Shared intention, reliance, and interpersonal obligations

Ethics

Volumn 119, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 444-475

  Alonso, Facundo M ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 69249136654     PISSN: 00141704     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/599984     Document Type: Article

References (138)

1. These examples are drawn from the works cited in n. 3 below.
2. Michael Bratman states this suggestion very clearly in his "Modest Sociality and the Distinctiveness of Intention", Philosophical Studies (forthcoming).
3. A number of philosophers have also suggested, albeit in different ways, that this is the mark of joint action. See John Searle, "Collective Intentions and Actions", in Intentions in Communication, ed. Philip Cohen, Jerry Morgan, and Martha Pollack (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990), 401-15;
4. Michael Bratman, "Shared Intention", reprinted in his Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 109-29;
5. and Margaret Gilbert, On Social Facts (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992)
6. and "What Is It for Us to Intend?" reprinted in her Sociality and Responsibility (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), 14-36.
7. It is important to note that the term "normative" is used in this context in a very narrow sense. Namely, it refers only to the normativity of interpersonal obligations and entitlements. It does not refer to the normativity associated with the norms of rationality to which intention is subject. For example, it does not refer to the normativity associated with the norms of consistency, coherence, and stability of intention. On the norms of rationality to which intention is subject, see Michael Bratman's Intention, Plans, and Practical Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987).
8. These obligations are, in the terminology of deontic logic, "directed" obligations. This entails that for each obligation there is a corresponding entitlement (or right). Given the directionality of these obligations, I will hereafter simply talk of "interpersonal obligations" rather than of "interpersonal obligations and entitlements."
9. For Gilbert's view on this dispute, see On Social Facts, "What Is It for Us to Intend?" and "Obligation and Joint Commitment", reprinted in her Sociality and Responsibility, 50-70.
10. Bratman's view on this dispute can be found in "Shared Intention", and "Shared Intention and Mutual Obligation", reprinted in his Faces of Intention, 130-41.
11. For other views on this dispute, see Seumas Miller, Social Action: A Teleological Account (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001);
12. Abraham Sesshu Roth, "Shared Agency and Contralateral Commitments", Philosophical Review 113(2004):359-410;
13. and Raimo Tuomela, The Philosophy of Sociality: The Shared Point of View (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
14. On this point, see Thomas Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 309;
15. and Gary Watson, "Promises, Reasons, and Normative Powers" (unpublished manuscript, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Riverside, 2007), 17-24.
16. For a statement of the contrary view, see Margaret Gilbert, "Agreement, Coercion, and Obligation", reprinted in her Living Together: Rationality, Sociality, and Obligation (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), 281-312;
17. and John Searle, Rationality in Action (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), 194.
18. We usually think about other transactions that generate obligations and entitlements, such as consent and giving gifts, in similar terms.
19. Joint action ranges from basic small-scale cases of the kind mentioned in the text to more complex cases involving a large number of participants, relations of authority, and institutional frameworks. My concern in this essay is with those more basic cases. I think that this is a genuine phenomenon and one which, as I see it, is central to our understanding of our social world. I also think that this is a phenomenon that the philosophy of action should help us explain. It is a further question to what extent what we say about basic cases of joint action can be extended to more complex ones.
20. By a "basis" for interpersonal obligations I refer to the conditions which, in the absence of special circumstances, give rise to or "trigger" those obligations. The idea, then, is that when the cited sociopsychological structure is present, and special circumstances are absent, the relevant obligations necessarily arise.
21. My aim in this essay, it should be noted, is not to clarify the ordinary notion of shared intention. My aim, rather, is to provide an account that helps us further understand the phenomenon of shared intention. As I see it, shared intention is a phenomenon that plays certain characteristic roles in our practical reasoning and action, and that has, as I will argue, central moral significance. For an excellent discussion of the roles that shared intention plays in our lives, see Bratman, "Shared Intention. "
22. Part of this section draws on my "Reliance and Intending the Joint Activity", in Concepts of Sharedness, ed. Hans Bernhard Schmid, Katinka Schulte-Ostermann, and Nikos Psarros (Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag, 2008), 211-23. The present discussion develops the ideas there presented substantially further. I have also introduced a few significant changes.
