This new essay collection by distinguished philosopher Margaret Gilbert provides a richly textured argument for the importance of joint commitment in our personal and public lives. Topics covered by this diverse range of essays range from marital love to patriotism, from promissory obligation to the unity of the European Union.

I question the adequacy of Margaret Gilbert''s account of collectivefeelings of guilt as collective judgments which do not necessarilyhave any phenomenological components. I question whether joint commitment theory in its present form helps us to understand orresolve social conflicts.

According to Margaret Gilbert, two or more people collectively believe that p if and only if they are jointly committed to believe that p as a body. But the way she construes joint commitment in her account – as a commitment of and by the several parties to “doing something as a body” – encourages the thought that the phenomenon accounted for is not that of genuine belief. I explain why this concern arises and explore a different way of (...) construing joint commitment, in order to avoid the concern. This leads me to propose a revised Gilbertian account of collective belief, according to which two or more people collectively believe that p if and only if they are jointly committed to p as true. (shrink)

For almost three decades, Margaret Gilbert has introduced a new account of social facts taking “joint commitments”, not only explicit but also implicit, as the cement of sociality properly understood. Gilbert has used this original account of collective phenomena to clarify a variety of issues, both in the philosophy of rights and in the philosophy of the social sciences. This paper focuses on the latter domain; it argues that although Durkheim and Mauss are central references in her pioneering (...) work, On Social Facts, Gilbert’s model has been underestimated in the fields of sociology and anthropology. This may come from the fact that Gilbert provides the reader with only imaginary examples. To overcome this difficulty, Bouvier investigates several historical examples in two related domains:, the political and the religious. Another reason for this relative lack of interest may come from Gilbert’s very unconventional interpretation of the Durkheimian explanation of social beliefs. Although, on the one hand, her “contractualist” (or Rousseauist) interpretation permits a sharp illumination of certain social facts, it may, on the other hand, impede the recognition of the specificity of other kinds of beliefs, which sociologists and anthropologists—including Durkheim—usually consider as collective beliefs. Bouvier, by contrast, introduces alternative models, illustrating them with similar, although ultimately distinct from previous, historical examples. (shrink)

I defend some of Gilbert’s central claims about our capacity jointly to commit ourselves, and what follows from an exercise of it. I argue that, to explain these claims, we do not need to suppose, as Gilbert does, that we ever are jointly committed, that is, jointly in a state of being committed. I offer a diagnosis of why the gratuitousness of this supposition has been overlooked.

The phenomenon of shared intention has received much attention in the philosophy of mind and action. Margaret Gilbert (1989, 2000c, 2014b) argues that a shared intention to do A consists in a joint commitment to intend to do A. But we need to know more about the nature of joint commitments to know what exactly this implies. While the persistence of joint commitments has received much attention in the literature, their impersistence has received very little (...) attention. In this paper, we shed light on the impersistence of joint commitments by showing how joint commitments can be dissolved by unexpected events. (shrink)

Margaret Gilbert has long defended the view that, roughly speaking, agents share the intention to perform an action if and only if they jointly commit to performing that action. This view has proven both influential and controversial. While some authors have raised concerns over the joint commitment view of shared intention, including at times offering purported counterexamples to certain aspects of the view, straightforward counterexamples to the view as a whole have yet to appear in the literature. Here we (...) provide such counterexamples to show that joint commitment is neither necessary nor sufficient for shared intention. (shrink)

I argue that obligations of an important type inhere in what I call 'joint commitments'. I propose a joint commitment account of everyday agreements. This could explain why some philosophers believe that we know of the obligating nature of agreements a priori. I compare and contrast obligations of joint commitment with obligations in the relatively narrow sense recommended by H. L. A. Hart, a recommendation that has been influential. Some central contexts in which Hart takes there (...) to be obligations in his sense are contexts in which there are obligations of joint commitment. Nonetheless, different senses of 'obligation' appear to be at issue. (shrink)

Tomasello frequently refers to joint commitment, but does not fully characterize it. In earlier publications, I have offered a detailed account of joint commitment, tying it to a sense that the parties form a “we,” and arguing that it grounds directed obligations and rights. Here I outline my understanding of joint commitment and its normative impact.

