2- Groups Intention

Some of the accounts we considered in chapter 1 have been extended to make sense of #group_intention as well, so some of the philosophers and terminology will be familiar. Much of the literature on group intention has been motivated by considering the phenomenon of #joint_intentional_action, where this refers to the ways in which people can purposefully act together.

1 Defining Intention Intentions are what distinguish actions – things that I do – from mere happenings – things that happen to me.

Example: Tripping is something that happens to me; I don't do it on purpose or with an #intention. It isn't part of my plan. If, on the other hand, I perform a prat fall, I do something with an intention or purpose. I have discretion and control over the #action, and it is my intention that provides me with such discretion. In both cases my bodily movements may be the same. But in the latter case I do* something.

Some philosophers argue that #intention is not a distinct mental state but a complex of belief and desire (Davidson, 1963), others argue that #intention is not a mental state at all (Anscombe, 1957).

Example: #Individual_action We engage in #intentional_actions all the time, such as hailing a cab or more complex, such as writing a research paper.

#intentional_actions : joint actions such as playing games, dancing the tango, singing a duet, and waging war.

When we drive on the street we do so with many other cars and drivers and even coordinate our actions so as to avoid running into each other, but we would not characterize ourselves as driving together. Joint actions refer to doing things together in a robust sense.

If joint actions are intentional – things that we do rather than things that happen to us – how are we to understand the intentions involved?

Are they the intentions of individuals or are they the intentions of the group? Answers to these questions fall roughly into four categories: #Goal_accounts, #Mode_accounts, #Shared_accounts, and #Commitment_accounts.

1 #Goal_accounts :

One might object to the whole idea of group intentions and argue that joint action can be explained in terms of shared goals or group ends. According to Miller (2001), #joint_actions are actions directed at a common or group end.

A group end is an end that more than one agent has, and this end is realized by various actions of individuals. Consider a soccer team that wins a match. Winning the game is something that they do. It is an intentional action. But it does not, according to Miller, require shared or group intention, just individual intentions and group ends or goals. Each individual soccer player has the end of winning the game, and each performs various intentional actions in order to reach that goal. They do so, however, only if they also believe (truly) that the other members of the team have that goal and will contribute actions to reaching that goal. That is, each member acts on the condition that the others will act and on the condition that they have the same group end.

A collective end is different than an individual end in a number of respects.

First , #group_ends are shared in a strong sense. If Finn and Anya both have the goal of eating ice cream, then they share a goal in a weak sense. These individual goals could be satisfied by multiple states of affairs. Finn might eat an ice cream on Tuesday and Anya one on Friday. By shared end, Miller means a set of individual ends that would be realized by one single state of affairs. If, for instance, Finn and Anya had the goal of eating ice cream together, there would be only one single state of affairs that would constitute the realization both Anya's eating ice cream with Finn and.... Finn's goal of eating ice cream with Anya, namely the state of affairs in which they eat ice cream together.
Second, #group_ends are shared by virtue of being #interdependent. Finn's goal to eat ice cream together depends on Anya's goal to eat ice cream together and vice versa. Each forms this goal because of the other's goal.
Third , #group_ends are “mutually open” to those who have them. That is, if there is a group end, those who possess it believe (truly) of each other that they have it. Finn and Anya are aware that each has the goal of eating ice cream with the other. We have something that is #mutually_open

Critics (e.g., Bratman, 2014) stress the need for intentions to explain certain forms of shared agency:

1- Ends or goals are not rationally binding

Intentions are plans that play a unique role in guiding and informing action. When I form the intention to go to the gym today, it puts in place rational constraints that govern my actions. This intention will cause me to do certain things (such as collecting my gym clothes) and avoid doing others (such as climbing back into bed). When I am faced with a choice of what to do, my intention to go to the gym will help me arbitrate between options.