23. This idea is endorsed, among others, by Searle ("Collective Intentions and Actions"), Bratman ("Shared Intention"), and Raimo Tuomela and Kaarlo Miller ("We-Intentions", Philosophical Studies 63[1988]:367-89). Gilbert disputes this idea in "What Is It for Us to Intend?"
24. As Bratman claims, "the attitude we are appealing to is intention... but we are allowing this attitude to include in its content the joint activity" ("Shared Intention", 115). Similarly, Tuomela and Miller assert that the content of an individual's intention in shared intention-that is, the content of what they call an individual's "we-intention"-is the "full social action" ("We-Intentions", 375). There are important differences between Bratman's view of the intentions of individuals in shared intention and Tuomela and Miller's. I will ignore those differences here.
25. To make matters simple, I will take Bratman's notion of my intention that we act (and its cognates) as canonical for this way of capturing the intentions of individuals in shared intention (see Bratman, "Shared Intention", 115).
26. The idea that I may intend our activity has been challenged in different ways. It has been objected, for instance, that there is no clear sense in which I may intend our activity. For objections along these lines, see Annette Baier, "Doing Things with Others: The Mental Commons", in Commonality and Particularity in Ethics, ed. L. Alanen, S. Heinämma, and T. Wallgren (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997), 15-44;
27. Frederick Stoutland, "Why Are Philosophers of Action so Anti-social?" in Alanen et al., Commonality and Particularity in Ethics, 45-74
28. and "Critical Notice of Michael Bratman's Faces of Intention: Selected Essays on Intention and Agency", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65(2002):238-41;
29. J. David Velleman, "How to Share an Intention", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57(1997):29-50.
30. Despite the initial appeal of these objections, I take Bratman to have successfully responded to them (see his "I Intend That We J", reprinted in his Faces of Intention, 142-61). It should be noted, however, that if in the end we end up thinking that what I intend in shared intention is just my part in the joint activity, rather than our joint activity, the main points of this article will still apply.
31. There is an important clarification to make here. My concern in this essay is with the cognitive requirements of only those cases of intending the joint activity which are candidates for shared intention. These cases should be distinguished from other cases in which I intend the joint activity but in a way that rules out our sharing an intention in the proper sense. A clear example of intending the joint activity in the latter way is provided by Bratman's "Mafia" case ("Shared Intention", 117-18).
32. In this case, I intend that we go to New York together by way of kidnapping you and throwing you in the trunk of my car. But my intention that we go to New York together here involves an intention on my part to coerce you in a way that bypasses your intentional agency, and this is, as Bratman rightly suggests, irreconcilable with our sharing an intention in the proper sense. Notice, however, that this case of intending that we go to New York together may be framed by the appropriate cognitive attitudes: I may have thoughts about how to kidnap you, about how to get there, etc. Still, my cognitive attitudes will probably include a reference neither to your attitude toward "our" going to New York together nor to how that attitude of yours interacts with mine, since I may not even care about that. Finally, it should also be noticed that intending the joint activity in the way involved in shared intention is not incompatible with all cases of coercion. In fact, it is compatible with cases of coercion which fall short of the Mafia case-i.e., with cases of coercion in which the coercion in question does not bypass the intentional agency of the other agent. Here I have in mind cases involving threats, asymmetries in bargaining power, and the like. Henceforth, I will use the expression "to intend the joint activity" and its cognates to refer to the kind of intention in favor of the joint activity that is a candidate for shared intention.
33. Among the things that an individual must believe in order to "we-intend" the joint activity J, Tuomela and Miller also mention the belief that there be (or will be) a mutual belief among the participants that they will do their parts in the joint activity ("We-Intentions", 375).
34. Among the things that an individual must believe in order to "we-intend" the joint activity J, Tuomela and Miller also mention the belief that there be (or will be) a mutual belief among the participants that they will do their parts in the joint activity ("We-Intentions", 374).
