SEARLE’S CONTRADICTORY THEORY OF SOCIAL REALITY 1 Danny Frederick https://independent.academia.edu/DannyFrederick 3 March 2019 Abstract. John Searle, in several articles and books, has contended that institutions incorporating status functions with deontic powers are created by collective acceptance that is not analysable into individual acceptance. I point out three self-contradictions in Searle’s exposition. Keywords: collective acceptance; contradiction; deontic powers; John Searle; status function. I have criticised John Searle’s theory of ‘the construction of social reality’ in some detail elsewhere (Frederick MS). In this short paper I point out three ways in which Searle’s theory is involved in self-contradiction. All the parenthetical references below are to books or articles authored by Searle. Searle opines that we create social reality, all institutional facts, ‘things like money, property, governments, and marriages’ (1995, p. 1), by collective acceptance or collective agreement or collective assignment or collective imposition or collective recognition or collective acknowledgment (1995, pp. 1-2, 29, 41, 69, 124; 2006, pp. 13, 16, 17; 2008, p. 29; 2010, p. 94). He uses the different terms almost interchangeably, so I use ‘collective acceptance’ as the disjunction of all of them. An institutional fact, says Searle, involves the assignment to a person, a thing, or an event, of a status and a corresponding function which cannot be performed by the person, thing, or event in virtue of its intrinsic physical features. Such status functions involve constitutive rules which, rather than regulating a pre-existing activity (as do traffic regulations) bring a new kind of activity into being (as do the rules of a game). The typical form of such rules is: ‘X counts as Y in context C.’ For example: bills issued by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing count as money in the USA (1995, pp. 27-29, 37-51). Rules of the form ‘X counts as Y in context C’ can be iterated so that a ‘Y’-term from one assignment of status function can be an ‘X’-term for another assignment. For example, a person with a specific set of properties counts as a citizen; and a citizen with a specific set of properties counts as the President. Similarly, the context represented by ‘C’ may be specified in terms of things that are ‘Y’-terms from previous assignments (1995, pp. 80-87, 115-16). The functions associated with an assigned status are related to deontic powers, that is, entitlements or obligations (broadly conceived). For instance, a bank note is, physically, just a piece of paper; but because it has the assigned status of a medium of exchange, a person who possesses it is entitled to exchange it for goods of a specific value, and the piece of paper thus performs a function that it could not perform merely in virtue of its physical properties. Similarly, Tom is, physically, just a man; but because he has the collectively accepted status of a citizen of the United States, he has the right to vote in elections and the obligation to get a Social Security number (1995, pp. 38-43, 70-71, 94-112; 1997, p. 451; 2006, p. 18; 2010, p. 91). [W]e accept the status functions and in so accepting, we accept a series of obligations, rights, responsibilities, duties, entitlements, authorizations, permissions, requirements and so on. As a shorthand, I call these deontic powers (2006, p. 18). SEARLE’S CONTRADICTORY THEORY OF SOCIAL REALITY 2 On Searle’s view, the status function specified by the ‘Y’-term can exist only if it is accepted collectively, so the institutional fact in question can exist only if it is represented as existing. ‘We are confronted with a social and institutional reality that is for us objective, yet exists only because people believe it exists’ (2007, p.11). A type of thing is money only if people accept it as money, something is property only if people accept that it is property (1995, pp. 62-63, 113-18). If the collective acceptance of the status ceases, the thing ceases to have the function and deontic powers: if we decided not to accept bank notes as a medium of exchange, they could no longer be used to buy goods or services (1995, pp. 45, 90-92). Institutional facts, Searle claims, form a subclass of the class of social facts (1995, pp. 26, 31, 37-38; 2006, p. 17). He stipulates that social facts are all and only those that involve collective intentionality, which means a number of agents co-operating and sharing an intentional state, as when they believe, desire or intend something together (1990, p. 95; 1995, pp. 23-26, 37-41; 2008, p. 22). Obvious examples are cases where I am doing something only as part of our doing something… If I am a violinist in an orchestra, I play my part in our performance of the symphony (1995, p.23). A simple social fact is two people taking a walk together (1995, p. 26). Collective intentionality therefore involves more than just a collection of individuals thinking, desiring or intending the same thing, and knowing that they do so, as illustrated by the following