Intentions are sort of like commitments to ourselves. They set out a plan of action, and it is on the basis of this plan that we choose various other actions. This doesn't mean that we can't change our intentions or pursue courses of action that are inconsistent with them. I can just climb back into bed if I want to, but to do so is to court irrationality. If I truly intend to go to the gym, rationality requires that my actions are consistent with my plans.

in many cases of #joint_actions action, we need intentions that play a similar role in guiding and informing the action of the group. Group ends won't do that because ends or goals are not rationally binding in the way that intentions are, or so the argument goes.

2- not clear how it would apply to large groups

Can we explain the actions of IBM by appeal to the collective goals of each employee? This seems a bit too stringent. Maybe some of them do share similar ends or goals, but Miller's view requires knowledge that all others share these ends and that the ends are interdependent. It is not clear how this could be achieved by large groups of people who may not know each other or interact with each other directly.

we do actually attribute intentions to groups. The subject, at times, seems to be the group itself rather than the individuals within the group. On Miller's account, groups themselves don't have ends or intentions. What does this mean for our practice of attributing intentions to groups? Miller could respond to this question by saying that our ascriptions are just short-handed ways of referring to collective ends and goals, and that our ascriptions are true only if there are, indeed, such collective ends present. But then it seems difficult to square this with the fact that often we don't know anything about the goals and ends of individual participants or anything about the knowledge they have of others' goals and ends. When we say that Facebook now intends to work with the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), we don't know anything at all about the collective ends that individuals within the organization might be working toward. It is hard to see, then, how our ascriptions are somehow a short-handed way of referring to those complicated social relations.

but we are able to refer to lots of things without knowing the ultimate nature of the referent. Using the term “water,” and we did so for many, many, many, years without knowing that its ultimate nature was H2O the same goes for collective ends. But there is a significant difference between the case of water and the case of collective ends. Water is a #natural_kind. It is something found out in the world and is there independent of our conceptions of it. This is not so with collective ends. Collective ends, if they exist, are what philosophers call social kinds. #Social_kinds are determined by human knowledge and perception. Their meaning and existence is not independent of our knowledge of them. If our practice of attributing intentions to groups is really just a short-handed way of referring to collective ends, then we should know that it is. Or at least it would be more obvious that this is what we are doing.

A second way Miller might respond is to say that our attributions of intention to groups are just mistaken and are always false. But why should we adopt such a drastic dismissal of our practice?

2 #Mode_accounts

when we act together with others, we seem to be acting from a different “mind set.” We have the “we” in mind. We think and act in a way that keeps in mind the group of which we are a part and the reasons for which the group is acting. As Tuomela calls it, we think in the “we-mode.”

John Searle (1990) gives an example: imagine a group of people sitting on the grass enjoying a sunny afternoon in the park. Suddenly it grows dark and starts to rain. They all get up and run to a centrally located place. In this scenario each individual has the intention “I am running to shelter,” and their intentions are had independently of one another. Now imagine a situation in which there is a group of actors who are performing a play. At one point in the play they perform the same actions done by the individuals in the above scenario. But now they do it as a performance. According to Searle, the latter actions involve an intention of the form “we intend to do x” – a #group_intention.

The #group_intention (Searle calls it a collective intention) is

different form in comparison to an individual intention of the form “I intend to do x” from the summation of individual intentions of this form. -and
It is also different from a group end, in that this intention plays a causal role in determining what intentions I will form as an individual
Group intentions involve a sense of acting and willing something together. Individual intentions involved in this enterprise are derived from the group intention.

It is precisely because there is a “we-intention” that the actors move in the various ways that they do and form individual intentions that help them to coordinate with one another.

What is a we-intention?

Criterion 1- It must be consistent with the fact that society is nothing over and above the individuals that comprise it. All consciousness and intentionality is in the minds of individuals – specifically, individual brains. Criterion 2- It must be consistent with the fact that all intentionality could be had by a brain in a vat.

Searle's first criterion of adequacy denies that groups can be the bearer of mental states. We-intentions are not the intentions of the group but are a special sort of mental state in the mind of the individual.

Criterion 1 = motivated by #mode_of_belief

Recall the threefold distinction we made when we discussed propositional attitudes in 1- Introduction to Groups chapter 1 – subject, attitude, and content.

