The Simple View Revised

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The Simple View Revised

So what?

Now so far I've been arguing only that (i) the notion of parallel planning is coherent, (ii) that parallel planning enables us to coordinate our actions. But that doesn't, by itself, amount to showing that the notion of parallel planning is any more useful than that of interconnected planning. For all I've said so far, it might be that both parallel and interconnected planning play a role in coordinating actions, but neither can be used to give sufficient conditions for intentional joint action. Can I do better?

Simple View

Two or more agents perform an intentional joint action
exactly when there is an act-type, φ, such that
each agent intends that
they, these agents, φ together
and their intentions are appropriately related to their actions.

\emph{The Simple View Revised} We intentionally exercise shared agency exactly when ... and: \begin{enumerate} \item we engage in parallel planning; \item for each of us, the intention that we, you and I, φ together leads to action via our contribution to the parallel planning (where the intention, the planning and the action are all appropriately related). % nb: may have to weaken this condition to allow for cases in which there is some parallel planning but then a switch to individual planning (from discussion with Olle). % % these intentions lead to action by way of this planning (that is, for each of us, our intention leads to our actions via our individual contribution to the parallel planning); % \item each of our contributions to the parallel planning results in intentions, some or all of which are open-ended with % respect to who will act; and % \item for each of us, these intentions are also appropriately related to our actions. \end{enumerate}

(Nonaccidental success requires, further, that our parallel planning results in matching plans.)

Two or more plans \emph{match} just if they are similar enough that the differences don't matter in the following sense. First, for a plan in an agent, let the \emph{self part} be those representations concerning the agent's own actions and let the \emph{other part} be the other representations. Now consider what would happen if, for a particular agent, the other part of her plan were as nearly identical to the self part (or parts) of the other's plan (or others' plans) as psychologically possible. Would the agent's self part be significantly different? If not, let us say that any differences between her plan and the other's (or others') are \emph{not relevant for her}. Finally, if for some agents' plans the differences between them are not relevant for any of the agents, then let us say that the differences \emph{don't matter}.

We can save the Simple View.

Recall the objections to it: Tarantino walkers, blocking the asile.

There is something a bit tricky here. If we consider Beatrice and Baldric, or the people walking in the Tarantino sense, I do think their intentions are appropriately related to their actions; that is, we shouldn’t consider such cases as somehow involving deviant causal chains. So I don’t think we can take parallel planning as part of an account of what it is for agents’ intentions to be appropriately related to their actions. Instead I think we have to see it as a further additional condition on the relation between intentions and actions.

Parallel planning gives us an account of how the intentions have to be related to the actions in order for the agents to exercise shared agency.

What about the counterexamples?

Is the Revised Simple View susceptible to the counterexamples we considered?

contrast case: blocking the aisle

Imagine two sisters who, getting off an aeroplane, tacitly agree to exact revenge on the unruly mob of drunken hens behind them by standing so as to block the aisle together. This is a joint action. Meanwhile on another flight, two strangers happen to be so configured that they are collectively blocking the aisle. The first passenger correctly anticipates that the other passenger, who is a complete stranger, will not be moving from her current position for some time. This creates an opportunity for the first passenger: she intends that they, she and the stranger, block the aisle. And, as it happens, the second passenger’s thoughts mirror the first’s.

1. The sisters perform a joint action; the strangers’ actions are parallel but merely individual.

2. In both cases, the conditions of the Simple View are met.

The feature under consideration as distinctive of joint action is present: each passenger is acting on her intention that they, the two passengers, block the aisle.

therefore:

3. The Simple View does not correctly answer the question, What distinguishes genuine joint actions from parallel but merely individual actions?

The conditions of the Revised Simple View are not met. This is because the Revised Simple View requires parallel planning, which involves taking a practical attitude towards the others’ actions. And this is rationally incompatible with the theoretical attitude--merely predicting them--which the strangers blocking the aisle have towards each other’s actions.

parallel planning yields practical unity

In parallel planning, we take a perspective that allows us to see our actions, yours and mine, as having a certain kind of practical unity.

What is practical unity? To illustrate, first consider the case of a single individual.