examples (see 2010, pp. 47-48; also 1990, p. 94). BUSINESS SCHOOL CASE 1 Imagine a group of Harvard Business School graduates who were taught and come to believe Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hand. After graduation day, each goes out in the world to try to benefit humanity by being as selfish as each of them possibly can and by trying to become as individually rich as they can. Each does this in the mutual knowledge that the others are doing it. Thus there is a goal that each has, and each knows that all the others know that each has it and that they know that each knows that each has it. All the same there is no cooperation. There is even an ideology that there should be no cooperation. This is a case where the people have an end, and people have common knowledge that other people have that end, but there is no collective intentionality in my sense. BUSINESS SCHOOL CASE 2 There is a second possible case where we imagine they all get together on graduation day and make a solemn pact that they will each go out and try to help humanity by becoming as rich as they can and by acting as selfishly as they can. All this will be done in order to help humanity. In this case there is genuine cooperation and genuine collective intentionality even though it is a higher level of cooperation to the effect that there should be no lower level of cooperation. The two kinds of case are clearly different. A disputed question is whether cases of the second kind, involving ‘co-operative we-intentionality,’ can be analysed in terms of individual intentionality plus mutual knowledge or belief, in a way which nevertheless preserves the distinction between the two kinds of case. We can note that Searle insists that they cannot (1990, pp. 90-95; 1995, pp. 23-26; 2010, pp. 46-48). Thus, for Searle: SEARLE’S CONTRADICTORY THEORY OF SOCIAL REALITY (i) (ii) 3 institutional facts depend on collective acceptance which is a form of co-operative, we-intentionality; such co-operative we-acceptance cannot be analysed in terms of individual acceptance plus mutual knowledge or belief. Acceptance, says Searle, need not amount to approval: it ‘goes all the way from enthusiastic endorsement to grudging acknowledgement, even the acknowledgment that one is simply helpless to do anything about, or reject, the institutions in which one finds oneself’ (2010, p. 8; see also pp. 57, 107-108). For instance, for some years prior to 1989 the institutions of the Soviet empire were accepted by the populace out of fear, even though most people did not think them morally acceptable or socially desirable (1995, pp. 91-92). Deontic phenomena, Searle affirms, create desire-independent reasons for action, primarily reasons concerning obligations. Thus, if a person endorses an existing institution, he regards the obligations it assigns to him as valid and as thus giving him reasons for action that are independent of his inclinations or desires (1995, p. 70; 2008, pp. 29-32; 2010, pp. 9, 23, 164-69). The situation is plainly different if a person only acquiesces in an existing institution, as with the Soviet citizens who complied out of fear. Thus, for Searle, (iii) an institution may exist, because collectively accepted, yet not supply desireindependent reasons for action, because not endorsed. However, Searle also insists that an institution provides ‘desire-independent reasons’ for action, that is, deontic reasons, particularly obligations. That requires that people not only accept the institution, they must also endorse it; that is, they must accept not only that the institution exists but also that the deontic powers it assigns to various status functions are valid (1995, p. 70; 2008, pp. 29-32; 2010, pp. 9, 23, 164-69). The recognition by the agent, that is to say by the citizen of a political community, of a status function as valid gives the agent a desire-independent reason for action. Without such a recognition, there is no such thing as organized political or institutional reality (2010, p. 167). Thus, for Searle, (iv) the existence of an institution requires that those who collectively accept it also endorse it. Clearly, (iv) contradicts (iii). Searle seems to recognise that general individual-acceptance with mutual belief is sufficient for the existence of institutions: The secret of understanding the continued existence of institutional facts is simply that the individuals directly involved and a sufficient number of members of the relevant community must continue to recognize and accept the existence of such facts (1995, p. 117). Unfortunately, he goes on immediately to say that the acceptance must be collective. It seems that, while holding an explicit theory according to which collective acceptance is necessary to explain the existence of an institution, he recognises subliminally that general individual- SEARLE’S CONTRADICTORY THEORY OF SOCIAL REALITY 4 acceptance with mutual belief may be sufficient. The tension between the two leads him, in his most recent book on the topic, to say that all that is required for collective