35. Bratman, "I Intend That We J", 153-57.
36. Bratman, "I Intend That We J", 156.
37. Bratman, "I Intend That We J", 156. Bratman forcefully argues that there is a clear sense in which we can say that in intending the joint activity, I "settle the matter" of our acting. In very rough outline, his argument is that I can intend the joint activity, and thus settle (albeit in part) the matter of our acting, so long as I can reasonably believe, among other things, that you intend (or will intend) likewise (see ibid., 148-60). Bratman advances this argument in the context of his response to objections by Baier and by Velleman. For those objections, see the works cited in n. 16 above.
38. Bratman, "I Intend That We J", 156. Bratman forcefully argues that there is a clear sense in which we can say that in intending the joint activity, I "settle the matter" of our acting. In very rough outline, his argument is that I can intend the joint activity, and thus settle (albeit in part) the matter of our acting, so long as I can reasonably believe, among other things, that you intend (or will intend) likewise (see ibid., 148-60). Bratman advances this argument in the context of his response to objections by Baier and by Velleman. For those objections, see the works cited in n. 16 above.
39. Recall that the intentions in favor of the joint activity under analysis here are intentions in favor of the joint activity that are candidates for being partly constitutive of shared intention. See n. 17 above.
40. It also requires, as Bratman maintains, that I intend that her relevant intention be effective. It requires, as Bratman puts it, that I intend that we act in part because of her intention that we act ("Shared Intention", 118-19). For present purposes, I leave this complexity of the intentions of individuals in shared intention aside.
41. Tuomela and Miller acknowledge that there are some cases in which the "weintender" is required to "believe not only that the others (probably) are going to do their parts, but that they will do them on the basis of their we-intentions" ("We-Intentions", 378).
42. However, the authors claim that these are only special or "paradigmatic" cases of "we-intention" (ibid., 378-79).
43. To keep things simple, I will assume, even though I have not conclusively settled it, that reliance is an attitude, rather than an activity. Given that I have assumed that reliance is an attitude, I will argue that reliance is a cognitive attitude.
44. In what follows I provide only a basic characterization of the phenomenon of reliance. For a more careful exploration of this phenomenon, see my "What Is Reliance?" (unpublished manuscript, Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, 2009).
45. The idea of regarding reliance as, basically, a three-place relation has been advanced, in different ways, by Annette Baier ("Trust and Antitrust", Ethics 96[1986]:231-60, 236)
46. Simon Blackburn ("Trust, Cooperation, and Human Psychology", in Trust and Governance, ed. Valerie Braithwaite and Margaret Levi [New York: Russell Sage, 1998], 28-45, 30)
47. and Richard Holton ("Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe", in Australasian Journal of Philosophy 72[1994]:63-76, 67). It should be mentioned, however, that the main object of study in those investigations is the phenomenon of trust rather than that of reliance. Still, these authors think that both reliance and trust can be understood, initially, as a tripartite relationship. This is because trust involves, in these authors' view, the attitude of reliance plus a moral feeling of some kind (on which they disagree). I will not consider the differences between reliance and trust in this essay.
48. Similar points have been noted by Baier ("Trust and Antitrust", 234)
49. and Blackburn ("Trust, Cooperation, and Human Psychology", 30).
50. When I speak of "belief" in this context I have in mind all-or-none factual belief. All-or-none belief contrasts with partial belief (sometimes called "credences").
51. Note that I do not here intend to provide a full characterization of belief. Rather, my aim is to focus on some fairly uncontroversial features of belief which I consider relevant to our comparison with reliance. Note, in addition, that the claims I make about reliance do not depend on the truth of the assumptions here made about the nature of belief.
52. Holton expresses a similar idea. He writes that when I rely on a person or object to do something, "I do need to plan on [a certain state of affairs] happening: I need to work around the supposition that it will" ("Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe", 65). My thoughts on the nature of reliance have been deeply influenced by Holton's work.