Collective intentionality is one of the most fundamental notions in social ontology. However, it is often thought to refer to a capacity which does not presuppose the existence of any other social facts. This chapter critically examines this view from the perspective of one specific theory of collective intentionality, the theory of Margaret Gilbert. On the basis of Gilbert’s arguments, the chapter claims that collective intentionality is a highly contingent achievement of complex social practices and, thus, not a basic social (...) phenomenon. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, Gilbert’s thesis that certain kinds of collective intentionality presuppose joint normative commitments is introduced. Second, it is argued that, on this view, individual commitments can only constitute the relevant kinds of collective intentional states if there are socially shared “principles of membership” that connect the force of individual commitments to a shared content. Third, it is shown that strong collective intentionality depends on the practical acceptance of shared norms and on the establishment of authority relations through mutual recognition. (shrink)

What is it to do something with another person? In the author's book On Social Facts and elsewhere, she has conjectured that a special type of commitment - joint commitment - lies at the root of acting together and many other central social phenomena. Here she surveys some data pertinent to this conjecture, including the assumption of those who act together that they have associated rights against and obligations towards each other. She explains what joint commitment is, how (...) it relates to the data noted, and argues that an appeal to joint commitment does not involve a pernicious form of holism. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In what sense is commitment essential to joint action, and do the participants in a joint action themselves perceive commitment as essential? Attempts to answer this question have so far been hampered by clashes of intuition. Perhaps this is because the intuitions in question have mostly been investigated using informal methods only. To explore this possibility, we adopted a more formal approach to testing intuitions about joint action, sampling naïve participants’ intuitions about experimentally controlled scenarios. This (...) approach did reveal patterns in participants’ responses which may hint at potential conceptual links between commitment and joint action. It did not however provide evidence to support the view that commitment is essential to joint action, at least not from the agents’ own perspective. We conclude that intuitions alone, even when drawn systematically from a large sample, may be a poor basis for theorizing about joint action. (shrink)

This paper concerns the credibility problem for commitments. Commitments play an important role in cooperative human interactions and can dramatically improve the performance of joint actions by stabilizing expectations, reducing the uncertainty of the interaction, providing reasons to cooperate or improving action coordination. However, commitments can only serve these functions if they are credible in the first place. What is it then that insures the credibility of commitments? To answer this question, we need to provide (...) an account of what motivates us to abide by our commitments. We first discuss two conceptions of the nature of the commitments present in joint action and of the norms that govern them. We contend that while normative considerations may have some motivational force, there are reasons to doubt that they, by themselves, could provide a sufficient motivational basis to fully explain why agents abide by their commitments and thus why their commitments are credible. In the next two sections, we discuss two proposals regarding further sources of motivation, reputation management and social emotions. We argue that while reputation management and social emotions certainly play a role in motivating us to act as committed, there are both theoretical and empirical reasons to think that neither captures the most basic motivational force at work in sustaining commitments. We propose instead that the need to belong, i.e., the need to affiliate with others and form long-lasting bonds with them, is what primarily motivates us to interact and engage with those around us and act so as to preserve and reinforce the bonds we have forged with them. We argue that the need to belong is a more basic proximate motivation for conforming to commitments, in the sense both that affiliative behaviors are evidenced much earlier in human development than either reputation management or social emotions and that the need to belong is at least part of an explanation of why we care for our reputation and why we care about others’ assessments of our behavior. (shrink)

Volume 28, Issue 1, February 2020, Page 114-127.

In this paper, we evaluate the proposal that a central function of commitments within joint action is to reduce various kinds of uncertainty, and that this accounts for the prevalence of commitments in joint action. While this idea is prima facie attractive, we argue that it faces two serious problems. First, commitments can only reduce uncertainty if they are credible, and accounting for the credibility of commitments proves not to be straightforward. Second, there are (...) many other ways in which uncertainty is commonly reduced within joint actions, which raises the possibility that commitments may be superfluous. Nevertheless, we argue that the existence of these alternative uncertainty reduction processes does not make commitments superfluous after all but, rather, helps to explain how commitments may contribute in various ways to uncertainty reduction. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to explore the role commitments may play in shaping our sense of joint agency. First, we propose that commitments may contribute to the generation of the sense of joint agency by stabilizing expectations and improving predictability. Second, we argue that commitments have a normative element that may bolster an agent's sense of control over the joint action and help counterbalance the potentially disruptive effects of asymmetries among agents. Finally, (...) we discuss how commitments may contribute to make acting jointly emotionally rewarding, both by improving coordination and by inducing or reinforcing the circumstances under which shared emotions emerge among co-agents. (shrink)

Volume 28, Issue 1, February 2020, Page 114-127.

