a normative dimension (in some strong sense). Consider in this connection the man-eating tiger already discussed. The tiger certainly intends to kill his victim, and do so as a means to his end of eating the victim; so his intentions and purposes can fail to be realised. But the tiger does not believe that he ought to eat his victim; he just wants to eat him, has eating him as a purpose, and intends to kill him in order that he might eat him. Intentions bring with them beliefs, and the tiger also has various beliefs. But, once again, these beliefs are not normative, other than in the narrow teleological sense that because they are beliefs they have intentionality; because they are beliefs, they, so to speak, “aim at” reality and fail as beliefs if reality is not as it is believed to be. Sixth, there are some sophisticated intentions that presuppose language and, therefore, conventions. But conventions themselves are not necessarily normative in any strong sense, but only normative in the sense dictated by instrumental rationality (see Chapter 3 for my detailed argument). Moreover, the Gricean program of agent-semantics has shown how language presupposes certain sorts of intentions that do not themselves presuppose conventions or other social forms. Seventh, if intentions are not necessarily normative – other than in the weak sense of instrumental rationality – then it is hard to see why they logically presuppose or imply social rules. For if private rules can be analysed as standing intentions, then private rules need not logically presuppose or imply social rules. Moreover, if private rules do not logically presuppose or imply social rules, then the notion of a rule cannot of itself be justifiably used to mark off social actions from nonsocial actions. At any rate, in the light of the above points, I take myself to be entitled to distinguish between social rules on the one hand and private, and perhaps interpersonal, rules on the other. It may be that some rules are such that, if they are followed, they are followed by more than one individual. But we cannot conclude from this that 41

Social Action these rules are social rules. For example, a man and his wife might have the rule that each picks up the schoolchildren on alternate days. This is certainly an interpersonal rule, but it is not necessarily a social rule. Perhaps the husband and wife are the only couple who follow this rule. What the proponent of social action as action in accordance with rules must hold is that social action is action performed in accordance with social rules. But now we require an account of the notion of a social rule that reveals the necessarily social character of actions performed in accordance with such rules. Constitutive Rules At this point an alleged distinction between regulative and constitutive rules tends to be invoked.49 A constitutive rule, but not a regulative rule, has the form “Agent A is required to count xing as ying (in circumstances c).”50 Clearly, regulative rules need not be social rules. A single parent might have a regulative rule governing the behaviour of their only child. This rule might not be in force elsewhere in the society. It is a personal, or perhaps interpersonal, regulative rule; but it is not a social regulative rule. A regulative rule governs a pre-existing action type, and such action types need not be social actions. However, the claim is that constitutive rules are necessarily social rules. So let us turn to these. There are no such things as constitutive rules that are necessarily social; rather, so-called constitutive rules are a species of regulative rule, and actions performed in accordance with such rules are not necessarily social in character.51 As noted, a constitutive rule has the form “Agent A is required to count xing as ying (in circumstances c).” Now it is presumably the case that A is to count xing as ying (in c) in virtue of the fact that, in some sense or other, to x is to y. Moreover, xing is evidently in itself (ultimately) a nonsocial action that exists prior to the rule.52 However ying is a social action that only comes into existence as a possible action type in virtue of the constitutive rule. This leads to the question, “In virtue of what does xing count as ying?” Before attempting to answer this, let us provide ourselves with some examples to work with. Examples that come to mind here are such things as that, in cricket, hitting the ball over the fence counts as six runs and the 42

1. Theories of Social Action umpire saying, “Out” counts as bringing it about that the batsman is out; or that a particular stone counts as the position of the guard in a prisoner’s late night planning of his future escape. But there is a second kind of example. This kind includes such examples as that providing an employee with a free house then counts as part of his salary, or that the hiring of two half-time tutors then counts as one full-time tutor. And it is well known that a stocking can count as a fanbelt and a log as a bench. In this second kind of example, in saying that x counts as y, one means that x and y are interchangeable or, at least, that x can stand in for y. Here x, though not numerically the same thing as y and not sharing all its properties with y, may nevertheless be able to perform the same function as y or serve the same purpose as y. Moreover, that x can count as y is due, or primarily due, to properties that x has that enable it to replace, or stand in for, y. In the second kind of example, x could not count as y primarily in virtue of someone’s decision that it so count. On the other hand, in this second kind of example someone’s decision might be a necessary condition for x counting as y. If so, it is important to note that such a decision could be the decision of an individual person acting on his own (albeit in accordance with a personal regulative rule); such a decision is not necessarily a collective or social decision. However, in the first kind of example the matter seems to be different. These cases seem primarily dependent on a decision to count x as y, albeit that in some cases this is a conventional or rulebased decision. Thus, saying “Out” counts as bringing it about that the batsman is out – or at least counts as bringing about a situation in which the batsman is to behave as if he were out – in virtue of a decision that this is to be so. Similarly, for hitting the ball over the fence, six runs are recorded and not four; and that this is so is a matter of conventional decision.53 On the other hand, in the case of the prisoner using the stone to count as the guard – and even doing so in accordance with his own private rule – there is no conventional decision; rather, it is an individual decision, and indeed one the prisoner very much wants to keep secret. No doubt in both these kinds of case – the individual and the collective kind – not any old x could count as y; x may have to have certain properties if it is to be a candidate for being counted as y. But what is characteristic of the first set of cases is that x counts as y primarily in virtue of a 43

Social Action decision by parties to the convention or adherents to the rule. So in these cases, the “counts as” relation between x and y has been created; and the relation remains in existence only so long as the relevant people (or person) continue to treat x as y and hence in fact continue to count x as y. The corollary to this is that examples of x counting as y that are primarily dependent on decisions to count x as y do not necessarily involve social actions. So the answer to the question, “In virtue of what does x count as y?” – in the cases of social actions governed by constitutive rules – is: “In virtue of a conventional or rule-based decision that this be so.” And an account of this notion of something counting as something else is also forthcoming. It seems that the expression “x counts as y” refers to a variety of similar cases including: x standing in for y; x being a means of enacting y; x being treated as if it were y; and x being ascribed the property of being y. But these relations, standing in for, being treated as if it were something else, and so forth, are not in themselves conventional or social in any sense. The example of the prisoner and the stone demonstrates this. Consider also the following example. Imagine a man who goes temporarily mad and decides to treat his dog as if it were a football; he proceeds to kick the poor animal around the room. Assume it is a one-off episode. The madman’s decision to so treat his dog is not in any way a matter of convention or norm or even private rule. So the fact that some object or action, x, counts as y does not logically imply that x counts as y by convention, or that x counts as y in virtue of some rule to the effect that x is to count as y. But in that case the expression “x counts as y” does not necessarily refer to convention or even rule-governed states of affairs. The upshot of this discussion is that constitutive rules are rules or conventions governing certain actions – describable in generic terms as actions of counting something as something else – and that these action types are not necessarily or intrinsically conventional, or social in some other sense. So constitutive rules are really only a special case of regulative rules. But we saw earlier that regulative rules are not necessarily social rules. So any attempt to mark off social from individual and interpersonal action simply by appealing to the notion of a regulative rule would fail. Moreover, there is nothing inherently social in the “counts as” device. That device can be embed-

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1. Theories of Social Action ded in a social regulative rule, a personal regulative rule, or no rule at all. This failed appeal to constitutive rules was the final tactic in the general strategy of attempting to define social action in terms of rule-governed action. So we are now entitled to conclude that the general strategy of attempting to define social action in terms of rule-governed action has been unsuccessful. Philosophical Approaches and Strategies The theoretical conceptions we have thus far considered manifest the widespread tendency to assume that there is some unitary theory of social action, notwithstanding the fact that prima facie there are quite diverse kinds of social action. There is social action in conformity to conventions, rituals, and norms, and there is social action in accordance with social and institutional roles. The first point to be made is that this assumption of a unitary theory might be false. (This is consistent with the fact that there are some necessary conditions for being a social action, such as the condition that the action involve some reference to other people.) Accordingly, what is called for is the provision of a taxonomy of what are indisputably (and pre-theoretically) categories of social action, and the development of piecemeal accounts of these various categories. Accordingly, in this book I offer piecemeal accounts of some of the central categories of what are termed social actions. As is by now clear, on my account the notion of a joint action can be used to develop (at least partial) analyses of the main categories of social action; so the notion of a joint action is in my view a powerful theoretical tool, and one that provides a certain unity to my endeavours in relation to the analysis of social action (and also in relation to the analyses of the sociomoral properties, collective rights, and collective responsibility). In this sense my account is unitary. Finally, I will assume in this book that there is a distinction to be made between social action and natural (individual and interpersonal) action. My concern in this book is with social action alone. However, I need to reiterate three points made earlier in the introduction to this book. First, all human action is either individual or interpersonal action. Second, the category of natural (individual and interpersonal, including joint) action is logically prior to the general

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Social Action category of social action; social actions consist in the regulation and structuring of prior nonsocial actions. Third, prior nonsocial actions are regulated and structured by social rules and other social forms (socially conditioned) to generate a higher level of action (social action). This second level of action – now social action – can itself be further regulated and structured by social rules and forms to generate a still higher level of social action. The crucial point to be made in relation to this process of regulation and structuring is that it is an enabling process; it enables the possibility of higher level individual and interpersonal action. Consider in this connection the phenomenon of language.54 the moral dimension of social action Having, so to speak, sketched the philosophical landscape with respect to social action, and offered a basic taxonomy of social action and social entity types, I now want briefly to discuss the moral dimension of social action. I need to do so because this book has the sociomoral character of human action as one of its central concerns. Specifically – as previously mentioned above – I offer detailed analyses of collective moral rights, including so-called minority rights (see Chapter 7), and collective moral responsibility, including collective responsibility for such activities as humanitarian intervention (see Chapter 8). These analyses of collective rights and collective responsibility heavily depend on my account of joint action. In addition, I discuss a variety of other moral issues in the context of offering analyses of various social action types. These include the obligation to obey the law (see Chapter 4) and the (alleged) moral status of organisations (see Chapter 5). A fundamental moral issue that arises in relation to social actions is the issue of moral autonomy. While I cannot offer a detailed philosophical analysis of moral autonomy – or the bearers of moral autonomy, namely moral agents – nevertheless moral autonomy is presupposed in many of my specific analyses. For this reason I now want briefly to consider the notion of moral autonomy. I do so in the context of my distinctions between (mere) agents, instrumentally rational agents, and moral agents. Agents act, but do not necessarily reason; instrumentally rational agents act and provide themselves with reasons for acting in terms of the ends that they have, 46

1. Theories of Social Action but the reasoning is not necessarily more than instrumental reasoning; moral agents act, provide themselves and others with reasons, and the reasons include moral reasons as well as purely instrumental considerations. Specifically, moral agents offer reasons for acting, and such reasons include their (believed in) moral ends and principles. And if a moral end is a reason for action for some agent then it is an end that is worth having, or at least it is an end that is worth having from the perspective of that agent; moral ends are more than mere ends. Also, moral agents reason about which ends they ought to choose to have; they reason about which ends are worth having. Further, moral agents have a degree of moral autonomy. Whether or not it makes sense to ascribe autonomy in some sense to (nonmoral) rational agents is not something I can discuss here, beyond making the following point.55 An autonomous moral agent is necessarily engaged in moral deliberation in relation to that agent’s action, including with respect to the moral worth of the principles and ends that guide their action; so the question arises as to their autonomy in relation to such morally informed action. For non-moral instrumentally rational agents, on the other hand, these issues simply do not arise. Non-moral (instrumentally rational) agents are not touched by moral considerations; they do not have moral sentiments or concerns. Non-moral instrumentally rational agents do not, and cannot, engage in specifically moral reasoning. Accordingly, they cannot possess moral autonomy. Perhaps they can possess some analogous kind of autonomy, but that is an entirely different matter.56 I have distinguished between agents, rational agents, and moral agents. The distinction between agents and rational agents can be made out as follows. Rational agents, but not mere agents, possess the following: (a) future directed intentions, beliefs, and/or ends; (b) intentions, beliefs and/or ends in relation to agents who are not copresent; and (c) memories of past events that took place outside the temporal horizon of their immediate experience.57 Accordingly, rational agents are able to engage in means–end reasoning, including in relation to their own future and in relation to interdependent action with other agents. So subhuman animals are mere agents, but not rational agents. Humans are typically rational agents and also moral agents. What are the implications of sociality for the moral agency of 47

Social Action human beings? From the fact that individual persons are inducted into a particular framework of conventions, social norms, institutions, and other social forms, and therefore exhibit the characteristic features and orientations of members of the social group in question, it does not follow that those individuals are not morally autonomous agents or that they are to any significant extent coerced. In participating in such a network of cooperative action, the individual adopts the ends that in part define those conventions, norms, and roles. Indeed it is inevitable that some of these socially given ends will end up being in part constitutive of the selfhood of the participating agents. However, such socially given ends by no means exhaust the ends constitutive of the selfhood of agents, and in any case these socially given ends typically consist in the structuring of pre-existing nonsocial (individual and interpersonal) ends in the manner described above. Moreover, the conventions, norms, and institutions definitive of some social group may function chiefly as mechanisms that enable individuals to achieve a high degree of individual moral autonomy and enable interpersonal relationships to flourish in ways that far outrun the dictates of conventions, norms, or roles. Notwithstanding this point concerning moral autonomy, there is a tendency to believe that the existence of cooperation of itself signals the presence of moral value and, conversely, the existence of conflict the absence of it. This no doubt in part explains the tendency to jettison the moral upon embracing the ubiquity of political struggle. But from the fact that social action is fundamentally cooperative action, it does not follow that social action is morally good. An enterprise, for example, bringing the Third Reich into existence, may be a joint enterprise, yet essentially evil. The value of, a convention for example, is to be determined principally not by the fact that it involves cooperation and realises a collective end, but rather by the value of the particular collective end that it realises. Perhaps elaborate conventions of politeness mask, and therefore indirectly serve, a morally repugnant end, namely deception. The general point to be made here is that social cooperation is not an intrinsic moral good, notwithstanding the fact that it is a necessary condition for a whole range of intrinsic moral goods, including moral autonomy. 48

1. Theories of Social Action Having argued for the possibility of individual moral autonomy in sociopolitical contexts, what is now required is further specification of the bearer of that autonomy in such contexts, the substantive moral agent. The set of properties that a substantive moral agent would necessarily possess include the following. First, he or she possesses a capacity for rational thought, including instrumental reasoning. This involves the capacity to offer reasons for and against particular moral choices, including the capacity for consistency in the making of moral judgements that he or she might make. So a substantive moral agent is in the first instance a rational agent, as opposed to a mere agent. Second, the agent possesses imagination. This involves, among other things, a capacity to envisage hitherto unencountered situations and ways of behaving. Third, the agent possesses freedom in the sense that he or she can make decisions on the basis of his or her rational thought processes and implement these even in the face of external resistance. Fourth, the agent experiences moral emotions, such as sympathy for other people, compassion, love, and so on. Fifth, the agent possesses an awareness of self, and this, together with his or her powers of rational thought and volition, enables the agent to conceive of his or her life as a totality and to develop that life in particular ways. Sixth, the agent possesses a sense of moral value. This includes the sense that certain things are worth doing and others are not, and that certain actions are morally right and others are not. Importantly, this sense exists and can be acted on despite contrary personal inclinations and various forms of external social prohibition and pressure. Moreover, the moral agent acts in accordance with the dictates of this moral sense, and in part defines himself or herself as a being who does so. So to fail to act on this moral sense will have a disintegrative effect on the agent’s personality.58 Seventh, by virtue of the above properties, and especially the capacity for sympathy and a sense of justice, the agent is able to establish intrinsically valuable relations with other agents. Eighth, the agent’s moral values and standards must cohere with one another and persist over some significant period of time. Otherwise his or her ethical dimension will become conflict-ridden and eventually disintegrate. Ninth, the structure of moral values internalised by the agent will be to some extent a response to, and a result of, the particular historically given circumstances in which the 49

Social Action agent finds himself or herself. Tenth, the structure of moral values internalised by the agent will be to some extent a response to, and a result of, the particular (historically given) sociopolitical circumstances in which the agent finds himself or herself. This last point is in need of further elaboration, since it is the source of persistent confusion. Given that the structure of moral values internalised by an individual agent is to some extent a response to, and a result of, particular historical, sociopolitical circumstances, we would expect to find that agents who belong to the same social group share a core set of moral values. It does not follow from this that each member agent is the passive recipient of the values of the group. The existence of shared values follows from the fact that groups of individuals do not confront the world wholly as atoms but rather in concert with their fellows. People who live together have to work out a coherent system of shared moral values, principles, rights, and responsibilities. Shared moral values, principles, rights, and responsibilities are embedded in, and reflect, complex, dynamic, structured processes of intergenerational joint activity. Among these moral phenomena are so-called collective moral rights and collective moral responsibilities. Moreover, at the level of social action – as opposed to individual and interpersonal action – these rights and responsibilities are quite fundamental (as I will seek to demonstrate in Chapter 7 on collective rights and in Chapter 8 on collective responsibility). The central theoretical notion in this book, namely that of a joint action, is particularly well suited to illuminate collective rights and collective responsibility. Now in some cases these shared moral values, principles, and so on might be imposed on the individual members of the group by the coercive action of the group as a whole or by some controlling sub-element. But this is not necessarily the case, and it is a matter for empirical investigation whether some value has been imposed on a particular individual, or individuals, or not. The second thing we would expect to find, given that the structure of moral and ethical values, principles, and so forth of an individual and/or a group is partly a response to and a result of particular historical sociopolitical circumstances, is some differences in ethical values from one historical society to another. In some instances this might be due to moral development. Presumably, contemporary attitudes to women in the workforce, while by no 50

1. Theories of Social Action means exemplary, constitute moral progress over attitudes prevailing in the nineteenth century. In other instances it is simply due to the different requirements of the material and social circumstances of the day. Physical courage is a great virtue in war but not nearly so important in times of peace. Physical strength is rightly valued in a society at a low level of technological development. And so it goes on. But it is important to stress that the inevitability and, indeed, the desirability of such differences in no way support moral theories such as cultural relativism or morality as ideology conceptions. Here I do not have in mind the claim that these differences between cultures, and over time, typically take place against a background of a commonality of moral values across cultures and times, though this claim is in fact true. Rather, my point is that the objectivity of moral and ethical values and judgements is not called into question by the obvious fact that different circumstances call for, and cause, different moral responses. Allowing weak and sickly infants to die might be morally right for a community living on the very edge of survival and morally wrong for us. But this might simply mean, as a matter of objective truth, that to allow infants to die under certain circumstances is morally right and under other circumstances is morally wrong. It is morally right, for example, if the infants are weak and sickly and would be a burden of such a kind as to threaten the survival of the community. Accordingly, whether we are Ethiopians or Eastenders, in jointly working out our shared moral values, including collective rights and collective responsibilities, the distinction between subjectively felt moral values (whether subjectively felt by a single individual or by the members of a group) and objective moral values needs to be kept in mind, and is in fact presupposed; one can always ask whether a given moral belief or attitude in relation to an action, person, or institution ought to be held and offer reasons for or against. I have distinguished between social and nonsocial actions, and distinguished also the concept of action from the concept of power, and social conflict and power from social cooperation. I have offered a taxonomy of social action types and sketched the main philosophical accounts of social action. I have now also located the moral dimension of social action in the general scheme of things. Let us then turn directly to the main tasks of this book, namely to offer (a) philosophical analyses of central social action types, 51

Social Action namely joint action, conventional action, social norm-governed action, and of the actions of social groups, social institutions, and organisations; and (b) philosophical analyses of the related normative phenomena of collective rights and collective responsibility. I begin with the most fundamental notion in all this – joint action.