53. For the purposes of this essay, when I consider how reliance and belief relate to our reasoning, I will for the most part appeal to examples of how reliance and belief relate to our practical-rather than to our theoretical-reasoning.
54. The suggestion that we understand cognitive attitudes in this way has been made, among others, by Velleman (see, e.g., "The Possibility of Practical Reason", in his The Possibility of Practical Reason [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000], 170-99, 182-83). Velleman has also suggested that we conceive of conative attitudes-such as desires-as those attitudes which "regard" their propositional objects "as to be satisfied" or "as to be made true." Velleman's distinction between cognitive and conative attitudes is reminiscent, as Velleman himself acknowledges, of Elizabeth Anscombe's distinction of those attitudes in terms of their "direction of fit" (see her Intention [Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1963]). In the "direction of fit" terminology, we may then say that reliance has a "mindto-world" direction of fit. There is a further question here of whether the ways in which Velleman and Anscombe draw the aforementioned distinction are ultimately correct. I will not address this question in this essay.
55. The terminology comes from Velleman. See his "On the Aim of Belief", in The Possibility of Practical Reason, 244-81, 250.
56. Talk of evidence as an "indicator of truth" comes from Velleman (see his "Introduction", in The Possibility of Practical Reason, 1-31, 18).
57. On the relation between evidence, reasons for belief, and truth, see Nishi Shah and J. David Velleman, "Doxastic Deliberation", Philosophical Review 114(2005):497-534.
58. See Holton, "Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe";
59. and Blackburn, "Trust, Cooperation, and Human Psychology."
60. Holton has expressed similar thoughts in this respect ("Deciding to Trust, Coming to Believe", 68). Several philosophers have argued that pragmatic considerations may justify what we take for granted in our reasoning.
61. See, e.g., Edna Ulmann-Margalit, "On Presumption", Journal of Philosophy 80(1983):143-63;
62. Gilbert Harman, Change in View (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986);
63. and Michael Bratman, "Practical Reasoning and Acceptance in a Context", reprinted in his Faces of Intention, 15-34.
64. In "What Is Reliance?" I argue, more generally, that the grounds for reliance are ultimately instrumental. That is, I argue that reliance is correct if and only if it is useful for achieving one's ends. In certain cases, such as the ones discussed here in the text, the usefulness of reliance for achieving one's ends is a function of the truth of what is relied upon. This explains why in those cases one's reliance must pass an evidential test in order to be justified. However, there are other cases in which the usefulness of reliance for achieving one's ends is not a function of the truth of what is relied upon. In those latter cases, I argue, one's reliance may fail to pass the evidential test but still be justified. It may still be justified by certain pragmatic considerations. Being conscious of his tendency of arriving late to all sorts of events, John decides to rely on the concert's starting half an hour earlier than when he knows it will start. In this case, John's reliance fails to pass the evidential test. Still, his reliance may be justified. After all, John reasonably thinks that relying on the concert's starting earlier is a good means for achieving his end of arriving at the concert on time, and usefulness for achieving one's ends is the norm of correctness for reliance.
65. Holton regards the present difference between belief and reliance as one about how these states are causally originated rather than as one about how these states are grounded or justified. Thus, Holton claims that while belief is caused by "convincing evidence", reliance is sometimes caused by "pragmatic necessity" (ibid., 68). I think Holton is mistaken in thinking that the present difference between belief and reliance is one of causal origin. For belief is sometimes caused by pragmatic necessity as well. On this last point, see Dion Scott-Kakures, "Motivated Believing: Wishful and Unwelcome", Noûs 34(2000):348-75;
66. and Thomas Kelly, "The Rationality of Belief and Some Other Propositional Attitudes", Philosophical Studies 110(2002):163-96.
67. There are interesting parallels between reliance and what some philosophers have called "acceptance" or "acceptance in a context." On the notion of acceptance, see, among others, Mark Kaplan, "Rational Acceptance", Philosophical Studies 40(1981):129-45;
68. and Jonathan Cohen, "Belief and Acceptance", Mind 98(1989):367-89. The notion of acceptance in a context is Bratman's ("Practical Reasoning and Acceptance in a Context"). 43. Note that this does not yet mean that reliance can do all the cognitive work in shared intention. I return to this point below.