Important work on alignment systems has been applied to philosophical work on joint action by Tollefsen and Dale. This paper builds from and expands on their work. The first aim of the paper is to spell out how the empirical research on alignment may be integrated into philosophical theories of joint action. The second aim is then to develop a successful characterization of joint action, which spells out the difference between genuine joint action and simpler forms (...) of coordination based on alignment. I begin by introducing the empirical research and two definitions of joint action. I then argue that instead of using this research in conjunction with Searle’s account of collective intentionality, as Tollefsen and Dale suggest, we would be better served by applying this research to Gilbert’s account of plural subjects. In the final sections I distinguish between alignment, coordination, and joint action, clarify the roles of joint commitment and sub-personal alignment in joint action, and argue that... (shrink)

Can the perception that one’s partner is investing effort generate a sense of commitment to a joint action? To test this, we developed a 2-player version of the classic snake game which became increasingly boring over the course of each round. This enabled us to operationalize commitment in terms of how long participants persisted before pressing a ‘finish’ button to conclude each round. Our results from three experiments reveal that participants persisted longer when they perceived what they believed to (...) be cues of their partner’s effortful contribution. Crucially, this effect was not observed when they knew their partner to be an algorithm, nor when it was their own effort that had been invested. These results support the hypothesis that the perception of a partner’s effort elicits a sense of commitment, leading to increased persistence in the face of a temptation to disengage. (shrink)

Can the perception that one’s partner is investing effort generate a sense of commitment to a joint action? To test this, we developed a 2-player version of the classic snake game which became increasingly boring over the course of each round. This enabled us to operationalize commitment in terms of how long participants persisted before pressing a ‘finish’ button to conclude each round. Our results from three experiments reveal that participants persisted longer when they perceived what they believed to (...) be cues of their partner’s effortful contribution. Crucially, this effect was not observed when they knew their partner to be an algorithm, nor when it was their own effort that had been invested. These results support the hypothesis that the perception of a partner’s effort elicits a sense of commitment, leading to increased persistence in the face of a temptation to disengage. (shrink)

The vast expansion of research in human-robot interactions (HRI) these last decades has been accompanied by the design of increasingly skilled robots for engaging in joint actions with humans. However, these advances have encountered significant challenges to ensure fluent interactions and sustain human motivation through the different steps of joint action. After exploring current literature on joint action in HRI, leading to a more precise definition of these challenges, the present article proposes some perspectives borrowed from psychology (...) and philosophy showing the key role of communication in human interactions. From mutual recognition between individuals to the expression of commitment and social expectations, we argue that communicative cues can facilitate coordination, prediction, and motivation in the context of joint action. The description of several notions thus suggests that some communicative capacities can be implemented in the context of joint action for HRI, leading to an integrated perspective of robotic communication. (shrink)

Shared intention normally leads to joint action. It does this, it is commonly said, only because it is a characteristically stable phenomenon, a phenomenon that tends to persist from the time it is formed until the time it is fulfilled. However, the issue of what the stability of shared intention comes down to remains largely undertheorized. My aim in this paper is to remedy this shortcoming. I argue that shared intention is a source of moral and epistemic reasons, that (...) responsiveness to such reasons on the part of each individual reinforces her own relevant attitudes, and that this enhances the stability of the shared intention as a whole. We thus discover an important self-reinforcing and stability-enhancing mechanism at the heart of shared intention and action. It follows from this proposal that the psychological commitment that an individual exhibits in joint action is normally a function not only of her own participatory intention, as often maintained, but also of her endorsement of the reasons created by her group’s shared intention to so act. (shrink)

The question of what it means to be aware of others as subjects of mental states is often construed as the question of how we are epistemically justified in attributing mental states to others. The dominant answer to this latter question is that we are so justified in virtue of grasping the role of mental states in explaining observed behaviour. This chapter challenges this picture and formulates an alternative by reflecting on the interpretation of early joint attention interactions. It (...) argues that the standard picture is committed to an implausible account of children's awareness of the co-attender's focus of attention. On a more natural interpretation, children engaged in joint attention perceptually recognize the co-attender's attitude to some object, as something like the (correct) answer to the question of what the object is like. The developmentally basic case is not that of attributing mental states as the causes of observed behaviour but of understanding perceived attitudes and actions as appropriate responses to the shared world. The chapter concludes by exploring how this developmental claim bears on mature adult knowledge of other minds. (shrink)

The debate regarding the nature of joint action has come to a stalemate due to a dependence on intuitional methods. Normativists, such as Margaret Gilbert, argue that action-relative normative relations are inherent in joint action, while non-normativists, such as Michael Bratman, claim that there are minimal cases of joint action without normative relations. In this work, we describe the first experimental examinations of these intuitions, and report the results of six studies that weigh in favor of the (...) normativist paradigm. Philosophical ramifications and further extensions of this work are then discussed. (shrink)

