My original (1984) analysis of we-intention (presented in Section III) is not and was not meant to be reductive but it was meant to elucidate we-intentions in an informative way. My analysis in this paper has shown that conceptually there is (at most) partial circularity relative to a presupposed underlying common- sense idea of joint aim or purpose. This is not vicious circularity. Furthermore, there is no serious “psychological” circularity, as agents can perfectly well we-intend and function in terms of a vernacular, preanalytic notion of joint intention (and we-intention). To summarize the latter, functionality part, we know sufficiently well (i) what an action intention to perform one’s part amounts to and we know (ii) what one’s being we-committed to X amounts
to. The role of schema (W2) and similar reasoning schemas that the participants are supposed to use at least in some implicit way serve to clarify (ii) and the social commitment involved in collective commitment. More generally, the participant is committed to partic- ipating in the participants’ jointly seeing to it that X and thus, unless otherwise agreed by the participants, he must be prepared to do more than his preaction default part involves.11When all the partici- pants carry out their participation intentions (in the sense of (2)), intentionally performed joint action results.
My overall conclusion concerning the criticisms by Miller (and others) that we-intentions cannot be regarded as intentions and the criticism (made by e.g. Searle) that the concept of we-intention is viciously circular is that these criticisms are not warranted and that my non-reductive notion of we-intention also is functionally adequate.12
NOTES
1 This is how the analysis looks like in what I have called the general case:
(WI) A member Ai of a collective gwe-intendsto see to it that X jointly with
the other participants if and only if
(i) Ai intends to do his part of the participants’ seeing to it jointly that
(“jstiting”) X (as his part of X);
(ii) Ai has a belief to the effect that the joint action opportunities for
intentional jstiting X will obtain (or at least probably will obtain), espe- cially that a right number of the full-fledged and adequately informed members of g, as required for the jstiting X, will (or at least probably will) do their parts of the participants’ jstiting X, which will under normal conditions result in successful jstiting X by the participants; (iii) Aibelieves that there is (or will be) a mutual belief among the partici-
pating members of g to the effect that the joint action opportunities for jstiting X will obtain (or at least probably will obtain);
(iv) (i) in part because of (ii) and (iii).
2 It should be noted that the analysandum in (WI) is a future- or present-directed
we-intention. Such a we-intention is assumed to “purposively cause” relevant part action in accordance with schemas such as (W1) and (W2) (see Tuomela (1977, Chapter 9, 1984, Chapter 4, 1995, Chapter 2), for my purposive – causal account of action). In our present kind of case, every part action will involve a “we-willing” by the agent. It will cause the relevant bodily behaviors required by the part action to come about.
Let me give a quick account of the central content of a we-willing, which is an act-relational notion (cf. Tuomela, 1995, Chapter 2). Consider an agent Ai’s
we-willing to do X: Aiwills to do (in the jointly intended way), by his behavior,
anything which he believes is required of him for them (viz., A1,. . . , Am) to
do X jointly. Disregarding the reflexive reference to the joint intention, we here get basically this: (Y) Ai wills that (if he believes it is required of him for us to
do X jointly that (Ey) (he will now perform y & y is a Y), then (Ez) (he will now perform z & z is a Y)) . Here Y ranges over bodily actions (here: voluntary behaviors) and occurs in ade reposition. It follows that, although Ai need not
have the concept of any action Y* that Y ranges over, he wills of Y that it is required in the specified sense. The requiredness above is at least partly causal, and thus we-willing typically involves causal production. Here we can say after the action that Ai’s we-willing was about a particular piece of behavior, say b: he
willed, by b, to perform his part of X.
3 While the present paper concentrates only on we-mode collective or joint
intention, let me summarize here the most central features distinguishing prop- erly collective intentions (to X) from collective intentions as aggregated private intentions (see Tuomela, 2000b, for discussion):
(i) there is a difference concerning the commitments and control concern- ing the intention-content (private versus collective, respectively); and (ii) a difference in mode (I-mode versus we-mode) and accordingly the
“indexicality” (I-indexicality versus we-indexicality) related to the achievement process, and there is also
(iii) a difference related to the satisfaction conditions of the intention content itself.
The satisfaction matter (iii) is clear enough – a private intention content does not satisfy the Collectivity Condition while a collective intention content satis- fies it. This condition entails collective acceptance, and we have the following difference:
(iv) A collective intention is collectively accepted by the participants as their collective intention, whereas this is not true of private intentions.
