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Aggregate Subjects vs Plural Subjects

As a preliminary we need to be clear about what we are getting ourselves into with aggregate subjects, particularly as even the best papers on this topic are not entirely clear and the terminology is confusingly diverse.
Understanding shared agency and the (frankly mostly awful) literature on this topic requires several distinctions. We have already covered collective vs distributive and collective vs shared. Now it’s time for a further distinction: Plural Subject vs Aggregate Subject.

The tiny leaves formed an impenetrable barrier

which blocked the drain.

Let’s start with a super-simple analogy (I hope this isn’t too simple).
If some tiny leaves collectively block a drain, they are the plural subject of the blocking. By contrast, suppose some tiny leaves form an impenetrable barrier which blocks the drain. The impenetrable barrier, although composed of nothing but the leaves, is distinct from the leaves. Similarly, if we collectively intend or believe something (assuming such a thing is possible), we (not something distinct from us, but simply you and I) are the plural subject of that intention or belief. If we are components of an aggregate, or members of a group, that intends or believes something, then there is an aggregate subject (not you and I but something distinct from, albeit composed from, us) which intends or believes.
This about a plural subject, the tiny leaves.
This about an aggregate subject, the impenetrable barrier.
With this in mind, let’s step back and get our teminology straight.

1. What is a subject?

--- An individual who has an intention or other attitude.

A subject is a bearer of intentions or other mental states.

2. Singular vs plural quantification

This is logic. You can quantify over individuals (somebody ate my breakfast) and you can quantify over pluralities (some people ate my breakfast).

-- A flea is bothering me [singular]

-- Some fleas are bothering me [plural]

Ontological Innocence

(Background: note that here I assume that the right theory of plural quantification is one which exemplifies what \citet{Linnebo:2005ig} calls \emph{Ontological Innocence}. That is, it is a theory which ‘introduces no new ontological commitments to sets or any other kind of “set-like” entities over and above the individual objects that compose the pluralities in question’ \citep{Linnebo:2005ig}. There are several reasons for thinking that this is a requirement on any adequate theory of plural quantification, but the best is Boolos’ point that ‘It is haywire to think that when you have some Cheerios, you are eating a \emph{set}---what you're doing is: eating THE CHEERIOS’ (Boolos quoted in \citep[p.~295]{Oliver:2001ha}. I was planning at one point to introduce you to research in logic on plural quantification, but in the end I thought that maybe we could skip that in the lectures. If you’re interested, read \citet{Linnebo:2005ig}. )
Assumption: the right theory of plural quantification exemplifies \emph{Ontological Innocence}. That is, it is a theory on which plural quantification ‘introduces no new ontological commitments to sets or any other kind of “set-like” entities over and above the individual objects that compose the pluralities in question’ \citep{Linnebo:2005ig}. Compare Boolos: ‘It is haywire to think that when you have some Cheerios, you are eating a \emph{set}---what you're doing is: eating THE CHEERIOS’ (Boolos quoted in \citealp[p.~295]{Oliver:2001ha}). For more on plural quantification, read \citet{Linnebo:2005ig}.

3. Distributive vs collective predication

4. What is a plural subject?

-- Some individuals who collectively have an intention or other attitude.

A \emph{plural subject} is some individuals who collectively have an intention or other attitude.
This is what we defined: the plural subject. (Not everyone uses the term in this way, but they should.)
Suppose, as I think, that Gilbert’s joint commitments are commitments that some individuals collectively have. Then Gilbert says that the people who collectively have a commitment are a plural subject. This is exactly how I’m using the term.
Likewise if we collectively have an intention, knowledge state, belief or emotion, then we are a plural subject in this sense.

1. What is a subject?

--- An individual who has an intention or other attitude.

A subject is a bearer of intentions or other mental states.

2. What is an aggregate (or ‘colonial’) animal?

-- An animal with multiple parts that are animals.

Typically the parts have specialised functions and cannot survive independently, but, unlike the cells of a multicellualar organism, the resemble independent animals. (The Portugese man o’ war is a colony of jellyfish-like polyps.)
Wikipedia: ‘the Portuguese man o' war is a colony of four different types of polyp or related forms’

3. What is an aggregate subject?

-- A subject with multiple parts that are subjects.

An \emph{aggregate subject} is a subject with multiple parts that are subjects.
This is what we defined. Note that no one else uses the term in this way. Christian List uses the term ‘aggregate’ in relation to judgement aggregation; this is also a sensible, but completely different, way to use the terminology.

Plural subject

-- some individuals who collectively have an attitude.

Aggregate subject

-- a subject with multiple parts that are subjects.

Identical to the individuals.

Distinct from the individuals.