“Ice cream is tasty.” In “Sue intends to eat ice cream,” the subject is still Sue, but the attitude has changed to an intention and the content is “Eat ice cream.” According to Searle, in addition to subject, attitude, and content, there are different modes that a subject can enter. form attitudes from the first-person perspective – the I-mode – we can also form attitudes from the we-mode and, thus, form we-intentions and even we-beliefs. Such beliefs are formed in group contexts but are not the beliefs of a group.

Criterion 2 -> motivated by a certain form of content #internalism

According to this condition, all intentionality is independent of what the real world is like. Radical mistake is possible. We could all be in the Matrix right now and be deceived about the nature of the world, and yet the nature of intentionality would remain the same

This has been criticized a lot:

1- Not enough to explain coordination of the individual intentional actions in a group action

There is something about group intentions that coordinates individual, independent actions into a joint action. But isolated, perhaps even solipsistic, we-intentions are not to be enough to direct and coordinate the individual intentional actions of which the joint action is comprised.

Suppose, for instance, that none of the actors knew of the other actors' we-intention. It would seem to be a complete accident that they acted together. Indeed, it would seem as fortuitous as a group of individuals who just happen to get up at the same time and run for cover. In order to avoid this criticism. Searle (2010) has recently added a requirement that participants in a joint action have the belief that others have similar we-intentions.

2- We-intentions seem pretty mysterious Everyday experiences do not confirm it

For instance, after seeing a soccer team win a game, I don't say of the coach that he we-intended to use his best players. We don't distinguish our own intentions in anything like Searle's terminology. Personally, I don't think I have ever had a we-intention, though I have had lots of thoughts about what we will do and beliefs about what we should do (where “we” refers to groups in my life). I just don't have any experience of changing modes. Searle describes the we-mode as irreducible. It is a primitive way of thinking, one that we share with animals. But saying that it is primitive doesn't make it any less mysterious.

but, our everyday practice doesn't always reflect reality we can be wrong about intentions of ourselves

true. But given the prevalence of joint actions – we do things together all the time – you would think that the we-mode would be more intuitive. Now if all that Searle means by we-mode is that individuals form intentions by considering the group's perspective, this seems non-controversial. But nothing about this requires the positing of a we-intention – a different mode of intending.

I can simply intend from the first-person perspective various things about the “we” of which I am a part. Michael Bratman (1993, 2014) proposes such a position and, as we shall also see, the idea of being able to intend that we do something is controversial.

Searle's account is not an account of #group_intention. For Searle (and Miller as well), groups don't have intentions, only individuals do. Joint action is explained solely in terms of individual members and their intentions. Searle's account does not acknowledge groups as the appropriate subjects of intentional states.

Tuomela (2006) another We-Mode:

Appeals to notion of a we-intention. But, unlike Searle's account, we-intentions are not, on Tuomela's view, primitive. They can be be further analyzed:

we-intentions are individual intentions to do one's part in a joint action including :
beliefs about the conditions under which the joint action can be performed
the presence of similar intentions and beliefs in the minds of others

A member A_i of a group G we-intends to do X if and only if

A_i intends to do his part of X (as his part of X);
Ai has a belief to the effect that the joint action opportunities for an intentional performance of X will obtain (or at least probably will obtain), especially that a right number of the full-fledged and adequately informed members of g, as required for the performance of X, will (or at least probably will) perform their parts of X, which under normal conditions will result in an intentional joint performance of X by the participants;
Ai believes that there is (or will be) a mutual belief among the participating members of g (or at least among those participants who perform their parts of X intentionally as their parts of X there is or will be a mutual belief) to the effect that the joint action opportunities for an intentional performance of X will obtain (or at least probably will obtain);
(1) in part because of (2) and (3). (2006, p. 43)

Agents jointly intend to perform an action when each member has the we-intention to Perform X and everyone believes everyone else also has the we-intention to Perform the action. Again, Tuomela provides

Agents A1, … Ai, … Am have the joint intention to perform a joint action X if and only if

these agents have the we-intention (or are disposed to form the we-intention) to perform X; and
there is a mutual belief among them to the effect that (1). (Ibid., p. 45)

We-intentions on Tuomela's account, then, seem less mysterious and more informative. They don't require a specific mode of thinking but actions and beliefs of the one's duty in the group action and intentions of other members of the groups.