69. See, e.g., Bratman ("Shared Intention") and Gilbert ("What Is It for Us to Intend?"). Other philosophers have argued that the notion of common knowledge goes beyond the idea of publicity. In light of this, they have suggested that we appeal instead to the notion of mutual belief. Suggestions along these lines have been advanced, for example, by Christopher Kutz ("Acting Together", in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 61[2000]:1-30)
70. and by Raimo Tuomela (The Importance of Us: A Philosophical Study of Basic Social Notions [Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995]). For present purposes, I assume an intuitive notion of common knowledge that captures the kind of publicity which is required in this context.
71. Bratman noted this point to me in conversation. Philosophers have emphasized other reasons why common knowledge is necessary for shared intention and action. Margaret Gilbert, for instance, has argued that common knowledge is what allows individuals to move from a mere set of individual "conditional commitments" to pursue a goal, to a genuine "joint commitment" to pursue that goal and, thus, to its associated obligations. Thus, in "sharing in an action", Gilbert writes"... each [individual] expresses aconditional commitment of his will, understanding that only if the others express similar commitments are all of the wills jointly committed to accept a certain goal when the time comes. There must also be common knowledge of the individual conditional commitments in order that the joint commitment, with its attendant obligations on individuals, obtain" (On Social Facts, 205; emphasis in original).
72. Note the contrast between the two cited arguments. While Gilbert argues that unless we achieve common knowledge of our relevant attitudes we will not arrive at shared intention, Bratman argues that unless we achieve such common knowledge our shared intention will not function in the right way. I have here assumed the latter argument for common knowledge. The literature on common knowledge is immense.
73. I assume that common knowledge of this kind always involves some form of signaling or communication between the participants. Here we can distinguish between two basic forms of signaling: a "strong" form of signaling and a "weak" form of signaling. A participant strongly signals his relevant attitudes to the others when he signals his relevant attitudes to the others on the basis of an intention to do so. Thus, we may think that when Laura tells me that she has the relevant attitudes for dancing the tango with me, she is engaged in strong signaling. A participant weakly signals his relevant attitudes to the others, in contrast, when he signals his relevant attitudes to the others, but not on the basis of an intention to do so. Here it is useful to consider an example by Bratman. Bratman observes that in some cases the social setting makes the attitudes of the participants public, "as when you and I arrive at a public basketball court and simply begin, without bothering to assure each other of our intentions, to take turns shooting" ("Shared Intention and Mutual Obligation", 139). In this example, in taking turns shooting, you and I are at least weakly signaling to each other that we each have the appropriate attitudes for playing basketball (or "horse"). I believe that common knowledge in shared intention involves at least this weak form of signaling. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer at Ethics who asked me to clarify this point.
74. David Hume originally stressed the role of promising in inducing reliance (see his A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. Nidditch, 2nd ed. [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979]).
75. For recent examples, see Patrick Atiyah, Promises, Morals, and Law (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982);
76. Neil MacCormick, "Voluntary Obligations and Normative Powers I", Supplement to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 46(1972):59-78
77. and "Voluntary Obligations", in his Legal Right and Social Democracy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 190-211;
78. John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999);
79. Joseph Raz, "Voluntary Obligations and Normative Powers II", Supplement to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 46(1972):79-102
80. and "Promises and Obligations", in Law, Morality, and Society: Essays in Honour of H. L. A. Hart, ed. P. M. S. Hacker and Joseph Raz (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), 210-28;
81. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other and "Promises and Contracts", reprinted in his The Difficulty of Tolerance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 234-69;
82. Judith Thomson, The Realm of Rights (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990);
83. and George Warnock, The Object of Morality (London: Methuen, 1971).