In this paper we want to reconcile two apparently conflicting intuitions: the first is that what a speaker means is just a function of his or her communicative intentions, independently of what the hearer understands, and even of the actual existence of a hearer; the second is that when communication is carried out successfully, the resulting meaning is, in some important sense, jointly construed by the speaker and the hearer. Our strategy is to distinguish between speaker’s meaning, understood as a (...) personal communicative intention, and joint meaning, understood as a joint construal of the speaker and the hearer. We define joint meaning as a type of propositional joint commitment, more precisely as the joint commitment of a speaker and a hearer to the extent that a specific communicative act has been performed by the speaker. Joint meaning is therefore regarded as a deontic concept, which entails obligations, rights, and entitlements, and cannot be reduced to epistemic and volitional mental states like personal belief, common belief, personal intention, and communicative intention. (shrink)

Joint action is central to countless aspects of human life. Here I examine the roots of joint action in infancy. First, I provide evidence that—contrary to popular belief—1‐year‐old infants do have the social‐cognitive prerequisites needed to participate in joint action, even in a relatively strict sense: they can read others’ goals and intentions, they have some basic understanding of common knowledge, and they have the ability and motivation to help others achieve their goals. Then I review some (...) evidence of infants’ and young children’s active participation in different types of joint action, from prelinguistic communication to more instrumental collaborations with others, with a particular focus on whether young children show evidence of an understanding of the commitments and obligations entailed in joint action. I conclude that the uniquely human ability and motivation to participate in joint action is already seen in infants by 1 year of age. (shrink)

Does one have special obligations to support the political institutions of one’s own country precisely because it is one’s own? In short, does one have political obligations? This book argues for an affirmative answer, construing one’s country as a political society of which one is a member, and a political society as a special type of social group. The obligations in question are not moral requirements derived from general moral principles. They come, rather, from one’s participation in a special kind (...) of commitment: a joint commitment. This theory is referred to as the plural subject theory of political obligation since, by the author’s definition, those who are party to any joint commitment constitute a plural subject of some action in a broad sense of the term. Several alternative theories are compared and contrasted with plural subject theory, with a particular focus on the most famous — actual contract theory — according to which membership in a political society is a matter of participation in an agreement. The book offers plural subject accounts of both social rules and everyday agreements, and includes discussion of political authority and punishment. (shrink)

Joint attention is typically conceptualized as a robust psychological phenomenon. In philosophy, this apparently innocuous assumption leads to the problem of accounting for the “openness” of joint attention. In psychology, it leads to the problem of justifying alternative operationalizations of joint attention, since there does not seem to be much which is psychologically uniform across different joint attentional engagements. Contrary to the received wisdom, I argue that joint attention is a social relationship which normatively regulates (...) the attentional states of two or more individuals. This social account of joint attention leans on Bart Geurts’ view of communication as commitment sharing. Its promises are: (i) to explain the role of joint attention in wider joint activities, including communicative interactions; (ii) to account for how playing this role requires individuals to deploy different psychological resources on different occasions; and (iii) to identify the rationale behind alternative operationalizations of joint attention. (shrink)

There are two general views that social ontologists currently defend concerning the nature of joint intentional action. According to ‘non-normativists’, for a joint action to be established, we need to align certain psychological states in certain ways. ‘Normativists’ argue that joint action essentially involves normative relations that cannot be reduced to the intentional states of individuals. In two ground-breaking publications, Javier Gomez-Lavin and Matthew Rachar empirically investigate the relation between normativity and joint action in several survey (...) studies. They argue that people's intuitions support neither current normativists nor current non-normativists. They suggest that there is a need for a ‘new normativism of joint action’. I first explore what a new normativism could amount to and conclude that the authors’ findings cannot support a demand for such a view. Finally, I suggest some ideas about how to move the field forward. (shrink)

In this paper I critically discuss Miranda Fricker’s ‘trust-based’ view of collective testimony—that is, testimony that comes from a group speaker. At the heart of Fricker’s account is the idea that testimony involves an ‘interpersonal deal of trust’, to which the speaker contributes a commitment to ‘second-personal epistemic trustworthiness’. Appropriating Margaret Gilbert’s concept of joint commitment, Fricker suggests that groups too can make such commitments, and hence that they, like individuals, can ‘enter into the second-personal relations of trust (...) that characterise testimony’ (Fricker 2012: 272). I argue that this choice to appropriate Gilbert’s concept of joint commitment betrays a deep problem in Fricker’s account—a misconstrual of both the object and the subject(s) of the commitment a speaker makes in testifying. After developing this criticism, I outline an alternative way of construing the speaker’s commitment, which can be applied to both collective and individual testimony. (shrink)