acceptance is that people individually accept the institution and have mutual belief that they accept it. As a general point, institutional structures require collective recognition… This is not a case of cooperating in a form of behaviour but simply going along with an institution… [I]n the case of collective recognition, even if the participants are opposed to collective recognition, all the same if they each individually recognize the phenomenon, and there is mutual knowledge that they so recognize it, then it looks like we have collective recognition… collective recognition need not be a form of cooperation and thus does not require collective intention to cooperate (2010, pp. 5758). That corresponds to Searle’s Business School Case 1, rather than to his Business School Case 2 which is intended to illustrate collective acceptance. Thus, for Searle, (v) individual acceptance plus mutual knowledge or belief is (at least sometimes) sufficient for the collective acceptance that creates institutional facts. However, (v) contradicts the conjunction of (i) and (ii). Perhaps Searle is here renouncing his stipulation that social facts involve collective intentionality or his contention that institutional facts are social facts. Either would amount to renouncing his previously published theory and giving us a very different one, in which properly collective acceptance, co-operative we-together-intentionality, no longer has a pivotal role; but he does not seem to realise that. Searle cannot avoid the contradiction by simply discarding (ii), thus allowing that collective intentionality can be analysed in terms of individual intentionality plus mutual knowledge or belief. Whatever the analysis of collective intentionality in terms of individual intentionality is, there is a real difference between Business School Case 1 and Business School Case 2 which prevents the former from being offered as an analysis of the latter. In allowing that the sort of individual intentionality illustrated in Business School Case 1 is sufficient for the creation of institutions, Searle also contradicts (i), which affirms that the sort of collective intentionality illustrated by Business School Case 2 is necessary. Thus, Searle’s (v) contradicts not only the conjunction of (i) and (ii); it contradicts each of (i) and (ii). Things get worse. Searle says: It is possible for an individual to construct a “private” institution and “private” institutional facts for his or her own usage. For example, an individual might invent a game that only he plays (2010, pp. 59-60). Thus, for Searle, (vi) some institutional facts are not social facts and do not depend upon collective intentionality. That contradicts (i). In a succession of papers and books, Searle has propounded an influential theory of institutional or social reality in terms of collective acceptance and collective intentionality. According to the theory, institutions comprise constitutive rules that assign status functions SEARLE’S CONTRADICTORY THEORY OF SOCIAL REALITY 5 with associated deontic powers. The existence of institutions requires collective acceptance that involves a special kind of collective intentionality that is not analysable into individual intentionality; and individual intentionality along with mutual recognition is sufficient for the existence of an institution. Further, institutional facts are a subclass of social facts, which depend upon collective intentionality; and institutional facts can exist without any form of collective intentionality, since individuals can construct their own private institutions. An institution exists only if it is collectively accepted by people who endorse the deontic powers associated with the institution’s status functions; though even huge and important institutions, such as those of the Soviet Union, may exist when the people who collectively accept them do not endorse the relevant deontic powers. That is not much of a theory! References Frederick, Danny. MS. ‘Are Institutions Created by Collective Acceptance?’ Available here: https://www.academia.edu/38466999/Are_Institutions_Created_by_Collective_Acceptance Searle, John. 1990. ‘Collective Intentions and Actions.’ In John Searle, Consciousness and Language (pp. 90-105). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2002). Searle, John. 1995. The Construction of Social Reality. London: Penguin (1996). Searle, John. 1997. ‘Responses to Critics of The Construction of Social Reality.’ Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (2): 449-58. Searle, John. 2006. ‘Social Ontology: Some Basic Principles.’ Anthropological Theory 6 (1): 12-29. Searle, John. 2007. ‘Social Ontology.’ In Intentional Acts and Institutional Facts, ed. Savas Tsohatzidis (pp. 11-28). Dordrecht: Springer. Searle, John. 2008. ‘Social Ontology and Political Power.’ In The Mystery of Capital and the Construction of Social Reality, ed. Barry Smith, David Mark and Isaac Ehrlich (pp. 19-34). Chicago: Open Court. Searle, John. 2010. Making the Social World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.