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    What do aggregation results really reveal about group agency?


    Flanagan, Brian (2018) What do aggregation results really reveal about group agency? Philosophical Studies, 175. pp. 261-276. ISSN 0031-8116

    Abstract

    Discoveries about attitude aggregation have prompted the re-emergence of non-reductionism, the theory that group agency is irreducible to individual agency. This paper rejects the revival of non-reductionism and, in so doing, challenges the preference for a unified account, according to which, agency, in all its manifestations, is rational. First, I offer a clarifying reconstruction of the new argument against reductionism (due to Christian List and Philip Pettit). Second, I show that a hitherto silent premise, namely, that an identified group intention need not be determined by member attitudes according to a rule, e.g., majority, is false. Third, I show that, on rejecting this premise, the aggregation results lead instead to the conclusion that, in contrast to individual agency, group agency is non-rational.
    Item Type: Article
    Keywords: Group agency; Collective intentionality; Judgement aggregation; Social ontology; Reductionism; Discursive dilemma;
    Academic Unit: Faculty of Social Sciences > Law
    Item ID: 11650
    Identification Number: 10.1007/s11098-017-0866-9
    Depositing User: Brian Flanagan
    Date Deposited: 07 Nov 2019 16:25
    Journal or Publication Title: Philosophical Studies
    Publisher: Springer Verlag
    Refereed: Yes
    Related URLs:
    Use Licence: This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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