84. Some philosophers have argued that inducing reliance in this way is a condition of promissory obligations. That is, they have argued that promising generates promissory obligations in part by inducing reliance on others in this way. We may say, simplifying crudely, that both the "expectation view" of promises and the "reliance view" of promises conceive of promissory obligations as being incurred along these lines. Other philosophers, in contrast, have rejected the idea that inducing reliance is a condition of promissory obligations. Still, most of these philosophers agree that promises normally induce reliance. They do that, they claim, in virtue of the (promissory) obligations they generate. For one of the main exponents of the expectation view, see Scanlon (What We Owe to Each Other and "Promises and Contracts"). The central reference for the reliance view is MacCormick ("Voluntary Obligations").
85. For views that do not conceive of inducing reliance as a condition of promissory obligations, see Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature;
86. David Owens, "A Simple Theory of Promising", Philosophical Review 115(2006):51-77;
87. Rawls, A Theory of Justice;
88. Raz, "Voluntary Obligations and Normative Powers II", and "Promises and Obligations";
89. Seana Shiffrin, "Promising, Intimate Relationships, and Conventionalism", Philosophical Review 117(2008):481-524;
90. and Warnock, The Object of Morality. Here I remain neutral on the conditions of promissory obligations.
91. Scanlon, "Promises and Contracts", 239-41. To "intentionally" lead another person to expect that one will perform a particular action entails, in this context, that one either aims to bring about the other person's expectation or knows that one is doing so (as a side effect of what one does). Alternatively, to "negligently" create such an expectation in another person entails that one is in a position to know that one is doing so but fails to notice it. We will see below how these adverbs are used in the relevant contexts.
92. On the obligations that one may incur by inducing reliance in this way, see Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, and "Promises and Contracts";
93. MacCormick, "Voluntary Obligations";
94. and Atiyah, Promises, Morals, and Law. In this essay, I follow for the most part Scanlon's more elaborate treatment of this form of inducing reliance and of the moral constraints that apply to it. I return to this way of inducing reliance and to the nature of the obligations thereby incurred below.
95. Bratman addresses a similar issue with regard to the common knowledge that participants in shared intention have of each other's intentions. He convincingly argues that although participants normally arrive at such common knowledge by exchanging mutual assurances about each other's intentions, they need not do so. For they may arrive at such common knowledge by other means ("Shared Intention and Mutual Obligation", 138-39).
96. However, Bratman leaves open the possibility that in order to arrive at such common knowledge by means other than exchanging mutual assurances, the participants will still be required to intentionally or negligently lead each other to expect that they each have the relevant intentions (ibid., 140). I reject this possibility below (see n. 53). 52. See Sec. IV below.
97. Going back to the distinction between "strong" and "weak" forms of signaling introduced earlier, we can say that in blushing and smiling in the cited ways, Maria and I weakly signaled to each other that we each had the appropriate attitudes for dancing the tango and did so in a nonnegligent way. See n. 46 above.
98. Some philosophers might want to deny that shared intention may be present in the absence of mutual assurances. Thus, for instance, Margaret Gilbert has claimed that a sociopsychological structure based on (mental) attitudes of individual participants is not stable or robust enough to play the roles characteristic of shared intention in coordinating the participants' planning and action, and in structuring relevant forms of bargaining between them. To be robust enough to play those roles, Gilbert maintains, shared intention must provide each participant with a kind of guarantee that each will do his part in the joint activity. These guarantees can only be provided when each participant is obligated to the others so to act. So it is not until we acknowledge that shared intention involves interpersonal obligations that we can see that shared intention has the required stability to play its characteristic roles. Or so Gilbert argues ("What Is It for Us to Intend?" 28-30).
