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 |
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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: | |
URI: | https://mural.maynoothuniversity.ie/id/eprint/11650 |
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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