Imagine someone committed to keeping two or more areas of her life apart, so that she tries to plan separately for each area of her life. When concerned with planning in one area, she treats ongoing and planned actions from other areas of her life almost as if they were the actions and intentions of another agent who is temporarily acting with her body. Actions from other areas of her life feature in her current planning only as constraints to work around or opportunities to exploit. Of course, many of her predictions about her own actions are based on plans she has made when thinking about other areas of her life. But she systematically avoids conceiving engaging in planning for actions that involve different areas of her life; she does not treat her actions as even potentially parts of a single, larger plan. So there is a kind of practical unity that she fails to conceive of the actions which make up her life as having. She never takes perspective one has on actions when engaged in planning for them with respect to all her actions. Instead, at each time she plans for just one area of her life and takes the perspective of an outsider on the other areas of her life.

As this illustrates, the ability to conceive of any our actions as potentially featuring in a single planning process matters partly because it allows us to see them as having a kind of practical unity.

This applies to how you conceive of others' actions, not just your own. Earlier, I argued that you can sometimes engage in practical reasoning (in the context of parallel planning) for not only actions you yourself will eventually perform but also for actions that others will eventually perform. This shows that it is sometimes possible to take the sort of perspective on others’ actions that you would paradigmatically take on your own actions.

I am not suggesting, of course, that you thereby conceive of others’ actions exactly as if they were your own. But nor do you conceive of the others’ actions in quite the way you would conceive of the actions of just any other agent who happened to be passing by. Rather, you conceive of these actions as on a par with your own actions insofar as they all feature in a single planning process. (*thanks to Peter Fossey here:)

What about walking in the Tarantino sense? Recall that there is room for debate about whether this is a counterexample at all. Nevertheless, I want to consider what the Revised Simple View implies about this case.

First allow me to introduce some claims.

Engaging in parallel planning concerning our changing a nappy involves taking a practical attitude (one of intending) towards actions you will perform.

Having interconnected plans concerning our changing a nappy need not involve taking a practical attitude (one of intending) towards actions you will perform. (I may consistently regard your intentions and actions merely as opportunities to exploit and constraints to work around.)

Agents can have interconnected plans while thinking of each other's actions merely as opportunities to exploit and constraints to work around.

Intending that we change this nappy because of, and in accordance with, your intention that we change the nappy does not entail taking a practical attitude towards actions you will perform. (I may simply predict them.)

With this in mind, now Consider two ways of further specifying what happens in the case of walking in the Tarantino sense.

Way of Further Specifying 1: I know that, in part, because I am pointing the gun at you, you intend that we walk. I therefore engage in parallel planning concerning our walking. In this case, the gun makes available the information needed for parallel planning to be rational and successful. Despite the background of coercion, this is a case of shared agency.

Way of Further Specifying 2: As before, I know that, in part, because I am pointing the gun at you, you intend that we walk. But I treat that intention as merely a predictor of your actions: the fact that you have this intention is simply enables me to be confident that you will walk (another would be to a neural intervention).

Consequence: same structure of intentions and knowledge, difference with respect to shared agency.

On the view I’m offering, there are two ways to further specify what is involved in walking together in the Tarantino sense, and one involves shared agency in a deeper sense than the other. But despite this, the individuals in the two cases have much the same intentions and knowledge. The difference, on my view, is in how the intentions get into action.

This is a reason for thinking that Bratman does after all fail to give sufficient conditions for shared agency.

[It also implies that, on the Simple View Revised, an exercise of shared agency does not require having intentions or commitments whose fulfilment requires an exercise of shared agency. (*CHECK: Is this also a consequence of Bratman’s view; does the fulfilment of the intentions may not require that the connection condition obtains?)]

Recall Beatrice and Baldric who provided a counterexample to the view that Bratman’s conditions for shared intention can be used to give sufficient conditions for acting as one.

This is a bit delicate. I am supposing that Beatrice and Baldric are each making use of the fact that Beatrice intends J1 and of the fact that Baldric intends that J2, but that they are neglecting to make any use of the fact that J1=J2.

So the only difference is that Beatrice and Baldric happen to have same task, whereas Ayesha and Ahmed have different tasks. But neither Beatrice nor Baldric makes use of the fact that they have the same task.

