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"Bratman, Michael"
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Tomasello on “we” and the sense of obligation
Tomasello explores four interrelated phenomena: (1) joint intentional collaboration; (2) joint commitment; (3) “self-regulative pressure from ‘we’”; and (4) the sense of interpersonal obligation. He argues that the version of (1) that involves (2) is the “source” of (3) and so the source of (4). I note an issue that arises once we distinguish two versions of (3).
Journal Article
Structures of agency : essays
This is a collection of published and unpublished chapters by distinguished philosopher Michael E. Bratman of Stanford University. They revolve around his influential theory, known as the “planning theory of intention and agency.” Bratman's primary concern is with what he calls “strong” forms of human agency—including forms of human agency that are the target of our talk about self-determination, self-government, and autonomy.
eBook
Intention, Practical Rationality, and Self‐Governance
Explores the difficult problems that arise from efforts to understand the characteristic norms of practical rationality involved in planning agency. It is noted that \"cognitivists\" tend to view these rationality norms as norms of theoretical rationality while others see the notion that these rationality norms have a distinctive normative force as a \"myth.\" The focus is on finding a middle path that emphasizes links between practical reason, planning structures, & the metaphysics of self-governance. The reason planning agents conform to norms of practical rationality is based at least in part on their desire to govern their own lives. The norms of rationality examined are \"wide-scope norms on sets of attitudes,\" described as norms that reject or proscribe combinations of attitudes. The relation between reasons & rationality is addressed, along with the normative significance of intention coherence & consistency; & problems that arise during attempts to account for the \"distinctive normative force of Means-End Coherence in a way that is in the spirit of Reason for Means-End Coherence.\". Adapted from the source document.
Journal Article
Two Faces of Our Idea of Acting Together
In her 2021 Lebowitz Prize Lecture, ‘A Simple Theory of Acting Together’, Margaret Gilbert seeks to articulate the ‘idea’ of acting together that ‘animates’ our commonsense talk about this important phenomenon. I seek a model that provides illuminating sufficient conditions for this phenomenon. As I see it, these are not quite the same project. After all, our commonsense idea and talk may well have two interrelated faces: an inchoate understanding of what the phenomenon is; and an inchoate understanding of norms about, very roughly, what those who participate in this phenomenon normally thereby owe to each other. Gilbert develops a rich and complex articulation of this second element, one according to which the interpersonal obligations in question are not in general moral obligations. Broadly speaking, her strategy is then to take this web of interpersonal obligations and the like and directly build it into her account of what the phenomenon of acting together is. This leads her to say that that phenomenon involves a non-reducible phenomenon in which A and B are ‘jointly committed to endorse G as a body’––where such joint commitments are constituted at least in part by the interpersonal obligations and the like to which our commonsense idea of acting together alludes.
Journal Article
A Planning Theory of Acting Together
We have the capacity to act together in shared intentional and shared cooperative ways. This lecture argues that our capacity for the plan-based, mind-supported cross-temporal organization of our individual activities, together with certain further elements, suffices for our capacity for the mind-supported, small-scale social organization characteristic of acting together. These two fundamental forms of human practical organization––diachronic and small-scale social––are for us grounded in a common core: our capacity for planning agency.
Journal Article
Modest Sociality and the Distinctiveness of Intention
Cases of modest sociality are cases of small scale shared intentional agency in the absence of asymmetric authority relations. I seek a conceptual framework that adequately supports our theorizing about such modest sociality. I want to understand what in the world constitutes such modest sociality. I seek an understanding of the kinds of normativity that are central to modest sociality. And throughout we need to keep track of the relations—conceptual, metaphysical, normative—between individual agency and modest sociality. In pursuit of these theoretical aims, I propose that a central phenomenon is shared intention. I argue that an adequate understanding of the distinctiveness of the intentions of individuals allows us to provide a construction of attitudes of the participants, and of relevant inter-relations and contexts that constitutes shared intention. I explain how shared intention, so understood, differs from a simple equilibrium within common knowledge. And I briefly contrast my views with aspects of views of John Searle and Margaret Gilbert.
Journal Article
The Interplay of Intention and Reason
In a series of essays David Gauthier develops a two-tier pragmatic theory of practical rationality and argues, within that theory, for a distinctive account of the rationality of following through with prior assurances or threats. His discussion suggests that certain kinds of temporally extended agency play a special role in one’s temporally extended life going well. I argue that a related idea about diachronic self-governance puts us in a position to explain a sense in which an accepted deliberative standard can be self-reinforcing. And this gives us resources to adjust Gauthier’s theory in response to a basic challenge.
Journal Article
Rational Planning Agency
Our planning agency contributes to our lives in fundamental ways. Prior partial plans settle practical questions about the future. They thereby pose problems of means, filter solutions to those problems, and guide action. This plan-infused background frames our practical thinking in ways that cohere with our resource limits and help organize our lives, both over time and socially. And these forms of practical thinking involve guidance by norms of plan rationality, including norms of plan consistency, means-end coherence, and stability over time.
But why are these norms of rationality? Would these norms be stable under a planning agent's reflection? I try to answer these questions in a way that responds to a skeptical challenge. While I highlight pragmatic reasons for being a planning agent, these need to be supplemented fully to explain the force of these norms in the particular case. I argue that the needed further rationale appeals to the idea that these norms track certain conditions of a planning agent's self-governance, both at a time and over time. With respect to diachronic plan rationality, this approach leads to a modest plan conservatism.
Journal Article