Criticism of Tuomela

1- **Much too specific for group actions since all details have to be in place before any actions happens; seems to require too much for those joint actions that happen without any prior planning.

Tuomela might argue : Just as many of our actions are guided by intentions that we never explicitly form, so too joint intentions can be working tacitly within our cognitive system. Still, the complexity of Tuomela's account calls into question its psychological plausibility.

2- It Presupposes a specific theory of mind

But animals and young children surely engage in joint action, and yet empirical research suggests that they do not have a very sophisticated theory of other minds .
the intentional structure that underlies joint action, is too sophisticated to serve as a general account of this phenomenon.
Searle appeals to a primitive capacity might provide a more phylogenically and ontogenetically plausible account of the basis of joint action.

3- It is difficult to see how his account would extend to larger groups such as a corporation

Tuomela's account is meant to apply to small-scale groups where mutual belief is easily established, how can this be extended to larger groups? how could such we-intentions be formed among people who do not have access to the beliefs of other members of the group?

**Tuomela's *Response (2013):

Offers an account of group intention that is meant to apply to larger groups and the way a group, as such, could be the appropriate subject of an intention. His account is very technical here is a summation:

Group g intends to see to it that X obtains (or comes about, etc., where X is an action or state) as a group if and only if there are authorized operative members or individuals for decision making in relation to g such that:

1) Either:

**a) *These operative agents are internally authorized and, acting as group members in the we-mode, have formed the joint intention that g through its members will see to it that X

**b) *the operative members for decision making are externally authorized to see to it that X and have been ordered by some other group members (non-operatives for decision making but operative for plan-realizing action) to actually achieve or realize X having formed the shared intention to do it;

**2) In (1) there is a respective mutual belief among the operative members to the effect that (1) (a) or (1) (b);

**3) *Both (a) in the internally and (b) in the externally authorized cases the non-operative members qua members of g group normatively ought to accept as true that their group g intends to perform X (as specified in clause (1) and go along with the group's directives).

**4) *There is a mutual belief in g to the effect that (3) or at least this belief should be attainable by the members. (2013, p. 87).

This all might not be enough to capture his thinking so a crude but useful summary is the following:

Tuomela wants to distinguish operative and non-operative members. Not all members have to intend in order for there to be a group intention. In large, structured groups such as organizations, it is the operative members that set the intentions for the group, either by forming the joint intention to do so or by being told to do so by someone external (in a corporation perhaps these are the shareholders) and sharing the intention to act as they have been told. All the operative members know both that either of these two things obtain and that all the others know. Further, the non-operative members accept that their group intends to perform X, and they all know that they know (or could know). The notions of shared intention and joint intention are technical notions here, and I don't have space to provide Tuomela's analysis of them. The basic idea is that there is some subset of the group that sets the group's intentions and the others accept it as the intention of the group.

Criticism in general:

Tuomela is giving an analysis of the concept of group intention in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. This means that, if the conditions 1 to 4 are met, this is all we need for group intention. It also means that, if these conditions are not present, we don't have a group intention. So if a corporation, for instance, fails to meet these conditions, the corporation would not have a group intention. Is it really plausible to think that this is the only way in which a corporate group could realize an intention? And how would we go about verifying it?... too demanding and practically impossible to verify.

Even if one is convinced by this analysis, we are still left wondering why this complicated set of conditions counts as a group intention. What we seem to have is an account of how group intention is realized or formed in a group. What is needed is a discussion of why group intentions should count as intentions at all.

As we have seen, the introduction of a different mode of thought, either a primitive mode or one analyzed in terms of individual intentions, has been thought to complicate matters. Either it introduces something mysterious or, as in Tuomela's case, it introduces layers of complexity that seem psychologically implausible.

Groups Intention