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2

Joint Action

The concept of joint action is fundamental to the understanding of social life in general, and social action in particular. In this chapter I will offer a philosophical analysis of joint action and defend it against rival accounts. In subsequent chapters I will use this analysis of joint action in the analysis of a variety of social action categories, including conventional action, social norm-governed action, and organisational and institutional actions. As we saw in Chapter 1, joint actions are actions involving a number of agents performing interdependent actions in order to realise some common goal. Examples of joint action are: two people dancing together; a number of tradespeople building a house; and a group of robbers burgling a house. Joint action is to be distinguished from individual action on the one hand, and from the “actions” of corporate bodies on the other. Thus when an individual walks down the road or shoots at a target, these are instances of individual action. When a nation declares war or a government takes legal action against a public company, these are instances of corporate action. Properly speaking, there are no such things as corporate actions (as I will argue in Chapter 5). At any rate, my concern in this chapter is simply with joint action. The concept of joint action can be construed very narrowly or more broadly. On the most narrow construal we have what I will call basic joint action. Basic joint action involves two co-present agents each of whom performs one basic individual action, and does so simultaneously with the other agent, and in relation to a collective end that is to be realised within the temporal horizon of the immediate experience of the agents. Examples of basic joint action are two people shaking hands, and two people manually lifting a refrigerator from the kerbside up onto a truck. If we construe joint action more broadly we can identify myriad other closely related examples of joint action. Many of these involve 53

Social Action intentions and ends directed to outcomes outside the temporal horizon of the immediate experience of the agents; for example, two people engaging in a two-hour conversation, or three people deciding to build a garden wall over the summer break. Others involve intentions and ends directed to outcomes that will exist outside the spatial horizon of the immediate experience of the agents. Thus two people might jointly fire a rocket into the extremities of the earth’s atmosphere. Still other joint actions involve very large numbers of agents, such as a large contingent of soldiers marching on a parade ground. If we construe joint action more broadly still we can identify further kinds of joint action. One such kind is what I will call joint enterprises. Instances of joint enterprises are: fighting a war; a marriage; and a joint business venture. Joint enterprises are projects involving more than one person performing various different tasks directed to diverse collective ends, which are in turn directed to some ultimate collective end or ends. Joint enterprises involve planning, adherence to conventions, and many joint actions. Joint enterprises are the collective analogue of an individual carrying out her plans for the future, for example by pursuing her career. One kind of entity that pursues a joint enterprise is an organisation (see Chapter 5). Basic joint actions can also be distinguished from what I will call joint procedures. An agent has a joint procedure to x, if he xs in a recurring situation and does so on condition that other agents x. (Procedures are distinct from repetitions of the same action in a single situation, such as rowing or skipping.) Thus people in Australia have a procedure to drive on the left-hand side of the road. Each person who drives in Australia drives on the left whenever he or she drives, and drives on the left on condition the other agents drive on the left. Joint procedures are in fact conventions (see Chapter 3).1 We can also distinguish between joint procedures (in this sense) and what I will call joint mechanisms.2 Examples of joint mechanisms are the device of tossing a coin to resolve a dispute, voting to elect a candidate to office, courts of law, and governments. Many joint mechanisms are institutional mechanisms (see Chapter 5). Joint mechanisms are not simply one-off joint actions, though a joint mechanism can be deployed on one occasion only. Nor are they

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2. Joint Action simply joint actions performed regularly in a recurring situation, though they can be deployed regularly in a recurring situation. Rather they consist of a complex set of actions. The individual actions that constitute the complex set interlock, and there is at least some differentiation between them. Thus certain agents put themselves forward as candidates, and then other agents vote for the candidates. We can further distinguish between joint activity on the one hand, and joint practices on the other. Roughly speaking, a joint activity is a complex of differential, interlocking, joint actions and individual actions directed to some overarching collective end. So building a house and sailing an ocean liner are joint activities. Joint practices include games such as chess, and social practices such as courtship rituals. A joint practice consists of a series of actions that has a more or less definite beginning and endpoint. Such a series – which is to say, an exemplification of the practice – is repeatable, and in fact normally repeated. Each of the agents involved performs a number of different action types, and the actions of the various participating agents are interdependent. Joint practices are to some extent convention governed; that is, joint practices involve joint procedures. Further, we can distinguish between joint action and what I will call quasi-joint action. Quasi-joint action is action that just falls short of being joint. Certain cases of joint action involving free-riders are quasi-joint action. Suppose, for example, that agents in a community generally obey the law because it secures various collective ends that the agents have, such as peace and good order. Here the end of each agent that everyone (or most) obey the law might be a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for each individually obeying the law. Suppose that in order to obey the law each agent requires – in addition to his end that the law be respected – some further end, say, to avoid imprisonment if he does not obey the law. In this example, each agent obeys the law on condition the other agents obey the law in order to realise their collective ends – almost. The fact that the other agents obey the law is not quite sufficient. The individual agent needs a further reason. Accordingly, we have here quasi-joint action (see Chapter 4 for a discussion of the obligation to obey the law). The point about quasi-joint action is that agents

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Social Action would abandon the collective end if the action that they perform to realise that end did not also secure another individual end that each has. Further, we need to distinguish between joint action and various kinds of interdependent individual actions that are closely related to joint action. Suppose I have as an end to get to London from Oxford, and you have as an end to get to London from Oxford. You have a car, and just enough money to buy petrol for the Oxford to London trip. I have plenty of money for petrol, but no car. I suggest that I pay for the petrol if you give me a lift in your car. You agree. So we set forth. However, this is not joint action. For although I have an end to get to London, and achieve it on condition that you drive me, you are not similarly placed; certainly, like me you have as an end to get to London, but you will get to London whatever I do (although you are grateful for the petrol money). Since the interdependence is not two way this is not joint action. Now consider a second kind of closely related interdependence of individual action that is nevertheless not joint action. Consider the driving to London from Oxford scenario again. But this time let us assume that although you think you have enough money to buy petrol for the trip to London, you are mistaken; unbeknownst to you the money you had carefully saved for the trip was taken from your wallet the night before. Accordingly, when you take my money and use it to buy petrol, you actually need to do so, even though you are not aware that you need my money to get to London. So now there is two-way interdependence of action; I depend on you driving me to London; your driving to London depends on my petrol money. However, this is still not joint action because neither you nor I believe that your action is dependent on mine. So I intend to get to London by means of your car, believing that you will drive to London whatever I do; you intend to get to London by means of your car, and believe that you can do so whatever I do.3 collective end theory Recently the notion of joint action – sometimes referred to as shared action or group action or shared cooperative activity – has been receiving a certain amount of attention in the philosophical literature, and a number of sometimes closely related accounts have been 56

2. Joint Action propounded.4 Typically these accounts help themselves to concepts of intention, of goal, and of shared knowledge or belief.5 But there is divergence in respect of the particular notions of intention, goal, and belief, and of the precise way in which these notions can and are put to work in an overall account of joint action. Thus we have theorists using technical terms such as “we-intentions” or “collective intentions,” and constructing various competing sets of necessary and sufficient conditions for joint actionhood. I will now put forward a particular account of joint action, the Collective End Theory (CET),6 and defend this account against a variety of real and notional competing accounts. Basically, CET is the theory that joint actions are actions directed to the realisation of a collective end.7 However this notion of a collective end is a construction out of the prior notion of an individual end. Roughly speaking, a collective end is an individual end more than one agent has, and which is such that, if it is realised, it is realised by all, or most, of the actions of the agents involved; the individual action of any given agent is only part of the means by which the end is realised. (See below for more detail on collective ends.) So a joint action simply consists of at least two individual actions directed to the realisation of a collective end. Accordingly, individual actions x and y, performed by agents A and B (respectively) in situation s, constitute a joint action if and only if: (1) A intentionally performs x in s (and B intentionally performs y in s); (2) A xs in s if and only if (he believes8) B has yed, is ying or will y in s (and B ys in s if and only if (he believes) A xs or is xing or will x in s); (3) A has end, e, and A xs in s in order to realise e (and B has e, and B ys in s in order to realise e); (4) A and B each mutually truly believes that A has performed, is performing or will perform x in s and that B has performed, is performing or will perform y in s. (5) each agent mutually truly believes that (2) and (3).

In respect of this account the following points need to be noted. First, with respect to clause (2), the conditionality of the action is internal to the agent in the sense that if the agent has performed a 57

Social Action conditional action then the agent has performed the action in the belief that the condition obtains. Moreover, the conditionality of the agent’s action is relative to the collective end. A xs only if B ys relative to the collective end, e. So it is not the case that B ying is a necessary condition for A xing, tout court. For example, it might be that A has some other individual end, e1, and that A xing realises e1 (in addition to e). If so, A will x, even if B does not y. But it remains true that A xs only if B ys relative to the collective end, e. Again, A xs if B ys relative to the collective end, e. So it is not the case that B ying is a sufficient condition for A xing, tout court. If for some reason A abandons the end, e, then even if B ys, A will not x. Second, the notion of a collective end is an individualist notion. The realisation of the collective end is the bringing into existence of a state of affairs. Each agent has this state of affairs as an individual end. (It is also a state of affairs aimed at under more or less the same description by each agent.) So a collective end is a species of individual end. Thus CET is to be distinguished from the accounts of theorists such as Gilbert, who favour irreducibly corporate notions of intention.9 A collective end is the same as an ordinary individual end in that qua end it exists only in the heads of individual agents. But it is different from an ordinary individual end in a number of respects. For one thing, it is a shared end. By shared end I do not mean a set of individual ends that would be realised by qualitatively identical, but numerically different, multiple states of affairs. Rather, I mean a set of individual ends that would be realised by one single state of affairs; so the coming into existence of the one single state of affairs in question constitutes the realisation of all the individual ends that exist in the heads of each of the agents. For another thing, although collective ends are shared (individual) ends, they are ends that are necessarily shared; they are not ends that are shared only as a matter of contingent fact. Suppose you and I are soldiers being shot at by a single sniper. Suppose further that we both happen to see the sniper at the same time and both fire at the sniper in order to kill him. I have an individual end, and you have an individual end. Moreover, my individual end is one that I share with you; for the death of this one sniper will not only realise my individual end, it will simultaneously realise your individual end.10 However, this is not yet a collective end, for the fact that I have as an end the death of the sniper – 58

2. Joint Action as do you – does not generate independent acts of shooting. For neither of us needs the other to realise the individual end we share. Accordingly, I may well retain my individual end, when I know you have abandoned yours. As it happens we have shared individual ends; but they are not necessarily shared individual ends. Collective ends are “open” to those that have them; collective ends include mutual true belief. So if end e is a collective end, then the agents who possess e mutually truly believe that they each have e. Third, a collective end is not an intention. In CET, ends are distinguished from intentions. The notion of an end is coordinate with that of a means, but this is not so for intentions. To say that an action was intended is not in itself to say that the action is a means or that it is an end. Indeed some intended actions do not involve means or ends. Consider a gratuitous act of arm raising. I intentionally raise my arm but for no purpose; I just do it, albeit intentionally. I have no end in so raising my arm. Moreover, I have no means; I do not raise my arm by means of (say) a pulley. Rather my arm is under my direct control, and intending to raise it is sufficient for it to be raised. On the other hand, if some action is a means then there is some other action (or state) which is its end, and if some action is an end some other action is its means. Accordingly, CET is to be distinguished from on the one hand the theories of “corporatists” such as Searle, and on the other from the theories of “individualists” such as Bratman and Tuomela.11 All these theorists try to construct an account of joint action purely in terms of intentions and beliefs (or intentions, beliefs, and desires). They do not make use of an irreducible notion of having an end. Fourth, mutual true belief is to be understood (roughly) as follows.12 A and B mutually truly believe that p, if and only if: (1) p; (2) A believes that p, and B believes that p; (3) A believes that B believes that p, and B believes that A believes that p, and so on. (Hereafter for simplicity I will speak not of mutual true belief, but of mutual knowledge or sometimes just knowledge, if the context makes clear that it is mutual knowledge/true belief that is in question.) Fifth, according to CET there is a distinction between joint action and successful joint action. For something to be a case of joint action it is necessary that the constitutive individual actions be performed; 59

Social Action but it is not necessary that the end for which they were performed be realised. In a successful joint action, by contrast, the individual actions must be performed, but, in addition, the end for which they were performed must be realised. Of course in the case of some joint actions – namely those in which the end is simply to bring it about that the set of individual actions is performed – the performance of the constitutive individual actions entails the realisation of the collective end. So in these cases the performance of the joint action entails its successful performance. It follows from this that for an action to be joint it is not required that it be a matter of mutual knowledge that the end has been realised. For it might be unsuccessful joint action. Moreover, mutual knowledge that the end has been realised is not required for a joint action to be a successful joint action.13 On CET a joint action might be successful without it being known by the participants that it was successful. Indeed it is not even necessary that the individual actions have to be mutually known (or even mutually truly believed) to have been performed – as distinct from mutually truly believed to be likely to be performed – in order for them to constitute a joint action.14 For even in the case where the end of the joint action is constituted by the individual actions, there is a distinction to be drawn between joint action known by the participants to have been performed and joint action not known by the participants to have been performed. By contrast, there is mutual knowledge of the interdependence of the individual actions. See clauses (4) and (5) of the definition of CET. This mutual knowledge is what distinguishes joint action from interdependent action that is not joint. Interdependent action not mutually known by the participants to be interdependent is not joint action. Sixth, CET relies on a fourfold distinction between ends, intentions, beliefs, and desires, but makes use only of ends, intentions, and beliefs.15 So CET does not have as constitutive elements affective attitudes such as desires or preferences. Having a desire (or preference) is not the same thing, on this view, as having an end.16 Ends, like intentions, are conative states. But desires are not necessarily conative. What would be an example of a non-conative purely affective desire? John might have a desire to make love to Mary, which is dependent on his believing that he cannot make love to Mary. If 60

2. Joint Action John thought he could ever make love to Mary he would lose his desire to do so. Moreover, consideration of desires agents have with respect to the actions of other agents seems particularly likely to yield cases of desire that cannot generate actions. The desire that a parent might have that her adult offspring act entirely independently of the desires of the parent, including this desire itself, seems to be a case in point. And there are further examples. Suppose a man, A, intentionally shoots another man, B, having as an end B’s death; and suppose also that A desires B’s death. Suppose, further, that A succeeds. If so, A has brought about B’s death by shooting him. Moreover, A intentionally brought about B’s death; it was not just a matter of A desiring B’s death (or even A desiring that A bring about B’s death) and A intentionally shooting B. For A might desire B’s death (or desire that he bring about B’s death) without intentionally bringing it about; and A might intentionally shoot B without intentionally bringing about B’s death. Moreover, A might desire B’s death (or desire that he bring about B’s death) and intentionally shoot B, but nevertheless A might not intentionally bring about A’s death. This would be the case if, for example, A did not have the death of B as an end when he shot B; rather, he had as an end to prevent B escaping while he (A) figured out a way to kill him that would not look suspicious. So A’s intention to bring about B’s death does not consist of A’s desire for B’s death, or A’s desire that he bring about B’s death, or indeed any other desire. Rather, A’s intention to bring about B’s death consists of A having B’s death as an end when he shot A. These examples strongly suggest that having a desire is not the same thing as having an end. Accordingly, if joint action is action directed towards a desired end, then this is some further (and external) property of joint action. It is a property that joint action has above and beyond the property of being action directed toward an end.17 On CET, affective attitudes are properly part of the theory of the motivation for joint action; they have no constitutive role in the analysis of joint action per se. CET is thus to be distinguished from belief/desire theories of human action.18 On the other hand, in distinguishing between ends and affective attitudes such as desires, I am not claiming that there are ends that are neither directly nor indirectly the object of some motivating affective state such as a desire. 61

Social Action Seventh, CET enables a distinction to be drawn between joint actions and joint contingency plans to act. Agents have joint contingency plans to do things such as inform others if the end of some joint action has been, or cannot be, realised; help others to perform their contributory actions, if difficulties emerge. Indeed if agents are involved in joint actions then it will be rational for them to help one another and to have joint contingency plans. Nevertheless such joint contingency plans are not necessarily involved in joint actions. In particular, agents perform simple one-off joint actions without having joint contingency plans. On CET, joint contingency plans are not in part constitutive of joint action.19 Eighth, CET does not, at least in the first instance, have any intrinsically deliberative notions among its constitutive elements. In its analysis of what might be called basic joint action, it does not deploy notions such as that of plan or subplan or strategy. Such notions will need to be introduced at a later stage to deal with complex formations of action and activity, such as joint enterprises, but at the ground level, so to speak, these notions are best left out.20 This point has implications for the kind of agents that perform basic joint actions, as opposed to joint actions involving future directed intentions, beliefs in relation to future directed intentions, and beliefs in relation to agents who are not co-present. The latter kinds of joint action involve elaborate chains of means–end reasoning. All that is required for basic joint action are intentions, ends, and beliefs, albeit including beliefs in relation to the actions, ends, and beliefs of others. I suggest that the level of agency required to have such attitudes is something less than rational agency. I will refer to such agents as basic agents or simply agents (see Chapter 1 for the distinction between mere agency and rational agency). Ninth, CET, as outlined above, constitutes a core theory of joint action. But this core theory can be extended to cover a range of different cases of joint action in respect of which the following points can be made:21

(i) There are many types of joint action in which it is not the case that the performance of a contributory action by any of the participating agents is dependent on the performance of contributory actions by all of the other participating agents.