99. Certainly, mutual assurances and the resulting obligation-based guarantees are normally present in shared intention. Thus, we may say, for example, that it is by giving mutual assurances that Hume's farmers may come to rely on each other in the relevant respects and arrive at a shared intention to harvest each other's crops in timely manner. But guarantees of this kind are not always necessary to secure the kind of expectations that facilitate the coordination and bargaining characteristic of shared intention. Not all cases of shared intention obtain in a background of mutual distrust of the form epitomized by Hume's farmers example. In "Mutual Reinforcement and the Stability of Shared Intention" (unpublished manuscript, Department of Philosophy, Georgetown University, 2008), I contend that obligation-based guarantees are not necessary for shared intention to play its characteristic roles. My contention is that the sociopsychological structure of shared intention creates a bond between the participants which is stable enough for shared intention to play those roles. It creates this bond, I argue, by setting in motion an elaborate process of mutual reinforcement of the participants' intentions and relations of mutual reliance. I conclude that this allows us to provide a rich story about the stability of shared intention which is conceptually prior to interpersonal obligations. For a discussion of why shared intention plays the aforementioned roles, see Bratman ("Shared Intention"). Thanks to an anonymous reviewer at Ethics for pressing me on this point.
100. See Atiyah, Promises, Morals, and Law;
101. MacCormick, "Voluntary Obligations"
102. and Warnock, The Object of Morality.
103. Nor does simple unilateral reliance necessarily indicate that a relevant obligation has been incurred. To return to our previous example, the fact that I have decided to rely on Maria's dancing the tango with me does not indicate that she has previously incurred a relevant obligation to me in that matter.
104. Why is that the case? In such a context of publicity, I know that Maria is relying on my intending that we dance and on my performing my part. I also know, or at least I am in a position to know, that one of the premises in Maria's theoretical reasoning is that my intention that we dance the tango will persist. Therefore, in persisting in my intention I am at least in a position to know that I am epistemically supporting this premise of Maria's theoretical reasoning, and thus, that I am providing epistemic support toMaria's reliance on my continuing to so intend and on my performing my part.
105. After all, I am in a good position to know the epistemic impact of the persistence of my intention in such a context of publicity about our attitudes.
106. Scanlon, "Promises and Contracts", 239-40.
107. Scanlon, "Promises and Contracts", 239.
108. Scanlon, "Promises and Contracts", 239-40.
109. Scanlon, "Promises and Contracts", 242.
110. Scanlon, "Promises and Contracts", 240.
111. Scanlon argues for the validity of these principles within the framework of his contractualist account of right and wrong. On Scanlon's contractualism, see his What We Owe to Each Other.
112. Scanlon, "Promises and Contracts", 240.
113. Scanlon, "Promises and Contracts", 243 n. 8.
114. It should be noted that Scanlon's Principle L is broadly in the spirit of a principle of obligation concerning cases of induced reliance defended by MacCormick ("Voluntary Obligations"). MacCormick argues that in "deliberately letting down somebody whom you have induced to rely upon you" you cause (avoidable) harm to that person and that you have an obligation to avoid doing so. This obligation, MacCormick maintains, can be accounted for by "a negative utilitarian morality... which gives priority to not harming people" and, more generally, by "any moral theory in which respect for persons is deemed of fundamental value" (ibid., 205). Despite some similarities between Scanlon's Principle L and the principle of obligation MacCormick considers, there are important differences between them. For present purposes, I will note only one of them. MacCormick thinks that the wrong of breaking a sincere promise can be captured by the principle he has in mind since in his view the wrong of promise breaking stems from the losses or harms that potential promisees suffer as a result of relying on the expectations created by promisors. Scanlon strongly rejects that view. He argues that the wrong of promise breaking is primarily accounted for, not in terms of the value of reliance but, rather, in terms of the value of what he calls "assurance" (see his "Promises and Contracts", 242-44).
115. The idea that the value of promising derives from the value of reliance has also been criticized, among others, by Raz ("Voluntary Obligations and Normative Powers II", and "Promises and Obligations"),
116. Michael Robbins ("The Primacy of Promising", Mind 85[1976]:321-40)
117. and Shiffrin ("Promising, Intimate Relationships, and Conventionalism").
118. Seana Shiffrin has argued, based on work by Charles Fried (Contract as Promise [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981], 9),
119. that the obligation stated in Scanlon's Principle L. May be "overly broad" ("Promising, Intimate Relationships, and Conventionalism", 511 n. 44).
