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Two theories of group agency

Published version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

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Authors

Abstract

Two theories dominate the current debate on group agency: functionalism, as endorsed by Bryce Huebner and Brian Epstein, and interpretivism, as defended by Deborah Tollefsen, and Christian List and Philip Pettit. In this paper, I will give a new argument to favour functionalism over interpretivism. I discuss a class of cases which the former, but not the latter, can accommodate. Two features characterise this class: First, distinct groups coincide, that is numerically distinct groups share all their members at all time. Second, we have access to the inner mechanisms of the groups agents, because members know what they have decided on. I construct a counterexample with these features allowing me to reject interpretivism about group agency in favour of functionalism.

Description

Keywords

Group agency, Functionalism, Interpretivism, Social ontology, Coinciding groups, Intentional stance

Journal Title

Philosophical Studies

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0031-8116
1573-0883

Volume Title

177

Publisher

Springer
Sponsorship
Funding was provided by Arts and Humanities Research Council (Grant No. AH/L503848/1).