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2. Joint Action (ii) The actions x, y, and so forth, performed by participating individual agents, might not be of the same type. Each agent might have to perform a different kind of action. Further the “action” might not even be a single discrete action. It might be a set of actions of the same or different types, or it might be an activity or even a whole enterprise. (iii) The collective end might not be a state of affairs but rather a process. And this end might relate to the actions performed to realise it as a consequence or a result or as a whole to its parts. (iv) The realisation of the collective end can itself be simply a means to some further end, or it can be an end in itself, or it can be both means and end. (v) The collective end can be a lower order collective end or a higher order collective, that is, a collective end with respect to other collective ends. For example, the members of the executive of a political party might have as a collective end to reinforce the existing collective end of members of the party to build solidarity among the members. (vi) Higher order collective ends can be what David Schmidtz refers to as maieutic ends: “ends that are achieved through a process of coming to have other ends.”22 For example, the members of the board of directors of a company might have as a collective end to settle on the collective long-term goals of the company. These ends to be chosen are final ends; they are not to be chosen for the sake of some other ends, but they are, nevertheless, not yet settled on. (vii) The collective end can be one the participating agents need to keep in mind while they are performing the actions that are the means to that end; or it might be an end that the agents will only realise if they concentrate wholly on the means; or it might be an end of which the agents are not fully conscious at any time. An example of a collective end that those who pursue it are not fully conscious of might be some end pursued by members of a particular social class, say to exploit workers. (viii) The actions constitutive of joint action can be performed at the same time and place, or at different places at the same time, or at the same place at different times, or at different places and times. Indeed the actions of the individuals can be separated by thousands of miles and/or hundreds of years, for example the building of the Great Wall of China. (ix) The actions constitutive of joint action can be interactive – in the sense that in the performance of each individual action

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Social Action the agent adjusts his action to the action of the other, for example when dancing – or non-interactive (in this sense). (x) Joint action typically, though not necessarily, involves either direct communication (of some sort or other) between each individual and every other individual, or indirect communication between the individuals – A communicates with B and B with C but not A with C.23

Tenth, CET enables a distinction to be drawn between joint action and what I earlier called corporate action. Corporate actions presuppose the existence of some group which functions as a group. Thus a football team or a university committee or an army are groups – or, as I will say, corporate entities – in this sense. Typically corporate entities persist over time and consist of individuals who stand in certain stable relationships to one another and have differentiated roles.24 What needs to be noted here is that the notion of a joint action is not the same as that of a corporate action. Thus a one-off joint action by two strangers might not be a corporate action. For example, assume A is walking north along a pathway and B is walking south, and they happen to reach a fallen tree blocking the pathway. A and B might more or less spontaneously each take one end of the tree and move it sufficiently to enable them to continue on their separate ways. This is joint action, but it is not corporate action. Agents A and B do not constitute a corporate entity. We have seen that CET requires a distinction between collective and individual ends. But it also requires a distinction between first and higher order (second or third, and so on, order) intentions. Or, more precisely, it requires a distinction between lower order intentions and intentions with respect to intended bodily movements or with respect to intended actions. (In what follows I take it that an action consists at least of an intention and a bodily movement.) First order intentions are tied to one’s own bodily movements. Call these intentions type (a) intentions. Higher order intentions are intentions one has in respect of other intentions, and especially in respect of actions (consisting of at least first order intentions and bodily movements). One can have higher order intentions in respect of: one’s own actions, or states of affairs brought about by one’s own actions – type (b) intentions; states of affairs one brings

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2. Joint Action about relying on the actions of other agents, but where the other agents will perform the actions whatever one does – for example, I intend to be home by six o’clock partly in virtue of the actions of the train driver, but the train driver will drive the train whatever I do – type (c) intentions; actions of other agents where these agents have an intention to perform whatever action (within some specifiable range) I intend them (or tell them) to perform – for example, I intend that the bank teller pay me money from my account – type (d) intentions. The collective end theory makes use of intentions of type (a) and (b), but not (c) or (d). According to the collective end theory, an agent cannot have an end without having: (a) an intention to perform some action or other – although an agent might have an end without having settled on the precise means, that is action, to that end, and; (b) a belief that performing that action is a means, or part of the means, to realising that end. Having an end, unlike having a desire, is an intrinsically conative notion. The belief involved here can be a belief that the action will realise the end, or is likely to realise the end, or has some chance of realising the end. Moreover, if one performs an action as a means, then one necessarily has an end, and a belief that the action is a means to that end. While to have an intention is not the same thing as to have an end, and vice-versa, in some circumstances it is appropriate to describe an end that an agent has brought about as intended. In such cases, the agent both had the outcome as an end (the end of his first action) and intentionally brought about that outcome (second action). Suppose an agent intentionally makes a loud noise in order to startle a hearer. Here the end is a state of the hearer, and the means is the loud noise. Since the agent can produce the noise at will, and since he can more or less guarantee that the noise will startle the hearer, the agent can be said not only to have intentionally produced the noise (first action) but also to have intentionally startled the hearer (second action). Another kind of case involves outcomes that are difficult to bring about. Hitting the bull’s eye in darts would be one such case. Here it seems reasonable to claim that the darts player not only performed the action of throwing the dart (first action) but also the action of hitting the bull’s eye (second action). But in that case it

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Social Action seems that the darts player intentionally (at least in some weak sense of intention) hit the bull’s eye. Certainly we can say that the darts player tried to hit, and succeeded in hitting, the bull’s eye. However, there are many cases where ends ought not to be assimilated to intentions, even very weak intentions. One such kind of case involves inconsistent outcomes. Suppose I apply to go to Oxford University and apply to go to Cambridge University, and do so in the knowledge that I cannot attend both universities simultaneously. I can intend to apply to Oxford and simultaneously intend to apply to Cambridge; but I cannot intend to go to Oxford and simultaneously intend to go to Cambridge; for I know this to be impossible, and one can only intend what one believes is possible.25 Accordingly, we need a notion of the conative state that I am in when I seek to go to Oxford and to Cambridge. I suggest the notion of an end; there is nothing problematic about possessing two or more ends that are inconsistent with one another. However, someone might still want to insist that if I got to Oxford I did so intentionally; it is just that the intention in question was a very weak intention. Such a person might argue as follows. Intentions are such that the outcome intended is subject to a progressively weaker belief condition. Thus at one end of the spectrum the agent strongly believes that his intended outcome will eventuate; at the other end he only views it as a remote possibility. And when the outcomes are only possibilities then an agent can have two or more intentions that are inconsistent with one another. I would prefer to distinguish such weak intentions from intentions subject to a belief condition; and do so by referring to them as ends. I especially would like to do so since they are, after all, ends; such a weak “intention” involves a distinguishable intended action, which is performed as a means to realise the weak “intention.” Moreover, should we not reserve the term “weak intention” for weak intentions that are not ends? Suppose I intentionally, but gratuitously, raise my arm, but do so in the knowledge that it has been damaged in a manner that has considerably lessened my control over it; accordingly, when I form the intention to raise it I have no great confidence that it will in fact be raised. I have a weak intention, but I do not have any end in mind. It is an entirely gratuitous movement. Now consider a modification to this scenario. Suppose that my arm recovers; I now have full control over it. But, remem66

2. Joint Action bering the period when I did not have full control, I now raise my arm for a reason; I do not raise it gratuitously, as was the case in the earlier scenario. What is my reason? I now raise my arm for the sake of raising it; that is, as an end in itself. And this reason cannot be expressed by citing a further intention, as distinct from an end. I do not intentionally raise my arm for the reason that I intend to raise it.26 Another kind of case in which the assimilation of ends to intentions is problematic involves certain kinds of future directed “intentions.” Suppose an ageing farmer refuses to sell his farm, but instead assiduously maintains it. The farmer’s reason for pursuing this otherwise irrational course of action is that he hopes that his son, who is still at school, will eventually take the farm over. The farm has been in the family for generations, and the farmer wants this tradition to continue. However, the farmer has no control over his son’s future choice of occupation; indeed, he does not even want to try to influence the boy’s decision, believing an important decision like this is the boy’s alone to make. Further, the farmer believes it is unlikely that his son will in fact decide to take the farm over. Certainly the farmer assiduously maintains the farm having as an end that his son take it over and, indeed, having as a further end that his son’s future child takes it over from his father, and so on. But the father does not intend that his son take the farm over; and certainly the farmer does not intend that his son’s child farm the land. The future actions with respect to which the farmer has hopes are the actions of the farmer’s son and of future generations of the family; these actions are not in any sense the actions of the farmer. So the farmer cannot intend these actions. On the other hand, since his hopes for the future are ones he is prepared to try to do something about – he refuses to sell just yet, and he maintains the farm – they are not just hopes; they are purposes or ends that explain his current actions. And there are still other kinds of cases where ends cannot be assimilated to intentions, even very weak intentions; kinds of cases more germane to our concerns in this book. These kinds of cases involve joint actions. Here the problem is not that the outcome is only a possibility, but rather that the outcome cannot be fully within the scope of one agent’s intention, since it is within the scope of the conative attitudes of many agents, including future agents. Consider an individual contributor to a charity fund set up to raise one mil67

Social Action lion dollars; assume a woman, in contributing, say, ten dollars, has as her end that one million dollars be raised. Moreover, this particular charity has a great record of past success, so this individual – and all the other contributors – has every confidence that the million dollars will be raised. The individual has a strong belief that the goal will be achieved. Nevertheless, this individual did not intend, or even try, to raise the one million dollars. Again, some worker involved in building a part of the Great Wall of China in the early stages of its construction did not intend, or even try, to build the Great Wall of China, even if he or she believed that the Great Wall would eventually be built; for the individual knew that he or she was one of literally millions of workers, including yet to be born workers, and that he or she would be dead hundreds of years before its completion. In these cases the agent performs an action (first action) in order that his or her end be realised; but it is false that the agent performed some second action that consists of intentionally bringing about that end. The worker did not intentionally build the Great Wall of China and the charity contributor did not intentionally raise one million dollars. Though of course all the agents involved in the construction jointly built the Great Wall and all the agents involved in the charity jointly raised the money. Let us take a closer look at the argument being offered for the assimilation of ends to intentions. The suggestion is as follows. If (i) agent A intends to perform an action x, (ii) A believes that a condition, c, obtains, namely, that B will y, (iii) A believes that A’s performance of x in c will realise some state of affairs, s, and (iv) A has s as an end, then (v) A can be said to have intentionally brought about s.

The problem with this argument is that it makes essential use of what I have referred to as type (c) intentions. In the argument here, agent A has a belief that agent B will perform a certain action, y. But it is crucial to this argument that A believes that B will perform action y irrespective of whether A does x. It is crucial that the agent have a type (c) intention. For example, the intention a commuter has to go home relies (in part) on the train driver driving the train. However, in cases of joint action there is mutual interdependence of 68

2. Joint Action action, and there are no type (c) intentions. Thus, where two people lift a table together, A and B both believe in the following: The other agent will perform his/her contributory action only if he/she believes that I will perform mine. In cases of joint action, one agent’s belief that the second agent will perform his contributory actions is not a belief about a stable condition; that is, it is not dependent on the first agent’s action or at least not dependent on the second agent’s belief about the first agent’s likely action. But in that case no single agent can be said to have brought about, or to have intended to bring about, the state of affairs brought about by the conjunction of the actions of all the agents. In joint action each agent has the state of affairs as a (collective) end, but no agent intended to bring it about. In summary, then, I suggest that cases of joint action are cases where agents cannot intend the outcome of the joint action, but only have the outcome as an end. This is simply because the end is realised by the actions of all (or most) of the agents, and not by any one agent alone. (For more discussion of this issue see the section in this chapter on Bratman’s account of joint action.) Having provided an account of joint action, I want now to apply it to a number of problematic cases. The first two examples are not cases of joint action, though it might be difficult to see why they are not. The third example is a case of joint action, though it might be difficult to see why it is. First, there is the case of the conformists. A conformist is someone who wants to do whatever everyone else is doing irrespective (within some range of action) of what it is that they are doing. (It is possible that a whole group of people are conformists with respect to some action.) Such a person does not have a collective end, though he intentionally performs an action, if and only if, he believes the others will perform it. Such person A has the end that A will do whatever the others are doing. This is not equivalent to A having the end that everyone (including A) will do the same thing. In the latter case, person A has as a constitutive element of their end that other agents perform some action; that other agents perform a certain action is part of what is being aimed at. In the former case, by contrast, A’s action is wholly constitutive of the end; it is only A’s own action that is being aimed at, albeit under the description, “action that everyone else is doing.” 69

Social Action Second, there is the case of the indirect individual end. Here agent A wants to get agent B to do something, say, to come to believe that p. Here, that B comes to believe that p is not something under A’s control. A cannot intend that B come to believe that p, though A can have it as A’s end. B infers that p on the basis of: (1) B’s belief that A told B that p; and (2) B’s belief that A is a reliable source in respect of matters such as the truth or falsity of p. Surely, B coming to believe that p is a collective end on my account – A telling B that p and B inferring that p being the relevant individual actions? Not so. Rather, that B comes to believe that p is A’s individual end. B does not have this end; B is not aiming at the state of affairs of B coming to believe that p. Rather, B’s end is that B come to believe whatever is true. Therefore, in this example, there are two individual ends, but no collective end. Of course, as a matter of contingent fact, the two different ends are realised by the same state of affairs, namely that of B coming to believe that p. However, B was aiming at this state of affairs under the description, “B coming to believe what is true,” while A was aiming at it under the description, “B coming to believe that p.”27 Third, there is the case of the rowers and the cox. This case raises the issue of coordination in the context of joint action. The cox and the crew are involved in joint action in order to achieve the collective end of winning the race. But the cox coordinates the actions of the crew. How is his or her second order action of coordinating joint with respect to the crew’s first order actions of rowing? That the rowers row, and (more or less) row in time, is first order joint action. However, at this level the cox is not really involved. Rather, the cox is concerned to exercise control in respect of what might be called the fine-tuning of the rowers’ first order actions. The cox issues directives so as to ensure that the crew members row at precisely rate r1, rather than at, say, rate r2. The cox’s directives are, then, second order actions. Moreover the crew’s responses to these directives – their fine-tuning of their actions – are not joint actions (or even joint modifications of actions). Rather, they are simply the compliance on the part of each individual rower to the directives. The actions of the crew and cox are, however, joint, insofar as the crew accepts that the cox has the role of issuing directives, and the cox, for his or her part, accepts the role of issuing the directives. 70

2. Joint Action So there is joint action at the third order level between the cox and the rowers. This is the level at which the crew members decide to accept directives from the cox, and the cox decides to issue directives, in order to achieve the collective end of winning the boat race. the individual intentions model Having elaborated my account of joint action I now want to defend it against a range of competing accounts. The first competing account seeks to analyse we-intentions – intentions to perform joint actions – as the individual intentions of participating agents to perform their parts of the joint action (in conjunction with appropriate beliefs about the actions of other agents).28 On this view an agent has a we-intention that, say, the piano be placed upstairs, if and only if the agent intends to lift his side of the piano and believes the other agent will lift the other side.29 (There is in addition the mutual belief condition to the effect that each agent believes that each agent mutually believes that each will lift his or her side of the piano.) On this account there is no reference to ends, but only to individual intentions and beliefs. As Searle notes, the problem with this kind of account is that it does not get beyond individual action.30 Consider a case where each agent is lifting his or her side of the table purely for exercise, still believing the other agent will lift the other side. Each may believe that the other will lift the other side of the table. These beliefs and, for that matter, intentions may be a matter of mutual knowledge. But we would still not have a case of joint action. For the action of one agent is not dependent on the action of the other. Rather, each agent achieves his or her goal independently of the actions of the other agent. Now reference might be made to an agent involved in joint action performing “his part of X.”31 Here X refers to the set of actions performed by the agents, and “his part of X” refers to the particular individual action performed by that agent. There are three ways of understanding the phrase “his part of X.” First, it might mean that although agent A’s action fits the description “his part of X,” the agent himself is not performing this particular action under that description. On this way of understanding the matter the objection to the analysis as outlined still stands. 71

Social Action A second way of understanding the phrase is that the agent is performing the action under the description “his (my) part of X,” but the agent does not intend that X be performed. So the agent, A, only wants to make sure A does A’s part. As Tuomela himself notes, this does not give us joint action.32 In the third way of taking the term, the agent is performing the action under the description “my part of X” and the agent does intend that X be performed. This is the way that the phrase will have to be taken. However, this intention that X be performed cannot be explicitly built into the set of conditions for we-intentions.33 For to so build in this notion would generate a circularity in the analysis of we-intentions. For it would turn out that a we-intention – an intention that we such and such – was to be analysed in part by recourse to an intention that we such and such.34 It might seem that the account could be supplemented by recourse to some notion other than that of a we-intention. The only obvious candidate is the notion of a desire, where desires are understood as being sharply distinguished from we-intentions.35 Let us term such desires, intention-neutral desires. The new account would in effect consist of the following claims: (a) each agent intends to perform his or her part of a joint action; and (b) each agent, intention-neutrally, desires that the joint action be performed. Here the notion of each doing his or her part must not bring with it the notion of a we-intention. Otherwise the circularity mentioned above will return. Now it is plausible – as I have already argued – that agents can, intention-neutrally, desire things while knowing that they cannot achieve them. Thus a prisoner may desire freedom more than anything else, yet know they will never be free. Indeed it seems that some desires are such that it is of their essence that they not be realised. Such desires are non-conative purely affective states. But it seems that matters must be different in the case of intentions. It is difficult to see how an agent could have an intention to do something and yet it be of the essence of that intention that the agent know that the action would be performed, or fail to be performed, entirely independently of that intention. So it is plausible that intentions and desires are logically distinct. If so, there is little chance of being able to rescue the account of

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2. Joint Action joint actions by recourse to desires, as opposed to some additional conative notion such as intention or end. At any rate, to return explicitly to the individual intention account, the question is whether a number of agents could desire that they all perform some action, intentionally do their parts, and yet not perform a joint action. I believe that they could. Consider the following example. Two women, A and B, desire that they both exercise. Moreover they have mutual true beliefs that they are both exercising. However A exercises whether or not B exercises, and similarly for B. There is no interdependence of action. So there is no joint action. Yet on the account before us this is a case of joint action. For they both desire that both exercise. Moreover, since both in fact exercise, each is doing her part of the “joint action” that consists of both exercising. Here, each could be doing her part, though not under the description, “doing my part.” Here, each does not even think of her exercising as being a part of the conjunct of both exercising. Obviously there is no joint action. Alternatively, each could be doing her part under the description, “doing my part,” where it is understood that this involves no reference to a we-intention. Here, each desires that both exercise, and each exercises with the intention of doing her part of the “joint action” of both exercising. But it still might not be the case that each does her part for the reason that she desires that both exercise. For A and B might be schoolchildren who have been informed that they must do their part in certain designated gym activities or risk disciplinary measures. Accordingly, A exercises for the reason that this is her part, and if she does not do her part she will face disciplinary measures. Similarly for B. Fortunately for A and B they both desire that they both exercise, but this desire is not the reason that each intends to do her part. The intention of each to do her part is tracking the individual desire each has that she not be punished. But each doing her part in order to avoid her own punishment is not joint action. Now the example could be transformed into joint action if each exercised in order that they both exercise; that is, if each doing her part meant each exercising intending that both exercised. But this reintroduces we-intentions, and hence the problem of circularity.

