Individuals or group?
Take this statement by Kit Fine: “Philosophy is the
strangest of subjects: ... it attempts to deal with the most profound questions
and yet constantly finds itself preoccupied with the trivialities of language ...”
(source: see below). This is
especially so in the analytical philosophy. As the name indicates already, its
method comprises conceptual analysis, hoping that by doing so we can say
something about reality. Analytical philosophy in its several forms is one of
the main streams of Western philosophy so one must not underestimate its
influence on thinking about important questions.
I am a big fan of this approach. Since I am a sociologist
by education, it might be expected that I prefer to answer questions about
society by going to the field with a questionnaire and ask people what they
think. Or that I should observe how they behave. Then I should try to find out from
the data I collected what is common in what people do. For instance, a question
that intrigues me at the moment is: How do groups behave? Well, collect data
about all kinds of groups and draw your conclusions. However, what I actually do
is sitting behind my laptop and analyzing the concept of group.
I am certainly not alone in studying social groups
this way. Outstanding analytical philosophers who do so are for instance
Michael Bratman, Raimo Tuomela and Margaret Gilbert. Take for instance the
latter. Gilbert argues
that when we want to explain group activity, we can look at a simple model of a
two-person group for seeing what is going on; for example the case of two
people walking together. She says: “[G]oing for a walk with another person
involves participating in an activity of a special kind, one whose goal is the
goal of a plural subject, as opposed to the shared personal goal of the
participants. [It] involves an ‘our goal’ as opposed to two or more ‘my
goals’.” (1996, p. 187) Walking together is more than just walking next to each
other in the same direction, even when both are talking with each other, for
maybe at the next corner each will go his or her own way. “[I]n order to go for
a walk together”, so Gilbert, “each of the parties must express willingness to
constitute with the other a plural
subject of the goal that they walk along in one another’s company” (id.,
p. 184; italics MG). The individual wills must be put together to “a pool
of wills that is dedicated, as one, to that goal. ... The individual wills are
bound simultaneously and interdependently”
(id., p. 185; italics MG). It is not only
that each individual promises to follow the group goal, but there is a mutual,
or as Gilbert says it, joint commitment that I follow the group goal if you do:
“[E]ach person expresses a special form of conditional
commitment such that (as is understood) only when everyone has done similarly anyone
is committed.” (ibid.; italics MG)
Only if the others agree one is released of the obligation. So, according to
Gilbert, a group is founded on some appointment between its members, and the
two-person walking group is a model that basically applies to all kinds of
groups. From this we can conclude that in the end all groups are based on a
kind of explicit agreement between its members.
Is Gilberts right? At first sight it sounds plausible.
Nevertheless I think that we come here at the limits of the analytical
approach. For when I look around what is happening in the world, the practice
is often different. Groups as described by Gilbert do exist, indeed. If people
go for a walk together, usually they do this by agreement. But is it a model
case of all kinds of groups? I have my doubts. How often doesn’t it happen that
I belong to a group that I don’t have constituted with the other members, but
that I simply joined and that I adapt myself to, because I have no choice and
because the positive aspects of joining exceed the negative aspects. People
join sports clubs but often they have no say in its rules. “The club”
determines in which team you play and changes also the club rules now and then,
and it often happens that you have no say in it. You are in an army unit
because military service is compulsory in your country, but if possible you
would quit. Or you work in a team of a department of your company, for you need
the money, but if you had the choice, you would work elsewhere. However, the unemployment
is high so you can’t. And your boss can dismiss you, if he doesn’t need you any
longer, even if you don’t agree. Most people have so little influence on the
groups they belong to, that it’s difficult to say that these groups are based
on a joint commitment. Indeed, the members have committed themselves to do what
the purpose of the group requires, and once having joined they must follow
orders and adapt without having much say in what the group does. As said, I am
a big fan of the analytical approach, but I find it also important to look at
the facts. Philosophy, even analytical philosophy, and sociology need to go together
and they go well together, when they talk about society.
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