120. Niko Kolodny and R. Jay Wallace have tried to dissipate worries such as Shiffrin's in recent work ("Promises and Practices Revisited", Philosophy & Public Affairs 31[2003]:119-54, 126-27 n. 10). I will sidestep this dispute here.
121. Scanlon, What We Owe to Each Other, 197-202, 299.
122. Scanlon does not explicitly address the question of how that requirement on moral principles relates to Principles D and L in particular. But he provides a careful discussion of how that requirement relates to other principles he considers in relation to what we owe to other people when we lead them to form certain expectations about our future conduct. Those other principles are his "Principle of Unjustified Manipulation" and his "Principle of Fidelity." For that discussion, see his "Promises and Contracts", 237-39, 245-46.
123. For what circumstances may count as "special", see Scanlon, "Promises and Contracts", 238-39.
124. Here I have followed Scanlon's discussion of a very similar example in relation to his "Principle of Unjustified Manipulation" (ibid., 238-39).
125. Similarly, we may say that if inducing somebody's reliance and then disappointing it is, as MacCormick has claimed, "a plain instance of disrespect for that other" ("Voluntary Obligations", 205), then reinforcing somebody's reliance and then disappointing it must also be an instance of disrespect for that other.
126. * I have replaced Scanlon's notion of expectation by the broader notion of assumption. Simplifying crudely, we may say that to assume that p is to incorporate p as a premise in one's reasoning. In contrast, to expect that p is basically to believe that p. There are several important
127. Similar extensions also seem to be warranted with respect to other principles of obligation concerning weak forms of induced reliance. See nn. 67 and 73 above.
128. * is supposed to provide. For a different view about reliance losses in shared intention, see Bratman, "Dynamics of Sociality", Midwest Studies in Philosophy 30(2006):1-15, 7. Thanks to two anonymous editors at Ethics for urging me to address this issue.
129. On the purported difficulty of Scanlon's arguments (and of moral arguments generally) in accounting for the relational aspect of interpersonal obligations, see Margaret Gilbert, "Scanlon on Promissory Obligation: The Problem of Promisees' Rights", Journal of Philosophy 102(2004):83-109.
130. For a compelling argument of how Scanlon's contractualism may account for the relational nature of interpersonal obligations, see R. Jay Wallace, "The Deontic Structure of Morality" (unpublished manuscript, Department of Philosophy, University of California, Berkeley, 2008).
131. MacCormick, "Voluntary Obligations", 205. As I previously mentioned, this is the way MacCormick conceives of the moral wrong involved in first inducing and then disappointing reliance. See nn. 67 and 73 above.
132. This includes Margaret Gilbert's view of interpersonal obligations. Gilbert thinks that whenever a "joint commitment" is present, interpersonal obligations (or "obligations of joint commitment" as she calls them) necessarily ensue. More importantly, Gilbert claims that the special standing that the participants of a "joint commitment" gain with respect to each other's actions "is apparently a function of the fact that the joint commitment is indeed joint; in violating it, [a participant] violates a commitment of theirs" ("Reconsidering the 'Actual Contract' Theory of Political Obligation", reprinted in her Sociality and Responsibility, 97-122, 103; emphasis in original).
133. So in Gilbert's view it is the "jointness" of the joint commitment that is supposed to account for both the grounds and the relational nature of the relevant obligations. However, there is a question here of whether this view actually succeeds in providing such an account. But this is not a question I can pursue in this essay. On the difficulties that some moral theories face in trying to account for the relational or "bipolar" nature of interpersonal obligations
134. see Michael Thompson, "What Is It to Wrong Someone? A Puzzle about Justice", in Reason and Value: Themes from the Moral Philosophy of Joseph Raz, ed. R. Jay Wallace, Philip Pettit, Samuel Scheffler, and Michael Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 333-84;
135. and Gilbert, "Scanlon on Promissory Obligation. "
136. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer at Ethics for advancing the cited objection. 82. Gilbert, On Social Facts, 411.
137. Bratman, "Shared Intention and Mutual Obligation. "
138. Bratman, "Shared Intention", 128.