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Social Action In fact there is a way out of the problem that confronts both the original individual intention account and its supplemented version. The way out is to have recourse to the notion of having an end – where ends are not desires or intentions. On this account of joint action each intends to do her part because each has as an end that both exercise. Thus if each exercises in order that she avoid punishment there is no joint action. For the end that each has can be realised by each agent exercising on her own, and this is so notwithstanding the fact that each desires that both exercise. So recourse to the notion of an end can solve the problems that beset the individual intentions account, but obviously it does so by simply transforming that account into CET. michael bratman’s account The second competing account of joint action was developed by Michael Bratman.36 This account does not seek to reduce weintentions. Rather, we-intentions are simply a basic species of individual intention. Accordingly, an appropriate theory of joint action ought to help itself simply to intentions. However, there are two sorts of intention differing only in respect of their content. While both sorts of intention are individualist, one is the intention of an agent that he or she act whereas the other – the we-intention – is an intention that we perform some action, J. These latter intentions have the form, “I intend that we J.” According to Bratman, joint actions are actions involving what he calls shared intentions. You and I have a shared intention with respect to an action J if and only if: “(1) (a) I intend that we J; (b) you intend that we J; (2) I intend that we J in accordance with, and because of, (1a) (1b), and meshing subplans of (1a) and (1b); you intend that we J in accordance with, and because of, (1a), (1b) and meshing subplans of (1a) and (1b); (3) (1) and (2) are common knowledge.”37 I have a subplan if I intend that we perform the activity in a particular way. Thus, to take one of Bratman’s examples, agents A and B might each intend that they paint the house and each have as a subplan that they do this by painting it red all over. Here the subplans mesh. A case in which they do not mesh would be one in which, although each intended that they paint the house, A in74

2. Joint Action tended that they paint it red all over, whereas B intended that they paint it blue all over. Here there are two important claims that are of interest. First, according to Bratman’s definition, I intend that we J because of (in part) your intention that we J. For example, I intend that we paint the house because (in part) you intend that we paint it. By contrast according to CET I have as an end that we paint the house and you have as an end that we paint the house, but I don’t have this end because you do. The most that could be said is that I have it as an end because (in part) I believe that you will do your part by, say, painting the bedroom. What is true is that on CET I would not have this as an end if you did not, since in the circumstances I could not realise the end by myself, and you would not do your part unless you also had that end. CET should be preferred to Bratman’s account in this respect since Bratman’s definition rules out certain cases of joint action, namely ones in which one agent does not care whether the other agent has the same joint intention or end, just as long as that agent performs that agent’s contributory action. Suppose I have as an end that we dig a tunnel under the English Channel. You are in France and will dig from Calais, and I am in England and will dig from Dover. The tunnels will connect in the middle of the English Channel giving me access to Europe, and you to the United Kingdom. However, as an Englishperson I don’t like the French and as a Frenchperson you don’t like the English. Accordingly, I don’t care whether you get to go to the United Kingdom or not. Likewise, you don’t care whether I have access to Europe. I don’t care whether you have as an end that we dig the tunnel, or whether you are simply digging a tunnel from Calais to the middle of the English Channel for a bet. My only concern is that you in fact dig a tunnel from Calais to the middle of the English Channel. So I don’t have as an end that we dig the tunnel (even in part) because you have as an end that we dig the tunnel, though as it happens you do have as an end that we dig the tunnel. Your sentiments mirror mine. Your only concern is that I dig a tunnel from Dover to the middle of the Channel, and you do not have the end that we dig the tunnel (even in part) because I have that as an end. Nevertheless we are cooperating to build a tunnel, and it is a paradigm case of joint action. In this kind of case there is interdependence of ends – as well as, of 75

Social Action course, interdependence of action to achieve that end. In the circumstances I would not have as an end that we build the tunnel unless you had that as an end. For if you did not have that as an end then, as it happens, you would not dig your stretch of the tunnel and I would not be able to realise my end. But nevertheless I do not have this end because you have this end. At most I have this as an end because I know that you will dig a tunnel from Calais to the middle of the Channel. I would not abandon my end if I came to believe that you did not have as an end that we dig the tunnel, but were simply digging from Calais to the middle of the Channel for a bet. Similarly, you would not abandon your end if you came to believe that I was simply digging from Dover to the middle of the Channel in order to win a bet. The second aspect of Bratman’s definition is the lack of unclarity concerning the relationship between the first agent and the individual contributory action or actions of the second agent; that is between, for example, me and your individual action of painting the bedroom. According to CET the relationship is simply that I believe that you are painting (or will paint) the bedroom. But this is not Bratman’s view. His analysis involves no reference to any such beliefs. Rather, on his account I intend that you paint the bedroom and do so in virtue of my joint intention that you and I paint the house. Bratman is aware that the idea of A intending B’s action might be thought to be problematic and he offers arguments in order to allay this worry.38 One of Bratman’s arguments makes a general appeal to the notion of future directed intentions. I accept that an agent can have future directed intentions with respect to his own actions. Moreover these intentions typically rely on beliefs about the actions of others. Thus I intend to go to London next year and this intention can in part depend on my belief that Qantas will have flights to London. (Here I believe, but do not intend, that the Qantas pilots will fly to London.) But Bratman has not shown, as he needs to, that there are relevant future directed intentions with respect to the actions of other agents, where these actions are essentially under the control of these other agents. Bratman’s most important argument turns on the use of an example in which an agent, Abe, intends to pump water and is assisted by various other agents – especially Diane – who intentionally in76

2. Joint Action crease the water pressure, and thereby enable Abe to pump water.39 The point about Diane is that her intention to increase the pressure is in response to Abe’s intention to pump water by means of pushing the pump handle. Specifically, Abe believes that Diane will increase the pressure if she knows that Abe intends to push the pump handle. This is not because Diane is engaged in a joint action with Abe; she does not have as an end that water be pumped out as a result of her doing her part of increasing the pressure and Abe doing his part of pushing the pump handle.40 Rather, Diane has as the end of her action merely to do what she knows Abe desires that she do, namely increase the water pressure. Nevertheless, Diane’s action is not under the control of Abe; she is a free agent, albeit a friendly one. Now I agree with Bratman that his example shows that Abe can intend to pump water, and do so in part because Diane will be responsive to this intention of his. But I cannot see that his example demonstrates how the freely performed actions of others can nevertheless be subject to our intentions. For in the first place Abe does not intend that Diane increase the pressure; he only believes that she will. In the second place there is no we-intention involved in the example. Abe intends that Abe will pump the water; he does not intend that Abe and Diane will pump the water. Let me now put forward some counter-examples to Bratman’s position. Consider this Superman example. A and B wish to insert a device into Superman’s brain in order to monitor his neural activity. However, the miniature device is not quite small enough to penetrate Superman’s skull. Accordingly, they devise a device that has two different parts, each part being in the form of a very small bullet. The two parts taken together constitute one single monitoring device. Thus A will fire one bullet and B the other bullet. But both bullets need to end up in Superman’s brain. On Bratman’s view it must be the case that A intended that B put a bullet in Superman’s brain. However B intended that B put a bullet in Superman’s brain. But it cannot be that A intended that B put a bullet in Superman’s brain, and that B intended this. (Or at least this cannot be so on the assumption that both intentions caused that action the performance of which constitutes the realisation of each of these intentions, namely the action of B putting a bullet in Superman’s brain.) For if both these intentions were realised, and if both were causally efficacious, then B’s action would be over77

Social Action determined. A’s intention would be a sufficient condition for B’s action, and so would B’s intention. But B’s action is not overdetermined. For B’s intention that B put a bullet into Superman’s brain was necessary for B putting that bullet into Superman’s brain. So no intention of A’s that B perform this action was sufficient. It might now be argued that, notwithstanding the above, A’s intention was causally efficacious by virtue of being a necessary condition for B firing a bullet into Superman’s brain. But this claim is also false. For B’s intention that B fire a bullet into Superman’s brain was not only necessary, it was also sufficient. So A’s intention cannot even be a necessary condition for B’s action. It might be now argued that although B’s intention that B put a bullet into Superman’s brain was caused by B’s intention to do this, and not by A’s intention that B do this, nevertheless that intention of B was itself caused by some other intention of A’s. But if so, what is this intention? A did not, for example, issue an order to B to fire the bullet at Superman. For B is not in any way under A’s control, and A does not believe that B is under A’s control. Indeed, it may be that A did not in any way even seek to persuade B to put a bullet in Superman’s brain. This is entirely consistent with A believing that in fact B will put a bullet in Superman’s brain. The only other of A’s conative mental states that is relevant here is A’s end – or, by Bratman’s lights, intention – that there be a monitoring device (comprising the two bullets) in Superman’s brain. Is this state either causally necessary or causally sufficient for B having the intention to put a bullet into Superman’s brain? No it is not. For once again it is B’s mental states – not any of A’s intentions – that cause B to have the intention to put a bullet in Superman’s brain. The mental states of B in question are B’s end (or intention) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain and B’s belief that A will fire the second bullet into Superman’s brain. These mental states are singly necessary, and jointly sufficient, to cause B to fire the bullet he fired. At this stage it might be suggested that, notwithstanding the above, B’s end (or intention) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain is itself caused by some further intention of A’s. It could then be concluded that this further intention of A’s indirectly caused B’s intention to fire a bullet. How is this process of indirect causation supposed to work? First, this (alleged) further intention 78

2. Joint Action of A caused B to have the end (or intention) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain. Second, B’s end (or intention) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s head was causally necessary for B to have the intention to fire a bullet into Superman’s brain. As we have seen, the second step is correct. Unfortunately, the first step is incorrect. The only candidate for being A’s further intention is A’s end (or we-intention) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain. But obviously the end (or intention) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain is not the same mental state as the intention that B have as an end (or intention) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain. So this recourse to A’s end (or intention) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain does not help Bratman. In response to this it might finally be suggested that I have misdescribed A’s end (or intention). I have characterised it as A’s end (or intention) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain; but it should be characterised as A’s end (or intention) that A and B (jointly) bring it about (by means of firing the bullets) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain. I have two replies to this. First, the existence of this new and different characterisation does not demonstrate that I have misdescribed A’s end (or intention). Indeed, this new characterisation presupposes my characterisation. For if A and B are to (jointly) bring it about (by means of firing the bullets) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain, then A (and B) must have as an end (or intention) that there be a monitoring device in Superman’s brain. Second, this new and different characterisation is a description of an end (or intention) that A does not have in my example, and does not need to have. For it is a higher order end (or intention) to the effect that A has as an end (or intention) that A and B perform the joint action in question; so it is not, and cannot be, part of the analysis of a joint action. I conclude that the Superman scenario stands as a counterexample to Bratman’s analysis, and in particular to his requirement that agents involved in joint actions intend one another’s contributory actions, as opposed to merely believing that those actions have been, are being, or will be performed. Let me now consider an example of a joint action in which agents perform their contributory actions at different times. Suppose A and B are members of a 400 metre relay team. Each participant runs 79

Social Action 100 metres and passes a baton to the next relay member. This is joint action; but it is joint action in which the constitutive individual actions are performed sequentially rather than simultaneously. Now imagine an around the world relay. The relay takes years to complete and involves thousands of participants. Most of the participants will never meet one another. Assume further that many participants do not decide to participate, indeed have not even heard of the relay, until the relay is actually under way across their particular country. It would be absurd to claim that each participant has intentions with respect to the actions of every other participant. Assume the relay has been going for a number of years. Now consider the present participants in the relay. Many of these have no intentions whatsoever with respect to many of the actions of other participants. Specifically, these present participants have no intentions with respect to the past actions of many past participants. For at the time that these past actions were being performed these present participants did not even know that there was a relay being run. What we have here is a case of joint action taking place over time. The agents have a shared end, namely to complete the running of the relay, and they believe other participants have done, are doing or will do their parts. But the participants do not have intentions with respect to one another’s contributory actions. Such cases constitute a further category of counter-examples to Bratman’s thesis that participants in joint actions intend one another’s contributory actions. What is the way out of the problems that confront Bratman? I suggest that the notion of a we-intention needs to be abandoned in favour of the notion of an end. If this were done the Superman example would be construed as follows. Agent A intentionally put a bullet in Superman’s brain having as an end that there be a miniature monitoring device in Superman’s brain. Similarly for agent B. Here agent A did not intend that agent B put a bullet in Superman’s brain, but rather, A believed that B would. On the other hand, A did not simply desire that there be a miniature monitoring device in Superman’s brain. Agent A performed an action in order to try to realise this desire. Agent A had this outcome as an end. The same kind of construal is on offer for the relay example; each agent intentionally ran his or her segment of the relay, believed that the others did or would run their segments, and had as an end that

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2. Joint Action the whole relay would be run. However no agent intended that a second agent run the segment run by that second agent. So these counter-examples can be accommodated, but only by transforming Bratman’s theory into CET. cohen and levesque’s account The third competing account is propounded by Cohen and Levesque.41 This account holds that joint action requires some notion of a goal.42 (I take it that the notion of a goal is pre-theoretically equivalent to the notion of an end.) In fact, on this view, joint action requires not one but two goals. For joint action involves, in addition to the first order joint goal of the action, a second order joint goal that there be mutual knowledge among the participating agents that the first order joint goal has been, or cannot be, realised.43 This second order joint goal is held to be in part constitutive of joint action.44 I disagree with this account. Cohen and Levesque’s second order goal is that there be mutual knowledge that the first order goal has been or has not been performed (or perhaps that it now cannot be performed).45 Note that this mutual knowledge is not mutual knowledge, or even mutual true belief, that the joint action is likely to be performed. To require this second order goal is to go too far; it results in an incorrect analysis of joint action. A joint action might have been performed even though the participants cannot come to know that it has been performed, and know that they cannot know this. It follows that each cannot have such mutual knowledge as a goal. For example, suppose A and B are spies who contrive and execute a joint mission to steal two sections of a military strategy located in different places. A must get one section and B the other. Once stolen the sections are individually forwarded to some friendly government official. One section is useless without the other. Having agreed to undertake the mission, each agent must make no further contact with the other or with the government official. After successfully stealing and forwarding a section, each agent is to assume a new identity. Any other course of action would be dangerous for the agents. A and B successfully complete their joint mission. However, they perform this joint action notwithstanding the fact that this did

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Social Action not become a matter of mutual knowledge. Crucially neither A nor B have at any time a goal to inform the other regarding the success of the contributory actions or of the mission. For A and B know all along that they must not contact one another and that they will never know whether the joint action was successful. Take another example. Agents A and B might be jointly constructing a house. A might complete A’s part of the house, say the carpentry, and then die. B might then go on to complete the house. The joint action of building the house has been performed, notwithstanding the fact that there was not mutual knowledge of this completed joint action. Crucially, it might never have been a goal of B to inform A of the completed joint action. For A and B might have known that A would die after completing A’s part of the construction work, but before the house was completed. A further example would be one involving an end that was external to the agent’s contributory actions. Suppose five men are unlawfully hunting a tiger that is a member of an endangered species of tiger. Assume they are armed with spears. They know the tiger will probably survive if only one or two spears hit the tiger, but they believe four or five spears will probably kill it. Each throws his spear having as an end that the tiger be killed. All five throws are successful. However the tiger, although barely alive, limps off into thick scrub. The men dare not follow the tiger, since although it is probably dead, they now have no weapons and it just might have survived. Assume that in fact the tiger dies though this is not known to the five men. Surely this is nevertheless a case of joint action, indeed successful joint action. It is just that none of the participants know it to have been successful joint action. They do however mutually know that they have performed the joint action in the sense that they have completed their individual actions. But in this kind of case involving an external end, there is a distinction to be made between a joint action – consisting of the individual actions (already performed) and the collective end (not realised) – and a successful joint action (the end having been realised). To allay any doubts that in the tiger example there has been a successful joint action not known to have been successful, consider the fact that someone else might well know that the joint action was successful. Suppose a well-armed traveller happened to witness the spear throwing, followed the tiger into the scrub and then watched 82

2. Joint Action it die. The traveller knows that the joint action was successful. Moreover, the traveller reports the unlawful killing of the tiger to the authorities, who investigate the matter, including by recourse to DNA testing. As a result the men are tried in absentia and found guilty. Unfortunately, the men are never found. Moreover, they never come to know that they were being sought for the killing of the tiger or, indeed, that they had in fact killed the tiger. Clearly, it is a case of successful joint action even though not known by the participants to have been successful. These examples demonstrate, contra Cohen and Levesque, that in joint action there need not be mutual knowledge with respect either to the actual past performance of the individual actions or the realisation of the end to which they are directed, and that since participating agents can know this, it cannot possibly be a requirement on joint action that agents have such mutual knowledge as a goal, joint or otherwise. We should rather prefer the weaker mutual knowledge conditions of CET. The tiger example also demonstrates that Cohen and Levesque’s account has too narrow a focus. Their account focuses only on joint actions that are processes. In such cases the goal is simply the completion of the process. Accordingly, if each performs his or her part and there is mutual knowledge that each has done so, then there will of necessity be mutual knowledge that the process has been completed and the goal therefore achieved. But there are many cases of joint action, such as the tiger example, in which the goal or end is not internal but external to the actions performed by participating agents. In such cases, even if there is mutual knowledge that each has performed his or her action, and even if it is a joint goal that there be such mutual knowledge, it does not follow that there is a joint goal that there be mutual knowledge that the goal of the individual actions has been achieved. For the agents might know that they cannot have mutual knowledge that this goal has been achieved, and therefore it cannot be a joint goal that there be such mutual knowledge. Once again in distinguishing and accommodating both kinds of joint action CET is to be preferred.

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Social Action john searle’s account A fourth competing account of joint action is the corporatist one propounded by Searle.46 Searle holds that joint action involves irreducibly corporate intentions. Corporatist theorists tend to run together joint action and what I have called corporate action. It is conceivable that the latter involves some irreducibly corporate notion of intention though I argue that this is not so in Chapter 5. But at any rate even if corporate actions involve irreducibly corporate intentions, it would not follow that joint actions do. My general response to the claim that joint action, as opposed to corporate action, is irreducibly corporatist, is simply to present CET. CET is an individualist account of joint action. Obviously CET has to be put to the test. But I believe that CET can accommodate the counterexamples advanced by corporatists. Searle’s example of would-be capitalists aiming at their own interest while having a collective intention to benefit all is easily accommodated.47 He is correct in thinking that the collective intention is not reducible to individual intentions. But he is wrong to think that it is therefore an irreducibly collective intention. Rather, it is a collective end of the kind deployed in CET. Let us look at his example. In one reading of Searle’s example, the agents’ actions are overdetermined. They have both individual and collective ends. Each has the individual end to get rich for the sake of being rich. In addition, each has the collective end of the common good, which each believes will be realised by each pursuing his or her own interest. Qua actions directed at the collective end, the agents are involved in joint action. Qua actions performed simply to secure their individual ends, the agents are involved in individual action. On the other way of reading Searle’s example each agent has one ultimate end, namely the common good. However, paradoxically, each of the agents must aim at his own interest in order to achieve the common good. Here the individual end is not an end in itself, but simply a means to the further end of the common good. However, the individual actions do constitute a joint action; for they are actions that are performed, indeed only performed, in order to secure the common good.

