On collective intentions: collective action in economics and philosophy

Synthese 157 (2):141-159 (2007)
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Abstract

  Philosophers and economists write about collective action from distinct but related points of view. This paper aims to bridge these perspectives. Economists have been concerned with rationality in a strategic context. There, problems posed by “coordination games” seem to point to a form of rational action, “team thinking,” which is not individualistic. Philosophers’ analyses of collective intention, however, sometimes reduce collective action to a set of individually instrumental actions. They do not, therefore, capture the first person plural perspective characteristic of team thinking. Other analyses, problematically, depict intentions ranging over others’ actions. I offer an analysis of collective intention which avoids these problems. A collective intention aims only at causing an individual action, but its propositional content stipulates its mirroring in other minds

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Citations of this work

Collective Intentions And Team Agency.Natalie Gold & Robert Sugden - 2007 - Journal of Philosophy 104 (3):109-137.
Social cognition in the we-mode.Mattia Gallotti & Chris D. Frith - 2013 - Trends in Cognitive Sciences 17 (4):160-165.
A unified social ontology.Francesco Guala & Frank Hindriks - 2015 - Philosophical Quarterly 65 (259):177-201.
Modest sociality and the distinctiveness of intention.Michael E. Bratman - 2009 - Philosophical Studies 144 (1):149-165.

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References found in this work

Reasons and Persons.Derek Parfit - 1984 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press.
Convention: A Philosophical Study.David Kellogg Lewis - 1969 - Cambridge, MA, USA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Convention: A Philosophical Study.David Lewis - 1969 - Synthese 26 (1):153-157.
Collective Intentions and Actions.John Searle - 1990 - In Philip R. Cohen Jerry Morgan & Martha Pollack (eds.), Intentions in Communication. MIT Press. pp. 401-415.

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