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