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2. Joint Action margaret gilbert’s account A fifth competing account is the corporatist one of Gilbert. We will first look at Gilbert’s corporatist account on its own merits, and then consider her examples and accompanying arguments against individualist accounts. According to Gilbert, two or more agents engaged in joint action are “plural subjects” with a “shared intention” to perform a joint action. Here the shared intention is not reducible to individual intentions or ends, and the joint action is not reducible to individual actions (or individual actions in conjunction with individual intentions or ends). Indeed, Gilbert holds the view that plural subjects can be ascribed intentions, beliefs, and moral responsibilities that are not possessed by the individual human agents that (in some sense) constitute the plural subject. Gilbert has presented her views in a number of different places, but not always in a consistent or luminous manner.48 At any rate, she is committed to the following definition of the key notion of interest to us here, namely shared intention: “Persons P1 and P2 have a shared intention to do A if and only if they are jointly committed to intending as a body to do A.”49 Here the notion of a joint commitment is itself an irreducibly collectivist notion: “So it is not the case that each of them is the sole author of part of the joint commitment, let alone of the joint commitment as a whole. Rather they comprise the author of the joint commitment together.”50 Moreover, the notion of a commitment is itself somewhat unclear. At one place, she offers an apparently non-normative account: “If I have decided to do A, I am subject to a commitment to do A.” At others commitment seems essentially normative: “the pretheoretical judgment that shared intentions involve obligations with corresponding entitlements responds to the presence, given a shared intention, of a joint commitment.”51 I have two responses to the above analysis of shared intention. First, the crucial notion of a commitment, including a joint commitment, conflates the normative notion of putting oneself under an obligation with the (non-normative) notion of non-reversibility. Conative states, such as intentions and decisions, are (at least partially) non-reversible. The image here is of jumping off a cliff; at some

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Social Action point the person jumping “commits” himself, and so there is no going back. Similarly, for intentions and decisions. However, this feature of non-reversibility has nothing whatsoever to do with normativity; in particular, it is an entirely different sense of commitment from that of putting oneself under an obligation, for example by making a promise. If commitment is taken to imply non-reversibility only, then the definition of shared intention in terms of joint commitments seems to be vacuous; shared intentions are (more or less) joint intentions. If on the other hand commitment is taken in the normative sense of putting oneself under an obligation, then the definition is false; intentions, including shared intentions, are not necessarily puttings of oneself under obligations (or a necessary result thereof). Second, the other crucial notion of intending “as a body” to do A conflates the notion of intending as the member of a group with the notion of an individual intention, albeit an individual intention attaching to an entity which has agents P1 and P2 as parts. If the former, then there is no apparent barrier to the analysis of the shared intentions in terms of the individual intentions of P1 and P2. If the latter, then we do not have an intention, shared or otherwise, of P1 and P2; rather, we have the intention of the (alleged) single entity that has P1 and P2 as its parts. Let us turn now to Gilbert’s examples and accompanying arguments against individualist accounts, including her argument that joint actions imply a normative dimension. I will seek to rebut these arguments and indicate how CET would handle alleged counterexamples. Let us consider Gilbert’s mushroom-picking example. This example is put forward in the context of Gilbert’s pursuit of an analysis of social action that helps itself only to individualist notions. The point of the example is to show that such a pursuit is hopeless; according to Gilbert, such analyses in terms of individualist notions will inevitably fail. Gilbert points out that a group of mushroom pickers who individually pick mushrooms are not engaged in social action. Moreover, they would not be engaged in social action even if they were mutually aware of one another’s mushroom-picking activities. Nor would the fact that one mushroom picker had a brief conversation with another mushroom picker turn their mushroom picking into social action. Finally, even if all the mushroom pickers 86

2. Joint Action engaged in an occasional two-person conversation, this would still not be sufficient for their mushroom picking to count as social action. I agree. More importantly, CET yields the same result. According to CET, this mushroom-picking activity is not social action, or even joint action; for the individual mushroom-picking actions are not directed to a collective end. So the mushroom-picking example does not show that an individualistic analysis cannot succeed. It merely shows that Gilbert did not have an adequate individualist account. Gilbert correctly claims that from the fact that agents A and B (successfully) perform a joint action properly describable as Xing, it does not follow that A performed some individual action properly describable as Xing. Thus A and B might be dancing together, but it does not follow that if A were doing the same movements alone A would be dancing.52 But this is not required of an individualist account, and certainly not of CET. CET, in helping itself to the notion of a collective end, enables a joint action description that goes beyond the description of any of the individual actions considered without reference to the collective end. Thus Fred can dial a number and Bill can pick up a receiver and there is the joint action of communication. But this is only the case if each had as a (collective) end that there be communication. In the dancing example each has as an end that they dance. Here it is the bodily movement of each, coupled with the relations between those individual bodily movements, that is the end that each has. So this end is not adequately described by a description of the bodily movements of one of the partners. CET is also able to accommodate Gilbert’s babysitting example.53 Ted and Carol are babysitting Jo’s baby, but Carol decides, with Ted’s permission, to go out to the movies. Notwithstanding her decision to go to the movies, Carol is still responsible (jointly with Ted) for babysitting Jo’s baby and she has not abandoned that responsibility. The point here is that two agents can have as end an outcome which will in fact be brought about by one of them. Ted and Carol have as an end that one or other of them is always present with the baby. Both Ted and Carol make sure that end will be realised before Carol goes to the movies. The test of this would be, say, Carol not going to the movies if she knew Ted would fall asleep after an hour or so. Of course Carol does not go to the movies in 87

Social Action order to realise the end of babysitting Jo’s baby. Carol does whatever is necessary in order to ensure that either she or Ted is present with the baby. It turns out that in her case that necessary action is quite minimal; it is the action of ensuring that Ted will stay with the baby. Let us turn finally to Gilbert’s walking example.54 Imagine Sue and Jack are going for a walk together. Each has as a goal that they walk together. Here Gilbert switches between two very different conceptions of having a goal. What she describes as a personal goal could have one of two forms. An agent could have as a goal that he or she go walking in your company. Or the agent could have as a goal that we go walking together. On the first conception the agent is simply concerned to orient his or her own behaviour to that of the other person. It is not part of his or her goal that the other person perform such and such an action. This is not a collective goal or – as I would say – a collective end. It is simply an individual goal or end. On the second conception, by contrast, it is part of the goal that the other agent perform such and such an action. The agent has a goal that we do such and such. It is important to make this distinction and keep firmly in mind that it is the second conception that Gilbert must undermine. Otherwise her arguments may seem to have more force than they actually do. Gilbert points out that the fact that two agents each have the same personal goal in performing their actions is not sufficient for these actions to constitute joint action. For each might not know that the other has this personal goal. According to CET, individual actions only constitute joint action if there is a collective end, and if the ends of each of the agents is a matter of mutual knowledge between them. Gilbert countenances this possibility – albeit with a certain amount of sliding between personal goals and collective ends – but argues that even mutual knowledge of a joint goal is not sufficient for individual actions to constitute joint action. Her argument for this claim is basically that the normative dimension of her example has not been adequately captured. The normative dimension in question goes beyond considerations of prudence and reasonable care for the well-being of others and yet falls short of moral obligations. This alleged normative dimension generates an obligation on the part of each to do his part, and an entitlement of each to rebuke the other if either does not do his part.55 The short answer is simply to deny that cases of joint action do 88

2. Joint Action necessarily involve a normative dimension beyond the considerations of prudence and reasonable concern for the well-being of another person. Consider the one-off situation I described earlier in this chapter involving two strangers who jointly move a fallen tree blocking their pathway. The relevant prudential considerations are simply that both participants in the joint action seek the realisation of the collective end, and yet it will not be realised unless each performs a contributory action. Accordingly, each is likely to try to get the other to do his part by appealing to the interest of the other. In addition there might be an element of concern for the other person; other things being equal, each does not want the other to be inconvenienced by having his pathway blocked. But in this example there is no additional normative dimension that generates an obligation on the strangers to move the log, and would entitle the one to rebuke the other if he refused to assist. This is not of course to deny that there are many cases of joint action in which there is a further normative dimension. Here there appear to be two kinds of example. First, there are joint actions in which there is the possibility of free-riding. These typically give rise to the moral obligation to do one’s part as a matter of fairness. I analyse these cases in Chapter 4, but my point here is simply that in such cases there is no additional normative dimension that stops short of a moral obligation. Quite simply there is a moral obligation not to free-ride. Moreover the collective end theory is able to show why this is so. The point about the free-rider, as opposed to the nonparticipant, is that the free-rider has the collective end and the collective end is a good. The free-rider would contribute if it was necessary to realise the collective end. However, the free-rider is unfair to the others in wanting the benefits of the joint action without performing a contributory action. Second, there are joint actions performed by occupants of institutional or professional roles. These typically have an institutional normative dimension. Thus a firefighter may be under an obligation to perform a part of the joint action of putting out a fire. Or a police officer might be under an obligation to walk together with a fellow officer while walking the beat; for the policy of the police service might be for officers to work and walk in twos in order to minimise risk to themselves. Moreover, Gilbert’s example of walking together may have a normative flavour in virtue of the fact that it is normally 89

Social Action friends who want to walk together, and friendship generates expectations and entitlements. Thus it may very well be upsetting if one’s friend suddenly leaves one’s company. At any rate, however things are in such cases involving friendship, the point is that Gilbert fails to show that in order for an action to be a joint action it is necessary that it have any additional normative dimension, let alone the institutional normative dimension she advocates. Moreover, my examples provide support for the proposition that the institutional normative dimension favoured by Gilbert is not necessarily a feature of joint actions. Finally, I deny that cases of joint action in which there is the additional institutional normative dimension require recourse to Gilbert’s collectivist ontology of plural subjects and collective beliefs. (The already demonstrated lack of necessity for such an ontology in many cases of joint action – those lacking an additional institutional normative dimension – already casts serious doubt on Gilbert’s account.) In Chapter 6 I propound an individualist account of the institutional normative dimension in question. We need to distinguish between institutional action and joint action per se. The analysis of joint action does not require any collectivist ontology of the sort espoused by Gilbert. Having provided a detailed account of joint action, and defended it against rival accounts, I now want to turn to a variety of central categories of social action, and put my notion of a joint action to work in the analysis of these categories of social action. I begin with conventional actions, the subject matter of the next chapter.

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3

Conventions

In this chapter I will provide an account of one of the main categories of social action, namely actions performed in conformity to conventions. I have already suggested that while joint actions are not necessarily social actions, nevertheless the concept of a joint action is of fundamental importance in the understanding of social action. In this chapter I make good on this claim. For I will argue that conventions are in fact a species of joint action. Conventions play a large part in our collective lives. When we exchange money for goods, we do so in conformity to conventions. Our mode of dress and manner of eating is largely determined by convention. When we perform linguistically our actions are governed by conventions. The ubiquity of conventions suggests that an analysis of the concept of a convention would have an important place in the attempt to understand social phenomena. We find that philosophers, in particular, have used the idea of a convention freely and widely. Historically, the so-called social contract theorists, such as Hobbes and Locke, invoked the notion of a convention, and related notions of an agreement or contract, to provide the moral justification for obedience to government and the law.1 Rousseau put the proposition that political inequality depended on a kind of convention.2 More recently, philosophers have offered conventionalist accounts of analytic truths, for example, and rival theorists of speech acts have argued about whether speech acts are essentially conventional (or rule-constituted).3 So philosophers have employed the notion of a convention to make substantive claims, where the truth of these claims turned crucially on what exactly that notion of a convention was. It is difficult to see how these substantive claims could be satisfactorily adjudicated without an adequate account of conventions. As it happens, philosophers and others have propounded a number of accounts or theories of conventions. I will briefly consider two of these before 91

Social Action providing a detailed analysis and critique of the most elaborate and influential contemporary account, namely that of David Lewis. The first theory may be termed the explicit agreement theory. This theory is associated with the social contract theorists such as Thomas Hobbes. According to this theory, what makes a regularity in behaviour a convention is the fact that at some stage in the past people joined together and agreed to perform a certain type of action in certain circumstances. They now perform the conventional action in question because they are bound by their promises to do so. Aside from the problems of locating such a promise and of descendants of the promise makers being bound by the promises of the forefathers, there is the circularity involved in such an account. Promises or explicit agreements are made in some language, but languages, and for that matter the institution of promising, themselves involve conventions. The explicit agreement theory might be weakened to an implicit or tacit agreement theory. The invocation of the notion of a tacit agreement is associated with John Locke. On the tacit agreement theory there has been no actual promise; rather things are as if people had joined together and made promises. But more needs to be known about this tacit agreement – what constitutes the way in which it is as if promises had been made? Also what is to count as having entered into a tacit agreement? Non-resistance to doing an action could not, for example, count as having tacitly agreed to do it. In any case the weakening of the explicit agreement theory still leaves standing the intuitively implausible idea that conventions are followed, and ought to be followed, because the parties are morally obliged to do so having, in some sense, agreed or promised to do so. A second theory of convention is what we might term the rule theory of convention. Here rules are analysed in terms of commands. This theory has been propounded by Alf Ross.4 A convention is expressible as a command of the form “Do x in circumstances c,” and a command backed by sanctions (since otherwise what differentiates the command from, say, a request?). But if conventional actions are actions performed in order to obey a command, then it can legitimately be asked: Who issued the command? Perhaps society issued it. But there is no such issuer in other than a highly meta-

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3. Conventions phorical sense. And, if these commands exist, then where are they formulated? Many conventions are not written down anywhere. Indeed, if they were written down, then they would already exist in a conventional (linguistic) mode. But in that case the rule analysis of conventions would be circular for it would presuppose the existence of conventions. Finally, it seems that conventions are not necessarily backed by sanctions, and where they are, this is not necessary to their being conventions. People do not drive on the left if everyone else does because they’ll be fined if they do not, though in fact they might be fined if they do not. Rather, people drive on the left, if others do, because they want to avoid collisions; it would be irrational not to do so. Again, if a less strict definition of rule in the rule theory of convention is what is required, what is this less strict definition? Can the theory be weakened so as to avoid these objections, but at the same time retain its essential properties? It is not obvious how this could be done. Margaret Gilbert has in effect tried to meet these objections by propounding a view of conventions as the self-imposed fiats of the members of a social group.5 In effect, she holds that conventions are tacitly jointly accepted principles concerning what one ought to do. These principles are not necessarily commands backed by sanctions; so Gilbert’s view does not obviously fall victim to the objections made to the rule theory of conventions. However, there are other problems. First, there is a great lack of clarity surrounding the key notion of joint acceptance. This notion has to be strong enough to ground the normative principle to the effect that the persons in question ought to do such and such. If identifying joint acceptance with joint agreement, or quasi-agreement, is relied on to ground the “ought,” then Gilbert’s account is a version of the agreement theory of convention with all its attendant problems. On the other hand, if joint acceptance means something like joint decision, or joint intention, then, as we saw at the end of the last chapter, it does not follow that those who made the decision or formed the intention are necessarily obligated to perform the action in question; the “ought” has not been adequately grounded.6

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Social Action Let me now turn in detail to David Lewis’s theory of convention, a theory that owes a good deal to David Hume’s early account of conventions as regularities in action that serve a common interest.7 lewis on conventions Conventions are, according to David Lewis, the solutions to coordination problems.8 Now, coordination problems are given by Lewis a technical definition in game-theoretic terms.9 They are also given a definition in terms of various kinds of conditional preferences.10 It is the definition (or at least definitions) in terms of conditional preferences that will concern us here.11 A conditional preference is a preference an agent has for an action, given that other agents perform certain actions. If these other agents did not perform those actions, our first agent may not prefer to perform his action. Let us call coordination problems, thus defined in terms of conditional preferences, formal coordination problems. There is, however, a different sense of coordination problem made use of by Lewis. This second sense is given in an informal way, but is clear enough. Suppose you and I wish to meet. There are two possible meeting places, a and b (and probably more). We don’t much care which of these places we meet at. What is important is that we both go to the same place, and not one of us to place a and the other to place b. If we both turn up at the same place we have solved the coordination problem. I will call such coordination problems “informal coordination problems.” An informal coordination problem, then, is the problem of choosing between more or less equally viable but mutually exclusive alternatives. It is important to note that the alternatives are equally conventions. If a regularity in action were set up whereby we always met at a, that would become the convention. But, likewise, if the alternative combinations of actions – each going to b – always took place, that would be the convention. The idea of conventional alternatives, as opposed to a single convention and a non-conventional alternative, is central to Lewis’s theory. The intuitive underlying idea of his theory is the idea of coordinating action with respect to alternative possible conventions. It is the idea of conventions as the solutions to informal coordination problems.12 My basis for this 94

3. Conventions claim is that, first, all his paradigms of convention appear to be of this type, for example driving on the left rather than the right-hand side of the road, using currency a rather than currency b, and so on. Second, all the various formulations of his definition of convention include a clause to the effect that for a given regularity in action to be a convention, there must be an alternative conventional regularity.13 Third, Lewis rules out social contracts as conventions because (among other reasons) he thinks they have no conventional alternative.14 Finally, Lewis states (in effect) that the notion of a convention is the notion of a conventional regularity with a conventional alternative.15 The role of formal coordination problems is to capture, in precise terms, the nature of informal coordination problems. Lewis frames his clauses specifying conditional preferences in order to capture the preferences of agents involved in informal coordination problems. Lewis’s theory is far more complex than the foregoing might lead one to believe. It’s not simply a matter of agents with particular conditional preferences performing a given action in a recurrent situation. For each agent has expectations about, as well as knowledge of, the actions of other agents.16 However, I need only concern myself here with the conditional preferences element in Lewis’s definitions, and with his clause requiring a conventional alternative to a convention. In fact it would seem conditional preferences and conventional alternatives are connected. Agents have conditional, as opposed to unconditional, preferences for conformity to a particular regularity, r, just because of the availability of a conventional alternative, r1.17 I prefer to conform to r if the others do. But my preference is conditional since I would prefer to conform to r1, if they did.18 Moreover, it is from the existence of this conditional preference structure that the interdependence of action involved in conventions arises. objections to lewis Suppose circumstances are such that either we meet at a, or we meet at b, or we make no attempt to meet, that is, perhaps some of us stay at home, perhaps some of us visit our mums, and so on. What distinguishes the latter combination of actions – to simplify matters 95

Social Action I will refer to it as everyone going their separate ways – from the former two? The combination in which we all go our separate ways is a non-conventional alternative to a convention. The combination such that everyone goes to a, is a conventional alternative to the combination such that everyone goes to b, and vice-versa. In general for any given convention there will be a non-conventional alternative to that convention. Thus perhaps the situation in which there is chaos on the roads is the non-conventional alternative to the situation in which each drives on the left-hand side of the road. (The situation in which each drives on the right would be a conventional alternative.) (Let us remember that in the above we have been speaking of conventions in the sense of regularities that solve informal coordination problems, for example driving on the left.) In the light of this distinction between conventional and nonconventional alternatives to conventions, let us look at the clause in Lewis’s account that defines the preferences of agents who are party to a convention. The clause in question is: “everyone prefers everyone to conform to (the regularity) R, given that at least all but one conform to R.”19 This clause specifies the preferences of agents conforming to regularities, where those regularities solve formal coordination problems. The question is whether or not this clause characterises the preferences of agents conforming to regularities that solve informal coordination problems. In short, does this clause capture the preferences of agents who are parties to a given convention? Many combinations of actions that constitute non-conventional alternatives to conventions can be construed in such a way that the agents performing these actions have the preferences stipulated in Lewis’s clause. Take the meeting-place example. The combination of actions that is the non-conventional alternative to a convention in this example is the combination such that each goes his separate way, say, each stays at home. But it may well be that each prefers everyone to stay home, given that at least all but one stay home. For instance this would be true if each preferred that no single agent waste his time going to a or b, when the others were not going there. Most examples of Lewisian informal coordination problems would involve non-conventional alternatives to con-

