We-Narratives and the Stability and Depth of Shared Agency

Philosophy of the Social Sciences 47 (2):95-110 (2017)
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Abstract

The basic approach to understanding shared agency has been to identify individual intentional states that are somehow “shared” by participants and that contribute to guiding and informing the actions of individual participants. But, as Michael Bratman suggests, there is a problem of stability and depth that any theory of shared agency needs to solve. Given that participants in a joint action might form shared intentions for different reasons, what binds them to one another such that they have some reason for continuing to participate in the joint action in the face of conflicting reasons? This is particularly pressing in cases of joint actions that unfold over long periods of time. There are a variety of ways that the problem of stability and depth of shared intention might be addressed. We review some of those ways in section 1. We do not intend to challenge these approaches. Instead, in this article, we want to suggest that narrative is an additional, perhaps in some cases a predominant, way in which stability and depth are achieved. According to some theories, narrative plays a crucial role in the development of the self. Our suggestion is that the narratives we tell about our joint projects contribute to the development of a stable and deep “we.”

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Author Profiles

Shaun Gallagher
University of Memphis
Deborah Tollefsen
University of Memphis

Citations of this work

Interpersonal Moral Luck and Normative Entanglement.Daniel Story - 2019 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 6:601-616.
Autonomous agency, we‐agency, and social oppression.Catriona Mackenzie - 2023 - Southern Journal of Philosophy 61 (2):373-389.
Group Agents and the Phenomenology of Joint Action.Jordan Baker & Michael Ebling - forthcoming - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences:1-25.

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References found in this work

Phenomenology of Perception.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1945 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Donald A. Landes.
Phenomenology of Perception.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1962 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Donald A. Landes.
Phenomenology of Perception.Maurice Merleau-Ponty - 1962 - New York: Routledge. Edited by Donald A. Landes.

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