When we have plural subjects, there is nothing distinct from the subjects which is the subject of the predication. The plural subject is identical to the individuals.
But when we have aggregate subjects, there is something distinct. The individuals \emph{comprise} the aggregate subject but the aggregate subject is not \emph{identical} to those individuals.
This is potentially confusing because the aggregate subject might be nothing but an aggregate of the individuals who are the plural subject.

Could not involve other individuals.

May involve other individuals.

Still we know they are different because different counterfactuls are true of the plural subject and of the aggregate subject.
To illustrate, the man o’ war is nothing but the polyps, but the man o’ war can surive the loss of one polyp and the addition of another whereas the polyps can’t (they aren’t *these* polyps anymore if there is one missing or one addded).)

True: Collectively form an aggregate subject.

False: Does not form an aggregate subject.

Even where there is a plural subject and an aggregate subject and the componets of the aggregate subject are the plural subject, still different things can be true of the aggregate subject and of the plural subject
For example, he animals that comprise an aggregate animal do collectively comprise an aggregate animal; but the aggregate animal itself does not comprise an aggregate animal.

False: Do not collectively sting or eat.

True: Does sting and eat.

For example, an aggregate animal, the Portuguese man o' war (Physalia physalis), stings and eats but the animals (polyps) that compose it do not collectively sting or eat.

Gilbert, Schmid

Pettit, List, Helm, ?Gilbert

The philosophers whose current focus is plural subjects or aggregate subjects.
Note the contrast between e.g. Pettit (aggregate subject) and Schmid (plural subject) According to Schmid, ‘Feelings can indeed be shared in the simplest sense of the word,’ the sense in which ‘sharing is not a matter of type, or of qualitative identity (i.e. of having different things that are somehow similar), but a matter of token, or numerical identity’ (2009, p. 88). On Schmid’s view, there are plural subjects of emotions. This neither entials, nor is entailed by, the claim that there are aggregate subjects of emotions.
Why is Gilbert tentatively on both sides? Let’s take a look ...
Recall that Gilbert’s analysis of joint commitment has two parts.

Gilbert on joint commitment

[1] The subject:

‘a commitment

by two or more people

of the same two or more people.’

Here I interpret Gilbert as saying that the commitment is something we collectively have. By comparison, consider our being collectively obliged to mitigate the effects of global warming. None of us are individually obliged to do this (how could we?), but collectively we are.

[2] The content:

All joint commitments are commitments to emulate, as far as possible, a single body which does something (2013, p. 64).

It’s just here I think there’s room to see an aggregate agent.
Although Gilbert doesn’t write this explicitly (as far as I recall), it would be coherent to suppose that our emulating a single body brings an aggregate agent into being.

Plural subject

-- some individuals who collectively have an attitude.

Aggregate subject

-- a subject with multiple parts that are subjects.

Identical to the individuals.

Distinct from the individuals.

When we have plural subjects, there is nothing distinct from the subjects which is the subject of the predication. The plural subject is identical to the individuals.
But when we have aggregate subjects, there is something distinct. The individuals \emph{comprise} the aggregate subject but the aggregate subject is not \emph{identical} to those individuals.
This is potentially confusing because the aggregate subject might be nothing but an aggregate of the individuals who are the plural subject.

Could not involve other individuals.

May involve other individuals.

Still we know they are different because different counterfactuls are true of the plural subject and of the aggregate subject.
To illustrate, the man o’ war is nothing but the polyps, but the man o’ war can surive the loss of one polyp and the addition of another whereas the polyps can’t (they aren’t *these* polyps anymore if there is one missing or one addded).)

True: Collectively form an aggregate subject.

False: Does not form an aggregate subject.

Even where there is a plural subject and an aggregate subject and the componets of the aggregate subject are the plural subject, still different things can be true of the aggregate subject and of the plural subject
For example, he animals that comprise an aggregate animal do collectively comprise an aggregate animal; but the aggregate animal itself does not comprise an aggregate animal.

False: Do not collectively sting or eat. [?]

True: Does sting and eat.

For example, an aggregate animal, the Portuguese man o' war (Physalia physalis), stings and eats but the animals (polyps) that compose it do not collectively sting or eat.

Gilbert, Schmid

Pettit, List, Helm, ?Gilbert

The philosophers whose current focus is plural subjects or aggregate subjects.
Note the contrast between e.g. Pettit (aggregate subject) and Schmid (plural subject) According to Schmid, ‘Feelings can indeed be shared in the simplest sense of the word,’ the sense in which ‘sharing is not a matter of type, or of qualitative identity (i.e. of having different things that are somehow similar), but a matter of token, or numerical identity’ (2009, p. 88). On Schmid’s view, there are plural subjects of emotions. This neither entials, nor is entailed by, the claim that there are aggregate subjects of emotions.
So that is why Gilbert is tentatively on both sides.