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3. Conventions ventions. Many such non-conventional alternatives could be construed in such a way that they fit Lewis’s clause. Take another example, the clothes paradigm. Assume all but one go to a party in whatever clothes they like, but George wears his dinner jacket, thinking everyone else would be doing likewise. Here each (including George) may prefer that George had not worn his dinner jacket. For George does not like his dinner jacket, but only wears it if others wear theirs, that is if a convention to do so is in force. But the existence of these latter preferences does not make the regularity in action describable as everyone going to a party wearing whatever they feel like wearing (and doing so quite independently of what anyone else is doing) a convention. On Lewis’s theory then, nonconventional alternatives to conventions can be wrongly characterised as conventions. Nor is this a problem that confronts only one formulation of Lewis’s clause. Take Lewis’s later clause: “almost everyone prefers any one more to conform to R, on condition that almost everyone conforms to R.”20 Non-conventional alternatives could, and often would, conform to this requirement. For example, in the meeting-place paradigm it may be that “almost everyone prefers any one more to stay home, on condition that almost everyone stays home.” But notwithstanding these preferences, the combination in which all stay at home that is go their separate ways, is not a convention, but a non-conventional alternative to a convention. Non-conventional alternatives come in a wide variety of types. Many, as demonstrated, fit Lewis’s clauses. These involved little or no conflict of interest. Others, such as chaos on the roads, may involve considerable conflict. Moreover ad hoc assumptions with respect to agents’ likes and dislikes would allow further variations to be generated. Given such a variety of preference structures among nonconventional alternatives, it seems unlikely that minor modifications to Lewis’s clauses could ever overcome the problem. Certain types of non-conventional alternatives could always be found that would fit any clause he proposed. (In the section on action-determining preferences we will see what the root cause of Lewis’s trouble in this regard is.) To summarise, the fact that a regularity may “solve” a Lewisian

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Social Action formal coordination problem does not mean that it solves an informal coordination problem. Lewis’s definition, then, does not provide a sufficient condition for conventionhood. The next question is whether his definition provides a necessary condition. Many conventional combinations are ruled out by his earlier definition. Take the clothes example.21 Here everyone prefers everyone to wear, say, black ties, given that at least all but one do. Suppose many people dislike (or are indifferent to) someone or other. Thus A dislikes B, C dislikes D, and so on. Disliking B, A would prefer B to turn up wearing the wrong tie. A would like to see B embarrassed. Indeed, most people would like to see someone or other embarrassed. It is a large social circle; people cannot be expected to like everyone. Notice that this slight alteration is sufficient to ensure that the clothes paradigm violates Lewis’s clause. It is now not the case that everyone prefers everyone to wear a black tie, given that at least all but one wear black ties. Someone might maintain that, thus redescribed, the clothes case is no longer a convention. But this would surely be a mistake. In any given social milieu there are going to be elements of animosity and of competitiveness. Most people are going to dislike someone or other to the point where they would like to see that person embarrassed or made a fool of. It is extremely implausible that when such elements of enmity exist the regularity in question ceases to be a convention. It would have the result that many of the regularities we take to be paradigms of conventions would turn out not to be conventions after all. Surely the clothes case – and numerous other cases like it, for example modes of eating, greeting, how to behave at High Table, which word means what – is essentially a convention notwithstanding the element of conflict. Lewis’s initial formulation is thus unacceptable. It does not provide a necessary condition for conventional regularities. However, since the element of conflict is after all only an element, perhaps some reformulation of Lewis’s clause is what is called for. As demonstrated, Lewis himself provides such a reformulation, namely that “almost everyone prefers any one more to conform, on condition that almost everyone conforms.” 22 This clause is designed to cope with exceptions to the rule. Consider the case where someone fails to conform. The clause entails that with respect to the nonconformer, almost everyone prefers that the person conform. Lewis’s clause copes with this type of exception to the rule. In our 98

3. Conventions clothes example, given A does not conform, most would prefer that A did. But we can adjust our example slightly to defeat this interpretation. Suppose, as is often the case, a convention exists in a large community whereby most only know a minority in that community. Take, for example, a convention in some community to wear a suit at the office. Now assume that most prefer to wear a suit conditionally on some fairly indeterminate majority of the members of the community wearing a suit. However, it may well be that B, who has never met and knows nothing about A, may not prefer that A wear a suit. B is indifferent to whether or not a single individual (or even a minority) B knows nothing about conforms to the convention. But B is going to be in this way indifferent to most of the members of the community, since B only knows a minority of them. B’s action is dependent on the actions of the majority in the community. However, with respect to almost any individual (or minority) in that community, B does not necessarily prefer that individual (or minority) to conform, given all but that individual (or minority) conform. A regularity in which agents had such preferences would clearly be a convention. Indeed it is plausible that in any large community many conventions are in fact of this type. Here is another counter-example to the necessity of Lewis’s definition. Consider the clothes case again, but this time assume there is a particular minority, x, such that most people dislike members of x, and would like to see them embarrassed. Thus, given all but x conform, most do not prefer x to conform. Therefore the regularity in question is not a convention. Lewis sticks with his definition in the face of such cases. He takes them not to be conventions.23 But this is implausible. Assume once again that almost everyone (including members of x) conforms, on condition a majority, say threequarters, conform. (This is an arbitrary figure and, indeed, it could be replaced by a possibly fairly indeterminate range, anything, say, from a half to three-quarters, without affecting the point being made here.) Now if three-quarters conform but members of x do not, most prefer members of x not to conform. But if the number of agents conforming starts to fall below three-quarters, then most may well begin to prefer members of x to conform. That is, under certain circumstances most may want to (or may even have to, for example as in the stag hunt paradigm24) rely on the conformity of members of x, and thus disregard their dislike of x. It seems that, notwith99

Social Action standing the widespread dislike of x, members of x are parties to what is in fact a convention. (The same point could be made if it was assumed that the majority were merely indifferent to the minority, and did not actively dislike the minority.) Thus Lewis’s definitions as they stand rule out regularities in action which are in fact conventions. Why not try to make a further modification to his clauses? In particular, why not make a modification that allows there to be further exceptions to the rule? Where most conform but some individual (or minority) does not, the definitions require that all or most prefer that individual (or minority) to conform. This is the requirement that is causing the trouble. It cannot be wholly dispensed with. For it is necessarily the case that for any agent there is some individual, such that that agent would prefer that individual to conform, given that most conformed, and given that that individual is a non-conformer. In particular, it is necessarily the case that that individual prefers himself to conform, given that all but that individual (or most, but excluding that individual) conform. That is, some cases in which there are additional exceptions to the rule, that is, additional to the ones Lewis’s reformulation caters for, may very well be acceptable. But cases in which agents want to make exceptions of themselves are not acceptable. If an agent wants to make an exception of himself then, other things being equal, if the others conform, that agent will not conform. (I have included the “other things being equal” clause to rule out cases in which although agents may want to make exceptions of themselves at some level, when it comes to the crunch – because of sanctions, for example – each actually conforms. The account of such cases introduces distracting complications.) But if an agent fails to conform in every instance of the recurring situation, what grounds are there for saying that that agent is a party to the convention? Others prefer that the agent conform, but this is a ground for saying that others want the agent to be a party to the convention, not for saying that the agent actually is a party. We do not want, then, a definition of conventions that would have it that conventions consisted in part of preferences for making an exception of oneself. The question now arises as to how to reformulate Lewis’s clause in such a way so as to admit further exceptions to the rule, without allowing cases in which agents want to make

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3. Conventions exceptions of themselves. It is not at all obvious how this could be done. But, more importantly, it is not clear what legitimate motivation could be provided by Lewis for such a reformulation – a reformulation that admitted further exceptions to the rule, but not cases in which agents made exceptions of themselves. In the next section I will suggest a distinction that provides a motivation for ruling out cases in which agents want to make exceptions of themselves, but lets in cases in which agents want to make an exception of individuals other than themselves. This is the distinction between actiondetermining and non-action-determining preferences. The preferences with respect to some minority other than ourselves are non-action-determining; the preferences for making an exception of oneself are action-determining. This motivating distinction can be used to differentiate between cases. It will turn out that, of the cases we have been looking at, only those in which agents want to make exception of agents other than themselves (as they stand at any rate) are genuine conventions. For these preferences are nonaction-determining. This motivating distinction is not, however, one that Lewis could legitimately appropriate. I have shown that Lewis’s definitions do not provide a necessary condition for conventionhood. And I have already argued that they do not provide a sufficient condition. The existence of a Lewisian formal coordination problem is thus neither necessary nor sufficient for the existence of an informal coordination problem. action-determining preferences Enough has been said to demonstrate that the preference structures involved in Lewis’s account are in need of fairly radical alteration. The preferences involved in Lewis’s various definitions (and indeed definitive of game-theoretic equilibria) include preferences that agents have with respect to the actions of other agents. (Of course, they also include preferences that agents have with respect to their own actions.) However, agents are not, in the situations under consideration, prepared to interfere with one another, for example agent A is not prepared to force agent B to perform action x, even though A may prefer B to perform x. A question arises as to whether these preferences with respect to the actions of other agents are

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Social Action non-action determining. A preference is non-action determining if it makes no difference to anyone’s actual actions, or to what anyone’s actions would have been if others had acted differently. Obviously the actions in question are either the conventional actions themselves, or else the actions that are conventional or nonconventional alternatives to those conventional actions. Not all the actions not done in conformity to a convention, or its conventional alternative, are non-conventional alternatives to that convention. Some actions that are not performed in conformity to a convention or to its conventional alternative are not performed instead of, that is as alternatives to, that conventional action. They may, for example, be performed in addition to, or even at the same time as, the conventional action. The non-action-determining preferences may determine actions that are irrelevant to the convention, and its (non-conventional and conventional) alternatives. It seems that some preferences with respect to the actions of others are at least indirectly action determining, namely in the case where an agent prefers to act in accord with the preferences of others. But however things stand in general with the actiondetermining status of preferences for other actions, I want to suggest that many preferences for other actions may in fact be non-action determining (in the above sense) and that such non-actiondetermining preferences are the root of the troubles besetting Lewis’s definitions. Moreover, it is because these preferences are non-action determining that they do not yield a clear sense in which conventional actions are interdependent. For these and other reasons the non-action-determining preferences in question have no place in an analysis of conventions. Let us first see if we cannot locate the particular preferences cited in Lewis’s clauses that enabled the counter-examples to his definitions to be generated. Neither of the clauses provides a sufficient condition for conventionhood. The reason for this is that many nonconventional alternatives fit them. Thus on certain construals of, for example, the meeting-place paradigm, the combination of actions describable as everyone staying at home, is wrongly characterised by Lewis’s clauses as a convention. Assume that most stay home but that a few, unaware of the actions of the majority, proceed to the meeting place. This latter minority are upset at having wasted their time. There are two distinct types of preference of interest at this 102

3. Conventions point. Each memeber of the minority has a preference with respect to his or her own action. This is the first type of preference. Each of these preferences is action determining. In the normal course of events any such preference would have determined the preferring agent’s action. Had the agent known, as he or she normally would have, that the majority were not going to try to meet, the agent would not have tried either, but would also have stayed at home. Then there is a second type of preference. There are the preferences of each member of the majority, those staying at home, that the members of the minority, those proceeding to the meeting place in vain, not so proceed to that meeting place. The majority are sympathetic people and do not like to see others wasting their time. But this second type of preference is non-action determining. Preferences of this second type make no difference either to the actions of the majority (those with the preferences) or to the actions that are the objects of these preferences (the actions of the upset minority). Nor is there some other (relevant) possible combination of actions with respect to which these preferences would be action determining. Moreover, it is these non-action-determining preferences that are the root of Lewis’s troubles. Let us now assume that the agents’ majority are not particularly sympathetic to the timewasting minority. On this new assumption the combination describable as everyone (or almost everyone) staying at home ceases to be, by Lewis’s lights a convention. For it is now not the case that everyone prefers everyone to stay at home on condition that at least all but one do. It is now not the case that almost everyone prefers anyone more to conform given almost everyone conforms. It is by manipulating these preferences that agents have with respect to the actions of others that combinations of actions, which are in fact nonconventional alternatives to conventions, are characterised by Lewis’s definitions as now conventions, now non-conventions. The inclusion of these preferences with respect to the actions of others ensures that Lewis’s clauses do not provide a sufficient condition for conventionhood. The same points can be made with respect to the counterexamples to the necessity of Lewis’s definitions. The particular preferences causing the trouble are once again certain preferences agents have with respect to the actions of agents other than themselves. In one counter-example it is the preferences of the majority 103

Social Action with respect to the actions of some minority or other, in the other it is the preferences of the majority with respect to the actions of a particular minority. But in both cases if we made an ad hoc alteration to these preferences, the combination of actions would, by Lewis’ lights, become conventions. Thus they would become conventions if in both cases the majority decided that after all they liked the minority or minorities in question. In both cases the combinations are in fact conventions irrespective of whether or not these ad hoc alterations are made. Finally in both cases these preferences are non-action determining. These preferences make no difference to the actions of the majority, nor do they make any difference to the actions of the (disliked) minority. I take myself to have: (a) located the particular preferences that enable the counter-examples to Lewis’s definition to be generated; and (b) shown that they are non-action determining. I have not however shown that these preferences are in this way problematic for Lewis in virtue of being non-action determining. I will return to this question shortly. These located preferences with respect to the actions of others ought to be excluded from any definition of convention for the following reasons. First, as has been seen, they enable combinations of actions that are not conventions to be characterised as conventions, and combinations that are conventions to be characterised as non-conventions. Second, these preferences are non-action determining. I am inclined to think that this fact is in itself sufficient to warrant their exclusion from any role in the definition of conventions. How can the notion of a conventional action be taken to consist (in part) in preferences which are such that there are no circumstances in which any of those preferences determine that that action is performed, or that it is not performed? At the very least we are owed an explanation as to why such non-action-determining preferences ought to be included in the definition of conventions. One role for preferences is to assist in laying bare the structure of the interdependence of action involved in conventions. If a preference is non-action determining it clearly makes no contribution to the interdependence of action. Indeed, and this is my third objection to these non-action-determining preferences, these preferences currently under fire prevent the provision of a precise account of the structure of the interdependence of action involved in 104

3. Conventions conventions. Lewisian preference structures, as has been seen, are consistent with a range of different structures of interdependence of action. It is consistent with a Lewisian preference structure that each xs only on condition the others do, or that each xs only on condition the others do not y (where ying is one, but only one, way of not xing). The combination in which all meet at A, and conform to Lewis’s clauses in so doing, is an example of a combination involving the former structure of interdependence of action. The combination in which all stay at home, and conform to Lewis’s clauses in so doing, exemplifies the latter structure. Moreover, Lewisian preference structures are consistent with the same underlying interdependence of action. The different construals of the clothes example constitute different Lewisian preference structures. But we can assume that the underlying structure of interdependence of action is the same throughout these construals. Fourth, these preferences are not appropriately manifested. Such preferences, as we have seen, may be present in one instance of the recurring conventional situation, and absent in the next. Moreover, their presence may go completely undetected by other agents. If these preferences are genuine preferences, it might be thought that they must manifest themselves publicaly in one way or another. This may or may not be true. However, what is true and relevant is that it is not necessary that agents, insofar as they are parties to the convention, and are aware of the conventional behaviour of the other parties to that convention, must be exposed to actions which manifest the non-action-determining preferences in question. (Remember that what is meant here by a non-action-determining preference is a preference that does not determine a conventional action or an action that is an alternative to a convention.) Qua parties to the convention, who are fully aware of all the conventional behaviour going on, agents may well be blissfully unaware of these preferences that agents have with respect to the actions of others. I conclude that the non-action-determining preferences in question, since they are not in the appropriate way publicly manifested, cannot be (in part) constitutive of conventional action. That concludes the presentation of my reasons for expelling nonaction-determining preferences from any definition of conventions, and in particular for expelling certain of Lewis’s conditional preferences from his account. But this expulsion of certain preferences 105

Social Action with respect to the actions of others leaves Lewis’s theory in disarray. Appropriately adjusted, his clauses now read: “each (or most) prefers himself to conform, if (most of) the others conform.” Any preference an agent might have with respect to a non-conforming minority other than that agent has disappeared. But it is consistent with this clause that agents prefer to conform even when the others do not conform. And if that were so, the combination describable as all conforming could hardly be a convention. Each may conform irrespective of what the others do.25 Moreover, in excluding these troublesome preferences, the door has been opened to conflict between agents’ preferences. Thus each conformer may now prefer all or most others not to conform. A prefers A but not B to conform, B prefers the reverse. I would like finally to deal with a residual matter. We saw that certain Lewisian preferences with respect to the actions of others – preferences which enabled counter-examples to be generated – were non-action determining. But it was pointed out that the fact that these preferences were non-action-determining did not show that these preferences enabled counter-examples to be generated in virtue of being non-action determining preferences. Now I want to try to show that these preferences were in fact troublesome by virtue of being non-action determining. We intuitively judged that a combination of actions is or is not a convention, on the basis of the presence or absence of interdependence of action. Thus in the meeting-place paradigm the combination of actions describable as each going his own way independently of what the others did was judged a non-conventional alternative to a convention – notwithstanding Lewis’s definitions. On the other hand, the various clothes paradigms were judged to be conventions because agents’ actions were interdependent – again notwithstanding Lewis’s clauses. But interdependence of action is determined by action-determining preferences only. Thus, whether or not a combination is a convention is going to turn on the structure of actiondetermining preferences; non-action-determining preferences will be irrelevant. Lewis’s definitions failed to determine whether or not a combination of action was or was not a convention, and failed by virtue of consisting in part of certain preferences with respect to actions of others. But since these latter preferences are non-action determin106

3. Conventions ing, his failure looks as if it were inevitable. It is only actiondetermining preferences that determine conventionhood. The preferences in Lewisian structures that enabled counter-examples to his definitions to be generated were non-action determining. We see now that it was by virtue of being non-action determining that these preferences enabled those counter-examples to be generated. collective ends and conventions One way of eliminating non-action-determining preferences from conditional preference structures is simply to strip from these structures all preferences that agents have with respect to the actions of other agents. We are then left with: “each prefers himself to conform, given all but himself (most excluding himself) conform.” That is, we are left with a formula that specifies only (conditional) preferences an agent has with respect to that agent’s own actions. This formula is to be understood as providing a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for the conformity of any agent to a convention. To strengthen this clause so that it provides both a necessary and a sufficient condition of the preferences involved in a convention we need to insert “only if.” We thus have: “each (most) prefers to conform, if, and only if, (most of) the others conform.” The following case demonstrates the necessity for this strengthening of our clause with the inclusion of “only if.” Suppose each man preferred to wear an expensive black tie, but preferred others not to, so that he could lord it over them. However, he would also want to wear an expensive black tie if they did, since otherwise they would lord it over him. Each thus wears an expensive black tie whatever the others do. This does not look like a convention since there is no interdependence of action. It is a situation in which each prefers to conform, given the others do. It is just that it is also a situation in which each prefers to conform, given the others do not conform. The strong formulation, “each prefers to conform, if and only if the others conform,” rules out cases such as the expensive black tie case, and for this reason should be preferred to the weak formulation. (Lewis’s way of ruling out such cases as the expensive black tie case involves recourse to non-action-determining preferences, given most wear expensive black ties, most prefer the nonwearers to wear them – a way we have seen to be problematic.) 107

