Abstract
This essay examines Raimo Tuomela’s Social Ontology studying the developed theory of we-mode collective intentionality and the ontological background picture it is embedded in. The first section characterizes the collective intentionality – approach to social ontology, distinguishing three forms of it (irrealism, perspectivalism, realism), and contrasting it with other realist views. Section 6.2 argues there is a tension between Tuomela’s view on the fictitiousness of group agency, and the reality of rights and responsibilities had by groups. Section 6.3 studies Tuomela’s we-mode/I-mode approach. It argues that that acting in the we-mode and in the I-mode are always relative to a group, so that people who belong to several groups typically act both in the we-mode relative to one group and in the I-mode relative to another group, simultaneously. In such contexts, people are best seen acting in an “overall mode” rather than I-mode or we-mode simpliciter.
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Notes
- 1.
One basic distinction is between distributive collective states, where collectivity reduces to each having the relevant state severally, and more demanding non-distributive collective states, where they have the same state together or jointly, or where they constitute a group that has the intentional state or is the agent. Another central distinction is that between locating collectivity in the contents of the relevant attitudes, in the mode in which the attitude is had, and in the subject of the relevant attitude. In some sense, Tuomela’s we-mode approach is encompassing in locating non-distributive collectivity in all of these loci of analysis. See e.g. SO, 98 on the “sociality” of social reasons in these three loci.
- 2.
In this section, I will assume that “acceptance” is the collective attitude relevant for the ontology of the institutional reality, and I illustrate the different approaches to social ontology on how they regard games, organizations, or institutional reality in general (The different approaches to social ontology are general, concerning mutatis mutandis any collective attitudes and any aspects of social reality).
- 3.
Reading Hegel’s objective “Geist” as objective mind (see Knowles 2002) would go nicely with stressing that objective reality is mental, whereas reading Hegel’s objective “Geist” as objective spirit, would amount to locating institutional reality as an objective, public layer of the world, albeit one dependent on (subjective) minds. This difference in emphasis is related to the difficulty of translating Geist as mind or as spirit.
- 4.
Tuomela toys with the idea at least concerning group agents: “What does it mean to say that a group agent is fictitious and has fictitious features? My view is that group agents are mind-dependent entities and fictitious in the mind-dependence sense that involves collective imagination, idealization, and construction. They do not exist as fully intentional agents except perhaps in the minds of people (especially group members).”(SO 47, italics added). On epistemic (as opposed to ontological) objectivity, see e.g. SO 51–52, and p.92: “Such institutional facts are real (epistemically objective) for the group in question”. Cf. Searle 1995, p.8 ff.
- 5.
Wilfrid Sellars’s (1963) idea of holding two images in stereoscopic vision is helpful in seeing this contrast. One image is that of the natural, causal realm which is mind-independent, and the other is the realm which is mind-dependent, here dependent on collective intentions: for things to ‘exist’ in this realm is for them to be ‘for’ a collective mind in a perspectival fashion. Some mental or psychological state is needed for keeping anything within this perspective in existence. On Tuomela’s take on “for-groupness”, SO 68, 111, 232, 291; PS 35–42 and passim. [In this text I abbreviate Tuomela 2007 as “PS”].
- 6.
On group-social normativity, see SO 30, 40, 44; PS 27 and passim.
- 7.
Before encountering Tuomela’s characterization in SO of group agency as partly fictitious, I have automatically assumed Tuomela, as well as Searle, to have what I call here a realist approach to social and institutional reality; this may have been careless. The first section of this paper grew “backwards” out of an attempt to think through that fictitiousness-idea (and was boosted by the realization that Searle’s “ontologically subjective” might in this way be given a literal reading, instead of meaning “ontologically mind-dependent but objective”.).
- 8.
Some other attitudes are not of constitutive relevance: each member may have regrets about the adoption of squirrel pelt as currency, and the social reality is the same with or without such regrets.
- 9.
Tuomela stresses the role of collective acceptance as the relevant kind of (collective) psychological state. Squirrel pelt is money if and only if squirrel pelt is collectively accepted as money. Institutions are theorized as collective mental contents, which thanks to the reflexivity and performativity of collective acceptance, also come to be constructed. See e.g.:“Collective acceptance thesis for group sociality (CAT): A proposition, s, is group-social and correctly expresses a group-social fact in a primary sense in a group g if and only if (a) the members of g collectively accept s as true or correctly assertable for g, and (b) necessarily, they collectively accept s as true or correctly assertable for g if and only if s is true or correctly assertable for the members of g functioning as group members.” (SO, p. 220). “(SI) Proposition s expresses a social institution (in the standard sense) for group g if and only if (1) s expresses or entails the existence of a g-based, collectively accepted social practice (or a system of interconnected social practices) and a norm or a system of interconnected norms (including some constitutive norms conferring a special institutional status on some item) that are in force in g, such that the social practice is governed by the norm (or norm system); (2) the members of g rationally collectively accept s for g with collective commitment; here it is assumed that collective acceptance for the group entails and is entailed by the truth of s for the group.” (SO, p. 227).
- 10.
A paradigm case could be the normative relevance of promises: it is not dependent on the promisor’s continuous psychological state, but on the fact or act of promise, which as a historical event or fact has normative significance to the promisor’s normative score. It is clear that making promises is mind-dependent, but it can be argued that once the promise has been made, nothing is needed to sustain it, to keep the obligation in existence – no psychological state (anymore than any other, say, need-based normative reasons). History (in the sense of facts, not of stories about them) is what it is, independently of collective intentionality. And historical facts have normative significance, so the view under consideration says, independently of any help from continuing ‘acceptance¨ or so.