Beatrice does rely on the fact Baldric intends that they J1, of course; but she does not rely on the fact that what Baldric intends is what she intends.

true? A&A make use of?
Ayesha intends J₁ ✓ ✓
Ahmed intends J₂ ✓ ✓
J₁=J₂ ✗ ✗

	true?	A&A make use of?
Ayesha intends J₁	✓	✓
Ahmed intends J₂	✓	✓
J₁=J₂	✗	✗

true? B&B make use of?
Beatrice intends J₁ ✓ ✓
Baldric intends J₂ ✓ ✓
J₁=J₂ ✓ ✗

	true?	B&B make use of?
Beatrice intends J₁	✓	✓
Baldric intends J₂	✓	✓
J₁=J₂	✓	✗

What prevented Beatrice and Baldric from acting as one was their failure to exploit the fact that what Beatrice intends is what Baldric intends.

But how could they have exploited this fact? Can the Revised Simple View help us here? I think it can.

What prevented Beatrice and Baldric from acting as one was their failure to exploit the fact that what Beatrice intends is what Baldric intends. But how could they have exploited this fact? \textbf{Parallel planning is the way in which agents characteristically exploit facts about sameness of intention}.

[... missing bit ...] This is why it's plausible that the Revised Simple View does not succumb to the counterexample with Beatrice and Baldric ...

To see that there really is no shared agency, contrast these two with Caitlin and Ciaran who engage in parallel planning for J1 ...

Here are Caitlin and Ciaran. Each makes a plan for all the actions, the actions the other will eventually perform as well as the actions she herself will perform.

So there is a sense in which they see their actions as having a kind of practical unity, and for this reason their case involves a joint action.

Now I want to return to that counterexample to Bratman. Earlier I said it’s a bit unclear whether there is a contrast with respect to shared agency. But now I think

This is a case where we have interconnected planning but no shared agency.

Joint Action

Parallel but Merely Individual Action

Caitlin & Ciaran’s making the cross hit the red square.

Beatrice & Baldric’s making the cross hit the red square

Two sisters cycling together.

Two strangers cycling the same route side-by-side.

Members of a flash mob simultaneously open their newspapers noisily.

Onlookers simultaneously open their newspapers noisily.

Simple View

Simple View Revised

... and

we engage in parallel planning;

for each of us, the intention that we, you and I, φ together leads to action via our contribution to the parallel planning

(where the intention, the planning and the action are all appropriately related).

So I claim that the notion of parallel planning unlike the notion of interconnected planning, gives us an account of shared agency which overcomes both counterexamples to the Simple View and counterexamples to Bratman’s view.

What happened to the notion of aggregate subject?

I’m still trying to construct them ...

How?

aggregate subject

Actually I think we have aggregate subjects. You don’t see them from the outside --- the Revised Simple View just describes individual agents as planning with the result that they have matching plans.

But you do see them from the inside: from the point of view of agents involved in parallel planning, they adopt the perspective of the aggregate subject. There are just actions; not mine or yours, just actions.

So I have ended up with a position quite different from Helm’s, or from Pettit and List’s (although my view is compatible with the important bits of their view) ...

... recall Helm:

On accounts like Bratman’s or Gilbert’s, ‘it makes some sense to say that the result is a kind of shared action: the individual people are, after all, acting intentionally throughout.

However, in a deeper sense, the activity is not shared: the group itself is not engaged in action whose aim the group finds worthwhile, and so the actions at issue here are merely those of individuals.

Thus, these accounts ... fail to make sense of a ... part of the landscape of social phenomena’

\citep[pp.~20--1]{helm_plural_2008}

Helm (2008, pp. 20-1)

How to make sense of this idea? Helm wants to make sense of it from the outside; I think this is a mistake and we have to make sense of it from the inside, that is, from the perspective of the individual agents themselves.

acting as one

I think the Revised Simple View captures a notion of acting as one. But let me be careful here because the phrase ‘acting as one’ could be misleading. What is as one?

From the point of view of the agents, it is not a matter of there being one agent or many agents. My suggesting is that practical deliberation and intention are, in the most basic cases, indifferent as between one and two agents acting. The question of who is acting can be left open at the start and is eventually settled by the world rather than by a decision on our part. There is nothing you need to add to intention to get shared intention.

So ‘as one’ does not refer to our being one. We aren't one and we aren't many because we aren't yet in the picture at all. Rather the suggestion is that acting as one is a matter of us conceiving of our actings as having a certain kind of unity.

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