Social Action It seems that conventions vary. Some, like Lewis’s telephone case, are such that each prefers to conform if and only if all the others conform. Some, like the meeting-place paradigm (on certain construals), are such that each prefers to conform if and only if most of the others conform. Still others, for example the clothes paradigm (on certain construals), are such that each prefers to conform if and only if some fairly indeterminate majority conform. Some sort of disjunctive definition would thus be called for. In what follows I will, for the sake of simplicity, make use only of the formula “each prefers to x, if and only if the others x.” Our new conditional preference formula yields straightforwardly a principle expressing the interdependence of action involved in conventions, or at least does so on the plausible assumption that agents act in accord with their preferences. That principle is, “each xs if, and only if, the others x.” (To this extent our conditional preferences clause is to be preferred to Lewis’s, which, as we saw, did not yield a precise sense in which parties to a convention performed interdependent actions.) Moreover since the preferences involved in our new principle are preferences with respect to an agent’s own actions, and preferences that, in the various possible circumstances definitive of convention and their conventional and non-conventional alternatives, determine his actions, they are action determining and publicly manifested in the appropriate way. (Remember that not all of the nonconventional actions an agent might perform are alternatives to that convention.) Our conditional preferences meet the requirement that preferences that are (in part) constitutive of conventional behaviour must be manifest in that behaviour. I would now like to turn back to the problems detected with respect to the necessity and the sufficiency of Lewis’s definitions. Lewis’s definitions were found not to provide a sufficient condition when it was discovered that they could not distinguish between conventional and non-conventional alternatives to conventions. They could not so distinguish because they included certain preferences with respect to the actions of others. Our new principle states that each prefers to x if, and only if, the others x. Notice that there must be an alternative state of affairs in which each prefers to y, in the case where the others are not xing. (Here, to y is one way, but not the only way, of not xing.) It may be 108

3. Conventions true, though it is not necessary, that in fact each ys if and only if, the others y. If this were the case then ying would be, according to our theory, a convention. If, in such a case, ying interacted appropriately with xing, ying and xing would be conventional alternatives. But what of the situation where it is not the case that each ys if and only if, the others y, but rather that each ys only on condition the others do not x? I suggest that the latter principle describes a situation which is a non-conventional alternative to a convention. Thus, to take an example, suppose each prefers to go to a (prefers to x) if, and only if the others do. Then it would be true that each prefers to stay at home (prefers to y) only on condition the others did not go to a (did not x). But each does not, in our example, prefer to stay at home if, and only if, the others stay at home. If one, a minority, or even a majority of others, decided to visit their mums rather than stay home, this would make no difference to anyone else’s actions or preferences. If we accept that non-conventional alternatives are defined (in part) in terms of the principles, each prefers to y only on condition the others do not x, and each ys only on condition the others do not x, while conventions are defined (in part) in terms of the principles, each prefers to x if and only if the others x, and each xs if and only if the others x, then obviously we have distinguished between conventions and non-conventional alternatives to conventions. Moreover, we can see where Lewis went wrong. His clauses specified a number of idle non-action-determining preferences, which are not necessary for a situation to be a non-conventional alternative, but which may in fact be present in the case of such alternatives, thereby leading those alternatives to be wrongly characterised as conventions. The idle preferences in question were, of course, certain of these with respect to the actions of other agents. Again, if we look at the problems Lewis had with the counterexamples to the necessity of his definitions, we see that they disappear under our new definitions. In the clothes paradigm (and numerous other cases of its type) each prefers to conform if, and only if, a majority (probably some fairly indeterminate majority) of the others conform – according to our new principle. Indeed this appears to be how things are. The fact that there are various minorities such that people may not wish them to conform does not, according to our definition, rule these cases out. Once again our definitions 109

Social Action succeed where Lewis’s failed, and just because Lewis’s, but not our own, included non-action-determining preferences. It seems we must accept our new principles as characterising the preference structure, and the interdependence of action, involved in conventions. It is important to see that these principles of themselves do not entail that conventions be the solutions to informal coordination problems. All that is required for there to exist a situation in which each prefers to x if and only if the others do is for there to be some alternative situation such that each prefers to y only on condition that the others do not x. But the alternative is, as such, only a non-conventional alternative. It is not a conventional alternative. There may in fact be a situation which is a conventional alternative, but this is not entailed by our principles. It is not something that arises out of necessity from the structure of interdependence of action involved in conventions. Thus that structure is not such as to entail that conventions solve informal coordination problems. In fact I will argue in the section on conventions and alternatives in this chapter that conventions are quite often not the solutions to informal coordination problems. (Of course, many conventions are the solutions to informal coordination problems.) I now want to argue that the notion of a collective end, needs to be built into our definition of convention (and indeed would have to have been built into Lewis’s definition, even had his definition been acceptable in other respects). Why introduce collective ends? The conditional preferences in our definitions are to be understood in terms of a means–end model. Agent A has a conditional preference for some action x, because it realises some end of agent A’s. (A does not prefer x in the sense of liking x just for its own sake.) Now, in the case of conventions, as we have seen, A prefers to perform x if, and only if, B performs some action, y. A, for example, prefers to drive on the left, if and only if, B drives on the left. The reason A prefers to perform x, and do so if and only if, B performs y, is that the action, x, in conjunction with the action, y, realises an end A has. Thus in the driving case, A’s end is the avoidance of automobile collisions. This is also B’s end. A and B perform actions (x and y), which jointly realise a collective end. This is not to say that the ultimate end of each is a collective end. A may ultimately only be interested in A’s own survival. But the 110

3. Conventions point is that in order to realise A’s ultimate and, as we might say, individual end, A must first realise a collective end. Collective ends, then, explicate the conditional preferences, and the interdependence of action, involved in conventions. Moreover, there are additional reasons for introducing collective ends. First, the principle, each xs if and only if the others x, is as it stands false. It may well be that an agent would, under certain circumstances, x, but x for entirely his own purposes, and thus independently of what other agents were doing. If this were so then it would be false that each xs if and only if the others x. What is required to overcome this difficulty is a relativisation of the principle to some collective end – relative to an agent’s concern to realise a collective end, that agent xs only if the others x. For, relative to that collective end, there would be no point in his xing, if the others did not also x. Second, collective ends need to be built into the actual definition of conventions in order to provide a context for conventions. Suppose there is an act of type x, such that each xs if, and only if, the others x. Moreover assume that there is some other action type, y, such that each would y if, and only if, the others yed. An agent cannot x and y at the same time. The regularity in which all x is a convention, as is the regularity in which all y. Are xing and ying conventional alternatives? Not necessarily. I may drive on the left if, and only if, others do. And I may row in rhythm, r, if, and only if, the others do. Moreover, I cannot drive a car and row a boat at the same time. Thus the additional requirement in Lewis’s definitions – the requirement that an agent cannot conform to a convention and its conventional alternative at the same time – is met. But nevertheless driving on the left and rowing in rhythm r are not conventional alternatives. Collective ends determine for us what, if anything, counts as a conventional alternative. Driving on the left and rowing in rhythm r do not realise the same collective end. Moreover, we need collective ends to tell us what constitutes a non-conventional alternative to a given convention. A nonconventional alternative is the combination of actions such that each ys only on condition the others do not perform the action x, where everyone xing realises a given collective end. Nor is it simply our account of the conditional preferences, and of the interdependence of action in conventions, that requires the 111

Social Action introduction of collective ends. Take Lewis’s clause to the effect that everyone prefers everyone to x, given that at least all but one x. His other clause requiring an alternative is (in effect) “everyone would prefer everyone to y, given that at least all but one yed.” But how does he determine whether or not ying is a conventional alternative to xing? Lewis includes in his definition mention of a recurring situation, s. Presumably ying is only a conventional alternative to xing if agents would y in situation s. But the notion of a situation s is as it stands inadequate. What constitutes the situation? The fact that all the agents live in 2000 in a liberal democratic state is not the situation – so what is? The notion of a situation employed here needs to be enriched so as to enable it to distinguish between regularities that are alternatives (in our sense) and those that are not. My suggestion here is that the notion of a collective end needs to be introduced in the way I have indicated. Finally, having introduced the notion of a collective end we dispense with the notion of conditional preferences; we no longer need the principle each prefers to x if and only if the others x. We can simply function with the notion of each agent having the collective end, believing that the other agents will x, and therefore also (intentionally) xing as a means to that end. This is not to say that the agents do not have preferences with respect both to various collective ends, and with respect to the actions performed to realise those ends. Agents do, of course, often prefer some means to another means, and desire one end more than another. Indeed, when we come to discuss the rationality of convention following we will need to say something about these preferences. But it is to say that they are not required for the constitutive account of joint action, in general, and of conventions, in particular. conventions and alternatives Are conventions always the solutions to informal coordination problems? It was shown earlier that the conditional preferences, and the interdependence of action in conventions, were not such as to entail that conventions be the solutions to informal coordination problems. Indeed, we saw in the section on Lewis on conventions that even on Lewis’s theory, conventions need not be the solutions to

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3. Conventions informal coordination problems; a conventional regularity could have a non-conventional alternative that squared with Lewis’s clause requiring an alternative regularity. (Insofar as Lewis’s theory allowed this, it failed to achieve one of its most important aims.) The model of conventions developed above would allow both regularities that solve informal coordination problems and regularities that solve other sorts of problems to count as conventions. However a clause could be added that required that there be at least one conventional alternative to a convention. Such a clause would perform the function Lewis intended his clause specifying an alternative regularity, r1, to perform. When we reject the addition to our definition we are rejecting Lewis’s fundamental intuition that conventions are the solutions to informal coordination problems. It does not seem that there are good grounds for such an addition, as it does not seem that all regularities are solutions to informal coordination problems. First, the conditional preferences and the interdependence of action are in fact the same for both regularities that solve informal coordination problems and certain other regularities that do not solve this type of problem. This is presumably a motivation for viewing both types of regularity as belonging to the same basic category. (Examples of such regularities, which do not solve informal coordination problems, follow.) Second it seems we call many regularities without conventional alternatives conventions. Indeed, even Lewis calls some of these regularities conventions. Take Lewis’s stag-hunting paradigm. The combination of actions describable as everyone hunting rabbits is not a convention. It is not a convention either on Lewis’s theory or our own. It may well be that everyone does not prefer everyone to hunt rabbits, given that at least all but one hunt rabbits. It may well be that almost everyone does not prefer any one more to hunt rabbits given almost everyone hunts rabbits. If some individual or minority is not hunting rabbits then most may be indifferent to this. Indeed, it is possible agents do not care if a majority are not hunting rabbits just so long as they are not hunting stag. The combination in which all hunt rabbits is not a convention on Lewis’s theory. On our own theory the combination in which all hunt rabbits is a non-conventional alternative to a con-

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Social Action vention. It is the combination such that each ys (hunts rabbits) only on condition the others do not x (do not hunt the stag). I believe this reading squares with intuition. Paradigms of the stag-hunting variety are agreed by all to be conventions, but they do not involve any conventional alternative; they do not solve informal coordination problems. Nor is the staghunting example an isolated case. We can generate like cases by making adjustments to some of Lewis’s other examples. Take Lewis’s oligopoly case. Each seller can either try to compete with the others by undercutting their prices – a situation in which sellers lose out – or each can agree with the others to a common (high) price, that is they can enter into an oligopoly. In agreeing to set a common price each agrees to set his individual price at the uniquely best price for an oligopoly in that market – something determined by an economist. It is not a matter of convention whether or not to sell goods at price x rather than y. That is a matter of calculation and is determined by the economist. What is a matter of convention is that each sells the goods at that price which maximises the revenue of the oligopoly. But there is not an alternative to this procedure. The alternative is a non-conventional price-cutting war. Take Lewis’s land case, but change the commodity to money. We are a gang of thieves. Either we can fight over the spoils after each robbery, or we can divide it equally. (No one would accept less than an equal share.) But having divided it equally there is no further question for the robbers about who gets which share. The spoils may have been put in a common bank account for safekeeping, and each robber simply writes out a withdrawal slip when the time for division of spoils comes about. Moreover there are other conventions, not generated from Lewis’s paradigms which do not have alternative conventions. Suppose in a department of philosophy the staff members must each on pain of defying the regulations, mark their own students papers. However, members of staff decide in the interests of greater accuracy, and thus fairness, to double-mark. Each double-marks only on condition the others do – it is a convention. But there is no conventional alternative. Single-marking is not a convention, and triplemarking is out of the question – it requires a greater expenditure of time and energy than is either available or acceptable. It seems that there just are a range of regularities in action, which 114

3. Conventions we call conventions, but which do not have conventional alternatives. Moreover, the double-marking example shows that there are cases in which there is a possible, that is logically possible, conventional alternative, such as triple-marking, but this alternative is unacceptable to the particular agents in question. It seems that there can be strong reasons for particular conventional alternatives to a point where some, like triple-marking, are ruled out. Thus, in the meeting-place paradigm it might be that places a and b are conventional alternatives, though place a is much preferred. On the other hand, while place c is a logical possibility, it may be completely unacceptable for other reasons. I suggest then, that conventions can be thought of as existing on a continuum. At one end each convention has at least one clear conventional alternative, and at the other there are conventions with no logically possible alternative convention. In between there are conventions for which the question as to whether they have any conventional alternative becomes fairly indeterminate. I conclude that, contra Lewis, conventions may be, but are not necessarily, the solutions to informal coordination problems. joint procedures The upshot of our discussion thus far is that conventions are regularities in action directed to a collective end. So conventions are a species of joint action. However I now want to claim that conventions are in fact a particular species of joint action, namely, joint procedures. For the purpose of what follows I introduce the distinction between regularities (in action) and what I have termed (in Chapter 1) procedures.26 In the case of a regularity in action an agent provides himself or herself (or could do so) with a reason for performing the action the agent regularly performs, and does so (or could do so) on each and every occasion of the agent’s performance of that action. Moreover the reason in question justifies that action considered on its own. The existence of such a reason (or perhaps reasons) means that there is (or could in principle be) a new decision to perform the action on every occasion on which it is performed. There is, if you like, one decision for one action. In the case of procedures, by contrast, there is a single decision 115

Social Action to perform many actions. The agent decides at time, t1, that he will perform an action, (of type) x, at time, t2, and also perform x at times, t3, t4, and so on. One decision then – the decision to adopt the procedure – governs a whole set of future actions. One process of reasoning will take place, namely that justifying the adoption of the procedure. Thereafter the agent will not provide himself with a reason for acting, he will merely identify the situation as being of the sort for which he has adopted the procedure in question, and then simply follow the procedure, perform the action. The basic characterisation of procedures, then, is in terms of a set of actions governed by a single decision, as opposed to a set of actions each member of which is governed by a different decision. It is important to note the property of conditionality which does to some extent qualify the sense in which a procedure is a single decision to perform a set of actions, but which does not negate it. For in the first place our definition of procedure is such that it is not the case that in every instance of a situation covered by a procedure a new decision to perform the requisite action type could be made after a process of adequate reasoning. This means that the matter of whether the conditions under which the original decision was made to adopt the procedure have been met is not something that can arise on every occasion, but rather only from time to time. In the second place even in those instances in which the matter of whether the conditions have been met does arise there is no wholly new decision to perform the action type in question. For there is a presumption in favour of the procedurally determined action, a presumption which can only be offset by the non-obtaining of the condition or conditions. Of course, an agent could decide on a wholesale review of a given procedure, and refuse to be bound by this presumption or to be restricted to these conditions. In that case the agent would indeed be embarking on a process of reasoning that would lead to a wholly new decision, and the agent’s subsequent action or actions would not in any sense be bound by the original decision to adopt the procedure in question. Insofar, then, as an agent in periodic reviews of a given procedure accepts the presumption in favour of the procedural action and merely tests the relevant condition or conditions, the agent’s original decision to perform a set of actions does not collapse into a series of decisions each of which governs a subset of the original set. 116

3. Conventions How could it be rational to adopt procedures rather than merely conform to regularities in action? The point of procedures is to free oneself from the need to made a new decision after a process of reasoning on every occasion of a recurring situation. Such decision making with its attendant reasoning is hugely time-consuming. What are the grounds for thinking that conventions are not simply regularities directed to the realisation of collective ends, but also procedures? These are twofold. First, many cases of actions directed to the realisation of a collective end are not conventions, even if they recur. Two men may regularly move furniture without it being a convention. Second, conventions are like procedures in that they are necessary. This is so for the following reason. An individual person’s interaction with the world is extraordinarily complex. (Here and in what follows I am restricting attention to that interaction which is in principle under the agent’s control.) Indeed it is so complex that an agent could not possibly on every occasion be consciously attending to and deciding with respect to every aspect of that interaction. Hence the need for procedures. The adoption of procedures effectively puts the agent’s actions on automatic; there is now no need on every occasion to attend to and decide upon every aspect of the interaction. Should the agent decide to attend to any aspect it is possible to do so; but the point is it is not possible to do so for every aspect. Now I suggest, further, that the complexity of the individual’s social interaction is likewise hugely complex, and thus calls for the adoption of procedures by individuals. However, in the case of an enormous amount of social interaction, individuals have collective ends, and therefore they have to adopt procedures conditionally on others adopting those procedures. Consider, for example, the number of linguistic conventions followed even in a brief and uncomplicated conversation. Members of large communities could not possibly communicate with one another unless each individual had a set of procedures and, in fact, the same set as everyone else; so each adopts a given set of procedures and does so on condition the others have adopted that set. Quite clearly, then, there is a need for procedures in relation to social interaction, and in particular, there is a need for structures of conventions. Accordingly, I offer the following theory of convention – the theory of conventions as joint procedures. 117

Social Action There is a convention to x in the recurring situation s among agents A, B, C, and so on, if and only if: (1) each has the procedure to x in s; (2) each has the procedure to x in s if and only if the others have the procedure to x in s; (3) each has the collective end e, and each xing in every instance of s realises e; (4) each mutually truly believes that everyone has the procedure to x in s.

