Par auteur > Xiromeriti Vasiliki

Actions can be attributed to groups. Consider, for instance, an orchestra performing a Beethoven symphony or a soccer team winning the championship. To distinguish collective action from mere collective behavior, philosophers focus on shared intentions and explore the conditions under which groups can be said to hold intentional states. However, with a few exceptions (notably Bratman (2014)), the question of how shared intentions are formed remains underexplored. My paper aims to address this theoretical gap by focusing on practical reasoning leading to shared intentions.

Recently, it has been argued that this kind of practical reasoning can be captured by theories of team reasoning imported from game theory (Gold and Sugden 2007; Pacherie 2011). According to this approach, individuals identify with the group and reason not as private persons, but as group members. In other words, instead of asking ”What should I do?”, each member asks ”What should we do?” - and by extension, ”What should I do as a member of the team?”.

However, this approach faces two key challenges. First, team reasoning struggles to account for the mutual commitments central to joint action, raising doubts about whether it truly leads to shared intentions. Second, because team reasoning relies on rational choice-theoretic assumptions, it neglects the formation of collective attitudes – particularly preferences. Yet, overcoming axiological disagreement is a crucial aspect of cooperation.

To address these limitations, I contrast team reasoning with shared reasoning and deliberation. In particular, shared deliberation, involving the joint weighing of reasons and alternatives, plays a pivotal role in shaping shared intentions and provides insights that the team reasoning framework cannot accommodate.

References

Bratman, M. (2014). Shared agency: a planning theory of acting together. New York: Oxford University Press.

Gold, N. and R. Sugden (2007). Collective intentions and team agency. Journal of Philosophy 104 (3), 109–137.

Pacherie, E. (2011). Framing joint action. Review of Philosophy and Psychology 2 (2), 173–192.