- 11.
Things may not be straightforward: suppose A steals from B when law L is in force. Law L is no longer in force. Now the same act would not count as stealing. Does that mean that A can no longer be held responsible? Well, the stealing did take place relative to laws that were then in force. Or suppose that during a very brief fashion of wearing certain types of hats, certain gestures with those hats were taken to be cases of insulting. Suppose A insults B in that way, and has not apologized for that. The fashion moves on, and no-one wears hats of that sort anymore – yet it remains that A owes B an apology. The normatively relevant fact need not have ceased to exist.
- 12.
Such an approach could be in line of Marx’s slogan that people create history but not in the circumstances of their choice, or Margaret Archer’s (1995) criticism against “central conflation” that she argues Giddens or Bourdieu are making. Archer’s claim concerns structure and agency, but can be mutatis mutandis applied to institutions and intentionality. Other approaches could include “non-intentionalist” views of different sorts, e.g. Cripps 2013, and intentionalist views, which hold that collective intentionality is not needed.
- 13.
Whether the causal powers of the social action systems can be reduced to the causal powers of the individuals is open to interpretation – there are claims suggesting both in SO, see, p. 47, “Group agents qua nonintentional systems have causal powers and are capable of causing outcomes in the real world”, and p. 275, fn 53: “caused by a group agent through its members’ activities and causal powers”.
- 14.
This is one way to understand what Tuomela means by “partly fictitious”: “For example, a business corporation qua corporation can act and causally produce effects in the world. This is its real property. But it can also legally responsible for what it does; and this is a partly fictitious property.”(SO, 92).
- 15.
These questions point back to Tuomela’s background ontology. In addition to the causal realm, and the imagined fictitious realm, we can pose questions about normativity: are reasons or oughts, rights and responsibilities merely fictitious? Are they “perspectival”, merely aspects of collective intentionality? Or are they real, objective features of human lifeworld?
- 16.
This element is close to what Margaret Gilbert (2013) calls joint commitment – the key is that the partners are normatively bound to each other, and are not merely privately committed.
- 17.
“A collective g consisting of some persons is an I-mode social group if and only if (1) The members of g (privately) accept some goals, beliefs, standards, and so on, as constitutive for the collective, forming the (privately) shared ethos E, and accordingly are committed to E at least in part because the others in g (privately) accept E, and this is mutually believed in g. (2) The members of g mutually believe that they (noncircularly characterized) are group members—at least in the weak sense that they share the beliefs that they themselves belong to g and that the others believe that they belong to g, under suitable, perhaps collective descriptions of membership.”(PS, 22)
- 18.
In the I-mode group, there is no collective commitment, but merely private construals of the “ethos of the group” and mutual beliefs concerning it (an example in PS, 22–3, suggests that the members are willing to take part in some moral cause as long as sufficiently many others take part in it; perhaps Sally Scholz’s 2008 cases of joining a movement of political solidarity are like this). Thus, in the case of I-mode groups it is also possible to act in the pro-group I-mode case without collective commitments.
- 19.
That is, one can have “pro-group” attitudes only if there is a group. Of course, one can have positive attitudes towards a population, which does not even regard itself as a group, and in that sense, pro-population attitudes. Some cases of the so-called “team reasoning” seem to be such cases.
- 20.
On Tuomela’s definition of having intentions in the “I-mode”, see e.g. SO, 70.
- 21.
The Hegelian insight that modern lifeform consists of multiple social relations to which aspects of one’s identity – and one’s freedom – correspond, can be of help here.
- 22.
As a borderline case then, we will have a case of acting in an I-mode simpliciter: when the action is in the I-mode relative to all groups one belongs to. Given the centrality of such groups as a family, work place, various hobby groups, legal community, a democratic citizenry, and moral community, I think such cases will be rare: one typically leads one’s life through different roles, not in abstraction from them.
- 23.
“Modernity” here refers vaguely to an era characterizable in terms of certain principles, such as equal human rights for persons etc. Cf. PS, 3: “In modern societies people tend to belong to several groups, and the basic or constitutive goals, values, standards, beliefs, practices, and so on (using one term “ethoses”) of these groups may sometimes be in conflict with each other.”
- 24.
Some social psychological theories such as self-categorization theory and social identity theory give a picture of people as group-members of one group at a time and nothing else; and they study empirically how some group categorizations (falling far short of we-mode groups) get to be relevant.
- 25.
Again, a Hegelian insight of individual self-realization through social memberships might be at place. See e.g. Hardimon 1994.
- 26.
- 27.
Note that there is a real possibility of not acting in the “overall mode” – say, acting out of habit, realizing a practice, acting on some imperfect heuristics, or some procedure, or according to one’s role-obligations, which one assumes will not lead one to act as one overall ought. One may have chosen not to form an overall judgement, so it is not that one acts against one’s overall judgement.
- 28.
I here use “private” in the ordinary sense of the distinction between public and private, not in Tuomela’s technical sense of the plain or private I-mode.
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Acknowledgement
Arto Laitinen wishes to thank Raimo Tuomela, Maj Tuomela, Kaarlo Miller, Raul Hakli, Pekka Mäkelä and Mikko Salmela for comments; Raimo Tuomela wishes to thank Maj Tuomela and Kaarlo Miller for comments.
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Laitinen, A. (2017). We-Mode Collective Intentionality and Its Place in Social Reality. In: Preyer, G., Peter, G. (eds) Social Ontology and Collective Intentionality. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 8. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-33236-9_11
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