The following points need to be made in respect of this account. The collective end e could be a recurring collective end; an end that is realised in each of the instances of the recurring situation. Thus, in the meeting place example, you and I have a collective end to meet today. But the collective end might also be a one-off collective end; an end that is realised only if the joint procedure is followed by everyone (or most) in all (or most) instances of the recurring situation. This is the case with motorists who not only have a recurring collective end not to collide with whoever is driving in the opposite direction on this stretch of road today, but also a collective end that there be no collisions on the roads at any time between any of the motorists (or at least that the number of such collisions be minimised). And there are various possible means–end and other relationships between these different collective ends. For example, it might be that satisfaction of a set of recurring collective ends is a means to, and indeed constitutive of, satisfaction of a one-off collective end. For many conventions there are going to be exceptions. Some parties to the convention will not have the requisite mutual beliefs, some will not have a procedure, and so on. We need to build in these exceptions to our definition. Thus it is only necessary that slightly less than everyone has a procedure, a collective end, and the requisite mutual beliefs. Moreover, each having a procedure will be in general conditional on most – and not all – others having that procedure. The number here will vary from case to case. Some conventions will have a threshold below which the collective end will not be able to be achieved, and thus each will have the procedure conditional on any number of others having it so long as that

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3. Conventions number is at or above the threshold. For other conventions this will not be the case. In respect of clause (4), agents may mutually believe that each agent has a procedure, but mutually believe this under an incomplete, vague, or partially false description of what it is to be a procedure. They may, for example, mutually believe (truly) that agents have a habit of conforming. Similarly, if agents mutually believe that each agent has a collective end – something not required by my definition they may do so under an incomplete, vague, or partially false description of collective ends. This is not problematic insofar as their mutual beliefs concerning procedures and collective ends are under descriptions that are sufficient to mark off procedures and collective ends from other phenomena for most of those agents for most of the time. This is a theory of conventions considered individually. But to understand conventions fully an additional account is required of the way individual conventions relate to one another; an account of the nature and point of structures of conventions is called for. Here I will content myself with saying that conventions do come in structures, and that in fact they are layered vertically as well as horizontally (so to speak). An example of intermeshing on the horizontal dimension would be the convention to stop on a red light and the meshing convention to go on a green light. The combination of these two conventions secures the single collective end of avoiding collisions at intersections. As far as the vertical dimension is concerned, here too there is intermeshing. Thus, as I have argued elsewhere,27 a need for a conventional arrangement to deal with conflict in society gives rise to the convention of government. But this in turn gives rise to a host of additional problems in respect of the type of government, its membership and so forth, many of which are solved by conventions. In fact, central institutions such as language and government will typically involve structures of conventions in which there is both horizontal and vertical intermeshing. Thus in respect of language there are the meshing horizontal conventions in respect of, for example, the marks, “blue,” “yellow,” “green,” and so on, to stand for, respectively, the colours, blue, yellow, green, and so on. Then there are various vertical conventions of grammar with respect to such words, and which govern word

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Social Action order, for example that adjectives such as “blue” are placed immediately before the nouns they qualify. Sometimes the word “convention” is used to refer to one-off conventions, for example a one-off agreement to use green circles to indicate the route to follow in a car rally. Gilbert takes this to constitute an argument against theories such as Lewis’s and mine that take conventions to be regularities in action.28 However, in the first place such one-off conventions are non-standard in that most conventions govern actions in recurring situations. Second, many, if not all, such one-off cases are instances of agreement. But agreements cannot be conventions except in some derivative sense. For agreements presuppose language and languages are conventional; therefore agreements presuppose conventions. One-off cases are like conventions in some ways, for example in that they involve interdependence of action and collective ends, but they are not standard conventions, and their analysis will be importantly different. Conventions must be such that they are publicly manifest, but what does this requirement amount to? Certainly an individual’s adoption of a convention is dependent on exposure to other individuals – conformity to a convention is not, for example, something wired into an individual. For conformity to a convention, in its role as conventional action, is not action an individual decides to undertake independently of knowing whether other agents have undertaken it. Moreover, whether or not agents are in fact conforming to a convention must be able to be determined by the other parties to that convention – since conformity by one depends on conformity by the others. These considerations suggest that actions governed by conventions must be externally or behaviourally manifest. However, a stronger requirement than this is not obviously called for, and the theory before us is consistent with this requirement; it simply needs to be stated as a constraint on actions governed by conventions. There may well be a convention to x even though most would prefer not to x. Take a convention to wear suits in an expatriates’ club in Malawi where the weather is very hot and the wearing of suits rather uncomfortable. Suppose each prefers not to wear a suit. How is it possible that most are wearing suits if they prefer not to? What people prefer to do and what they actually do differ on occasion due to inertia or weakness of the will. Or maybe their prefer120

3. Conventions ence not to wear suits is weaker than their preference that everyone in the club dress in the same way, and thus each prefers to wear a suit given the others do, notwithstanding the discomfort.29 At any rate, on my theory such a practice is a convention since the members of the club have the procedure of wearing suits, do so only on condition the others do, and have the de facto collective end that each wear a suit. There is also mutual true belief. But it is not, in this example, a belief in the value of the wearing of suits in the club. Rather, it is the mutual true belief that each has the procedure of wearing a suit. A related type of case is one in which most agents publicly proclaim a particular policy, while privately rejecting it. It is the conventional view but no one believes in it. Such cases have been taken by Gilbert to be problematic for individualist theories, requiring as they do that the conventional “action” be a matter of mutual knowledge or true belief.30 But here we need to be clear as to what the conventional “action” is. There may be cases where people have conventional views, which is to say that their actual beliefs are held by convention. But this is not such a case. There is no convention to believe in the policy in question. For a convention to x requires that each x; and no one in fact believes in the policy. Rather, in this case, there is a convention to express a particular view. (Such a convention is maintained by the fact that each believes (falsely) that the others believe in the view everyone expresses. Perhaps each even (falsely) believes that the others believe in the view everyone expresses, as a matter of convention. That is, perhaps everyone falsely believes that there is a convention to believe this view.) But this squares with my theory. Each has a procedure to express a particular belief; there is mutual true belief that each has this procedure, and so on. Individuals may be parties to a convention that in fact has a conventional alternative, and yet they may be unaware that there is any conventional alternative.31 This kind of case is quite unproblematic for my theory. This theory does not insist that parties to a convention be aware of some alternative convention; it does not even require that there be a conventional alternative. However, this possible lack of awareness of conventional alternatives has to be sharply distinguished from the possible lack of awareness of a nonconventional alternative. I suggested above that conventions always 121

Social Action have non-conventional alternatives, and I suggest here that parties to a convention are always aware of this non-conventional alternative, at least in the sense that each is aware that there is the possiblity of everyone failing to conform to the convention. The argument for this is simply that if someone is aware that he is performing an action then he is aware that there is the possibility of his not performing it; and if each is aware that everyone is performing a particular action – as is the case with conventional actions – then each is aware of the possibility of everyone not performing that action. A final issue concerns the normative character of conventions. Conventions are normative in some sense; parties to a convention at least feel that they and others ought to conform, and they upbraid agents who flout the convention. I claim that if parties to the convention have the collective end realised by the convention then on pain of irrationality they ought to conform; so conventions are normative in the minimal sense implicit in instrumental rationality. However, I reject the claim of Gilbert and others that conventions are necessarily normative in some stronger sense.32 However, the question of whether or not conventions are norms, and if so in what sense, is an issue that I will take up in Chapter 4 on social norms. Social norms are an important category of social actions in their own right. So let me now turn to their philosophical analysis.

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4

Social Norms

In this chapter I am concerned with a second main category of social actions, namely social norms of action. In order to focus my discussion I will stipulate at the outset that social norms as I understand them have the following characteristic features.1 First, they are regularities in action, or inaction. Second, social norms are not qua social norms, explicit rules or laws. They are not, qua social norms, explicitly formulated; nor do they, qua social norms, emanate from any formal authority or have any formal sanctions attached to them. Social norms are not necessarily laws. As it happens, many social norms are in addition laws, and I will consider the relationship between laws and social norms in the penultimate section of this chapter, entitled Social Norms and Laws. Third, social norms have a normative dimension in the sense that participating agents believe or feel that they ought to or, more often, ought not to perform the actions prescribed, or proscribed, by the norm. This normative dimension is not merely that implied by instrumental rationality; it is not simply that on pain of irrationality one ought to do what realises one’s ends. Nor is this normative dimension, at least prima facie, prudential in character – agents do not conform because they believe it is in their self-interest – nor does it, prima facie, simply consist of feelings of sympathy for others.2 Fourth, the normative dimension of social norms provides agents who accept those norms with reasons for action, and I will consider this relationship in the final section of this chapter, entitled Social Norms and Practical Reason. Fifth, conformity by one member of a social group is in some sense dependent on conformity by the other members of the group. That is, if an action is performed in accordance with a social norm the agent who performed it did so, at least in part, in virtue of the attitudes or actions of the other agents who conform to that norm. Perhaps social norms include norms regulating manners, such as 123

Social Action not belching in public or not asking personal questions of strangers. However, in this chapter I am principally concerned only with what I take to be the fundamental kind of social norms, namely norms with (felt) moral or ethical content.3 Such norms include norms prohibiting murder, assault, theft, rape, and child molestation and rape – such norms are typically enshrined in the criminal law – norms governing business practices, and norms of loyalty to one’s group or nation. They also include norms of honour and norms of revenge. As H. L. A. Hart points out, norms with felt moral content are important for social life; they may in fact conflict with individual self-interest; and they are sustained in part by social pressure.4 However these norms are not in all cases beneficial to a society. For example, norms of revenge, although they involve intense social pressure to conform, are by and large socially undesirable.5 Some of these norms, such as refraining from violence, telling the truth, keeping promises, being faithful to one’s spouse, and avoiding incest, govern the actions of all or most members of a community; others govern behaviour in specific institutional and professional contexts. The latter norms include principles governing the constitutive activities of the profession or institution, such as the principle that doctors treat the most needy patients first, or that police officers do not shoot unarmed fleeing felons. They also include more general institutional norms, including norms of loyalty. One example here is the norm according to which doctors close ranks when one of their own is accused of malpractice; another is the norm according to which police officers do not inform on their corrupt colleagues. This chapter is in five sections. In the first section I will argue for a distinction between social norms and conventions. Here I will rely on the account of conventions put forward in Chapter 3. In the second section I will argue against a popular conception of social norms according to which they are regularities in action sustained by agents’ desires to be approved of by others. In the third section I will offer a different account in terms of beliefs held interdependently. In the fourth section I will consider the relationship between social norms and laws. In the fifth and final section I will discuss the relationship between social norms and practical reasoning.

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4. Social Norms social norms and conventions Agents perform individual actions to realise their individual ends, and they also perform joint actions or cooperative actions in order to realise collective ends (see Chapter 2). Sometimes joint actions – and the realisation of collective ends – ultimately contribute to individual ends, but I doubt that this is always the case. The more plausible view is that human activity involves both individual and collective ends, and that neither kind of end is necessarily a means to the other kind of end. In Chapter 3 I argued that conventions are in essence regularities in joint action. So conventions are regularities in action that realise collective ends. For example, conventions of language enable the collective end of communication, conventions governing dress enable mutual identification, and conventions governing manners facilitate social interaction. As indicated in Chapter 1, I also hold that the analysis of actions should be sharply distinguished from the analysis of the motivation of actions. Actions should be defined in terms of conative and cognitive notions such as intentions, individual ends, and beliefs. Affective notions such as desire and emotion are only needed for the analysis of the motivation of actions. Since joint actions, including conventions, are after all actions, or regularities in action, it is plausible that they too can be analysed without recourse to motivational notions. Indeed, my analysis of joint actions, including conventions, operates wholly in terms of conative and cognitive notions, such as intentions, beliefs, and especially collective ends. Let us now consider the normative dimension of actions, including joint actions and conventions. It should be kept in mind that here, as elsewhere in this chapter, I am concerned with subjective normative force. A norm of social action has subjective normative force if agents believe or feel that the action prescribed (or proscribed) by the norm ought to be performed (or ought to be avoided). Needless to say social norms can have objective normative force, as well as subjective normative force. Indeed, if objective normative force attaches to a regularity in an obvious way, we might be entitled to assume that that objective normative force is subjectively felt by those who conform to the regularity in question. 125

Social Action Sometimes we say that an action ought not to be performed because it would be instrumentally irrational to do so; other things being equal, it may be irrational not to perform an action that realises an end that one possesses. I take it that the felt requirement on the part of agents that they be rational in this sense – instrumentally rational – is not the kind of normative force that is at issue when it is claimed that conventions, such as the convention to drive on the left, or the convention to double-mark exam scripts, have normative force. Certainly it is not the kind of normative force that is distinctive of the fundamental category of social norms at issue in this chapter, namely moral normative force. I also take it that the notion of an individual action can be analysed without recourse to the notion of a social norm. So much for individual actions. However, I further suggest that the notion of a joint action, including that of a convention, can be analysed without recourse to the notion of a social norm, or indeed, any notion of moral normative force. Naturally, if an agent fails to do his or her part in a joint action or convention, he or she might legitimately be accused of irrationality, namely instrumental irrationality. But such an agent is not necessarily blameworthy in any further sense. If this is so, then the tendency to think that cooperative actions have moral normative force simply by virtue of being cooperative is mistaken. In my view the normative force of joint actions and conventions derives from whatever intrinsic and consequential moral or ethical value particular actions, interactions, and ends have; it does not arise simply from the fact that they are joint actions, or even recurring joint actions. So agents who perform actions, including joint actions, and who conform to conventions are not necessarily moral agents; they might be merely instrumentally rational agents. On the other hand, agents who conform to social norms are necessarily moral agents (as well as being rational agents). Since by definition social norms have moral normative force, my suggestion that conventions do not necessarily have moral normative force enables me, indeed compels me, to maintain a distinction between conventions and social norms. But am I in fact entitled to hold that conventions do not necessarily have moral normative force? I will consider an argument for the proposition that conventions necessarily have moral normative force. I will then outline a number 126

4. Social Norms of ways in which conventional regularities can come to have objective moral normative force, but stop short of being social norms. I will then suggest that some conventional regularities that have objective moral normative force can easily and naturally come to be social norms. So it turns out that some, perhaps many, conventions are after all also social norms. However, the point is that being a social norm is a contingent feature of some conventions, not a necessary feature of all conventions. Note that my position is related to, but different from, David Lewis’s on this point.6 He also appears to hold that conventions are norms, though contingently so. However, in his view the normative force of conventions basically derives from the irrationality of failing to act in accordance with one’s own conditional preferences for conformity. A party to a convention ought to conform on pain of irrationality. However, this kind of argument, if it works, only demonstrates that conventions are norms with the force of instrumental rationality; not that they have the kind of moral normative force which I take to be characteristic of social norms. Moreover, in Lewis’s view the normative force of conventions can be derived from defining features of conventions. In my view, the normative force of conventions attaches to conventions in virtue of extraneous facts, such as the benefits that may contingently flow to parties to conventions. More of this later. Let me first consider the two arguments for the proposition that conventions necessarily have moral normative force. As we saw in Chapter 2, according to Margaret Gilbert joint actions, and therefore (on my account of conventions) conventions, necessarily have normative force, albeit what she terms institutional normative force. We saw reason to reject Gilbert’s argument. However, there is another argument we need to consider. This argument for the moral character of conventions is one advanced by Thomas Scanlon in his discussion of promises.7 Scanlon himself does not use this argument in relation to conventions. In his discussion of promises, Scanlon argues that moral obligations can be generated when agents intentionally cause other agents to have beliefs about the actions of those agents, and when those other agents act on those beliefs and are harmed in so doing. Scanlon invokes the principle that agents are under a moral obligation not to intentionally cause false beliefs. This is apparently a 127

Social Action species of the obligation not to deceive. However, on my account of conventions, the failure of an agent to conform to a convention he has conformed to in the past would not in general involve any such deception of the other parties to the convention, since the nonconforming agent does not intentionally cause the other agents to have a false belief that the first agent is or will conform. Rather the other agents come to so falsely believe on the basis of the evidence of the past conformity of the first agent to the convention. And there is no obvious general normative principle to the effect that if you intend to discontinue performing a certain kind of action or activity, then you should avoid behaving in such a way that others might come to take your behaviour as evidence that you will continue to perform the kind of action or activity in question. In the course of his discussion Scanlon also invokes the principle of due care – agents are under a general obligation not to harm others. Specifically, agents ought to avoid causing other agents to have false beliefs, if having such beliefs causes harm. However, on my account of conventions there is no question of agents being harmed, even in the minimal sense of not having their desires satisfied. Rather, the only “harm” brought about is that of other agents failing to have some of their collective ends realised. But not realising an end does not of itself constitute harm. Whether or not an agent’s failure to realise his or her end is harmful to that agent depends on the nature and consequences of the particular unrealised end in question. Naturally, an agent or group of agents whose ends were never or seldom realised might over time suffer harm qua agent. But that is a different matter. I conclude that Scanlon’s argument cannot be used successfully to demonstrate that conventions in themselves have moral or even quasi-moral (including institutional) normative force. Notwithstanding this discussion some conventions do in fact have moral normative force. How can this be? I suggest that there are a variety of reasons why parties to specific conventions may incur moral obligations to other parties to the conventions in question, and as a result come to believe that they have these moral obligations. (Shortly I will detail some of these reasons.) However, it does not follow from this that moral normative force is a necessary feature of conventions, or that conventions are necessarily social norms. For the existence of these moral obligations – whether felt or not – is a 128

4. Social Norms contingent feature of specific conventions. Nevertheless, if parties to a convention incur moral obligations to one another for some specific reason, and if these moral obligations are strongly felt and mutually acknowledged, then the convention may come to be a social norm. So some, perhaps many, conventions are also social norms. But it remains true that in order for a regularity in action to be a convention it is not necessary for it to be a social norm. The converse point should also be made, namely that in order for a regularity in action (or inaction) to be a social norm it is not necessary for it to be a convention. The existence of social norms proscribing such actions as murder and torture is sufficient to demonstrate this. One reason why parties to a convention might incur moral obligations is the possibility of free-riding. Consider what happens if someone fails to do his part to conform to a convention because on some occasion it is not in his interest to do so. Such free-riding will typically attract moral disapprobation in virtue of the perceived unfairness of the failure to conform. An example of this is pushing in front of others in line. Note that the requirement not to push in derives from the unfairness of receiving the benefit provided by the particular convention of lining up, not from the mere fact that there is some convention or other in force. In the film, The Life of Brian, a line was formed for the purpose of distributing crosses. The bearer of the cross was then nailed to his cross! Presumably, no one would object to someone pushing in in this situation. A second reason is the moral unacceptability of a failure to realise the collective end of the convention. Consider the example of driving on the left-hand side of the road in Australia. This is a convention – a regularity in action that realises a collective end. However, drivers are considered to be under a moral obligation to conform to this convention in virtue of the threat to their own life and the lives of others if they do not. A third reason is the belief that the act – which also happens to be governed by a convention – is intrinsically good, or at least is believed to be so. For example, there might be a convention to offer condolences to the bereaved, but the act of offering condolences might also be felt by members of a community to be intrinsically morally good. Finally, I will mention a more general reason why a given conven129

Social Action tion might have moral normative force. Individual conventions can attract normative force in virtue of the fact that they are constituent elements of structures of conventions, and the structures have normative force. Such structures typically provide a benefit to everyone, though constitutive conventional elements may only benefit some people sometimes. However, all agents may be under an obligation to conform to these conventional elements on all occasions in virtue of the benefits provided by the structure as a whole. For example, the convention in a community that cars give way to the right may not suit you because of the particular routes that you travel. However you might be very happy with all the other individual conventions that constitute the structure, including the convention that cars drive on the road and pedestrians use the footpath, that cars drive on the left, and so on. Accordingly, you are obliged to give way to the right. This point can be strengthened when we consider that in the case of certain structures of conventions – for example, those governing the linguistic system – it is not simply that everyone generally benefits, but that it is inconceivable that individual agents could function beyond a rudimentary level without being parties to this structure of conventions. Accordingly, everyone has a very fundamental interest in conforming to such a structure of conventions, even if on occasion they have an interest in flouting one or other of the constituent conventions, or one of the conventions most of the time. the social approval theory Having distinguished conventions from social norms it is now time to try to provide an account of social norms. I do so in the context of wanting to bypass the view that social norms are, so to speak, sui generis. Some sociological theorists, including Durkheim, proffered the view that social norms were part of the basic furniture of the world, and that while we could discover and ascribe various properties to social norms, there could be no analysis of them, and in particular no reductive analysis in terms of individual persons, actions, and attitudes. I find this Durkheimian perspective unduly pessimistic and prefer to consider more analytical acccounts.8 The fact that everyone in a given social group believes that a certain action morally ought to be performed (or ought not to be 130

4. Social Norms performed) in a recurring situation does not make the action a social norm. It may simply be an individual norm, which happens to be followed by everyone, but each acts independently of everyone else. Nor would the fact that everyone believed that everyone else ought to perform the action entail that it was a social norm. For, notwithstanding these beliefs, it could still be the case that the behaviour and attitudes of each were independent of anyone else’s. For example, each might act wholly out of a desire to keep faith with his or her own moral beliefs.