Conclusion

Click here and press the right key for the next slide (or swipe left)

also ...

Press the left key to go backwards (or swipe right)

Press n to toggle whether notes are shown (or add '?notes' to the url before the #)

Press m or double tap to slide thumbnails (menu)

Press ? at any time to show the keyboard shortcuts

distributive vs collective interpretations

This simple distinction yields two important, foundational notions ...

acting together

collective goal

Q1: When we act together, in virtue of what could our actions have a collective goal?

Two resources (distinctions) will help us to answer this question ...

Two resources:

parallel vs interconnected planning

practical reasoning vs planning-like motor processes

Q1: When we act together, in virtue of what could our actions have a collective goal?

- interagential structure of motor representation
(limit: very small scale cases only)

- the Simple View Revised
(limit: intentional cases only)

- Bratman’s interconnected planning
(limit: intentional cases only)

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.

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 what’s the Simple View doing for me?

NOT: giving me necessary and sufficient conditions for joint action.

Instead, it’s giving us one way in which we can explain how it is possible in principle for a single mechanism to explain (i) collective goals, (ii) trade-off cooperation and (iii) coordination of planning.

So what I really want to say is: when these conditions are met, our actions will have those three features.

In addition, it [SVR] features twice in an argument for a pluralistic approach to joint action: first, in showing that the standard approach based on examples and contrast cases is inadequate; and, second, in showing that there are multiple answers to the how questions which involve different psychological mechanisms and unify different features associated with what are commonly taken to be paradigms of joint action.

How to go about constructing a theory of phenomena associated with acting together?

Step 1: identify features associated with things commonly taken to be paradigm joint actions in non mechanistic terms, e.g.

- collective goals

- coordination

- cooperation

- contralateral commitments

- ...

Step 2: generate how questions.

Step 3: answer the how questions.

Step 4: determine implications for philosophical approaches to joint action.

This approach appears to conflict with Bratman’s approach ...

‘A first step is to say that what distinguishes you and me from you and the Stranger is that you and I share an intention to walk together [...] but you and the Stranger do not.

‘This does not, however, get us very far; for we do not yet know what a shared intention is, and how it connects up with joint action’

Bratman, 2009 p. 152

Actually, this should be the third step.

Why should we prefer my approach over the more standard focus on what distinguishes joint from parallel action question? (Not that a third approach might not be even better.)

Question

What distinguishes genuine joint actions from parallel but merely individual actions?

	Bratman	Simple View Revised
Is coercion compatible with joint action?	yes	yes
Does participating in joint action entail being aware that you are doing so?	yes	[ish]
Are all joint actions cooperative actions?	no	yes
Are contralateral commitments necessary for joint action?	no	no

Question

What distinguishes genuine joint actions from parallel but merely individual actions?

Requirement

Any account of shared agency must draw a line between joint actions and parallel but merely individual actions.

Aim

Which forms of shared agency underpin our social nature?

There’s a good chance we can find a somewhat satisfying answer to the question somewhere here. But should we be satisfied with answering the question?

The overall aim remains in place, the Requirement and question should be rejected ...

Separate
the thing to be explained
from
the thing that explains it.

How to go about constructing a theory of phenomena associated with acting together?

Step 1: identify features associated with things commonly taken to be paradigm joint actions in non mechanistic terms, e.g.

- collective goals

- coordination

- cooperation

- contralateral commitments

- ...

Step 2: generate how questions.

Step 3: answer the how questions.

Step 4: determine implications for philosophical approaches to joint action.

A theory of joint action is then an attempt to answer the how questions.

CHALLENGE : Isn’t there something missing from this approach?

Here’s how I think Bratman would respond:

Bratman on strategic equilibrium: This ‘seems not by itself to ensure the kind of sociality we are after [...] a shared activity of the sort we are trying to understand---[...] in the relevant sense, walking together [... There are] important aspects of such shared activities that seem not to be captured [...] our job is to say what those aspects are and how best to understand them’

\citep[pp.~5--6]{bratman:2014_book}

... but here I am tempted to think that the two approaches are one and the same, and the alternative approach I propose is merely an elaboration of Bratman’s ... so maybe it is an articulation of Bratman’s project after all (I’m not completely sure).

Here I am tempted to think there is a tension between my approach and Bratman’s

Q1: When we act together, in virtue of what could our actions have a collective goal?

Q2: In virtue of what could our actions be trade-off cooperative?

Q3: In virtue of what could our planning be coordinated?

- interagential structure of motor representation [QQ1,2]
(limit: very small scale cases only)

- the Simple View Revised [QQ1,2,3]
(limit: intentional cases only)

- Bratman’s interconnected planning [QQ1,3]
(limit: intentional cases only)

Keyboard Shortcuts?

Conclusion

Keyboard Shortcuts`?`