As to the indexicality concerning the achievement process and the involved X-related commitments (ii), there is I-indexicality in both cases, but in the private case the I-indexicality concerns the whole content X. In the case of a collective intention to perform X together the intender accepts that the participants (“we”) by acting together will try to satisfy X and believes that they at least with some probability can do it. Here I-indexicality in a personal but non-private sense is involved in that the intender must intend by his own action to contribute to X. The above features (i)–(iv) are interconnected. Thus it can be said that collec- tively intending something X in the we-mode is truth-equivalent to collectively accepting for the participants’ “use” that they will X, with collective commitment to X.
4 Here is a revised and improved summary account of the “bridge principle”
of Tuomela (1995), Chapter 3, that purports to connect plan-language with agreement language in the case of joint intention:
(JIP*) Some agents (say A1,. . ., Am) have formed the (agreement-based)
joint intention to perform X jointly if and only if each of them (a) has accepted a plan to perform X jointly, (b) has communicated this acceptance to the others, and (c) it is a true mutual belief among
A1, . . . , Am that they are jointly committed to performing X and
that there is or will be a part or share (requiring at least potential contribution) of X for each agent to perform that he accordingly is or will be committed to performing. Here the agents’ reason for their aforementioned mutual belief is (a) and (b).
On the right hand side of the analysis acceptance must be understood in a norma- tively group-binding sense involving an obligation for the analysis to be right. While this bridge principle then is not very informative from the normative point of view, it still shows how strongly the “plan language” must be understood to result in equivalence. Of course, if acceptance is understood in a weaker sense – which is perhaps the more normal sense – then the agreement account remains the stronger of the two.
5 Note that in the Tuomela-Miller (1988) account we can speak of collective
intending as a group in an intersubjective sense (by the participants collectively considered and also by each individual participant) by some agents A1,. . ., Am
and also by each Ai. When knowledge about participation intentions is required
to have been communicated, we can have collective intending in the strong sense of these persons intending as a collective both in the intersubjective and in a fully objective sense. In this case the participants fully jointly control the settling of what to do and, given that the environment “cooperates”, doing what has been settled.
Some other philosophers have also discussed joint intentions. Among them are, to mention some recent references, Bratman (1999), Gilbert (2000), Mathiesen (2002), Searle (1990), and Velleman (1997). See my extensive critical comments on some of these authors, especially Velleman, in Tuomela (2000b).
6 Seumas Miller’s (1992, 2001) account of the notion ofcollective end in his
1992 paper is as follows (p. 285):
A state of affairs E is a collective end in a group g if and only if (1) everyone in the group g has E as his end; (2) everyone intentionally performs the appropriate action; (3) everyone believes that if everyone performs that action then the end will be realized; (4) there is a mutual belief among the participants that (1), (2), and (3). (I have understood that Miller allows ‘everyone’ to be replaced by ‘almost everyone’ or, in the 2001 book, even ‘most’ in the above analysis.)
Consider an example: Suppose you and I decide jointly to steal some apples from a garden and figure out that you, because of your small size, are the only one who is physically capable of getting into the garden (say, through a hole in
the hedge). In this example both of us intend (and have as a goal) that we jointly steal apples. This end can be reached by one (but not both) of us actually acting, although in a broader sense we are acting together to realize the goal. This shows that Seumas Miller’s analysis of a collective end is not right, for in his analysis clauses (2), (3), and (hence) (4) are accordingly seen to be false.
According to Miller, ajoint actionconsists of at least two individual actions directed to the realization of a collective end. Thus, individual actions x and y performed by agents A and B (respectively) in situation s, constitute a joint action if and only if (1) A intentionally performs x in s (and B intentionally performs y in s); (2) A x-s in s if and only if (he believes) B has y-ed, is y-ing or will y in s (and B y-s in s if and only if (he believes) A has x-ed, is x-ing or will x in s); (3) A has end e, and A x-s in s in order to realize e (B has end e, and B y-s in s in order to realize e); (4) A and B each mutually truly believes that A has performed, is performing or will perform x in s and that B has performed, is performing or will perform y in s; (5) each agent mutually truly believes that 2) and 3). (Although this formulation says nothing about collective ends, I take it to be an underlying requirement that e must be a collective end in (3).)
Miller’s notion of joint action here is mutual belief-based joint action with the additional requirement that B’s action is both a necessary and sufficient condition for A’s acting, and conversely. I argue that his analysis is both too strong and too weak, in part because he seems not to take into account voluntarily created dependence. In his analysis the dependence between the participants’ actions, which are means actions towards their shared collective end, derives from the nature of the collective end. I would say that Miller’s view of joint action amounts to a sophisticated aggregative view: joint actions are aggregated individual actions directed towards a shared collective end together with some interdependence between the actions. But this collective end is an end that the both only have as theirindividualend (it is an I-mode collective end but not a we-mode one, to use my standard terminology). The nature of the end state is simply such that it creates dependence between the actors and thus gives the appearance of a group end, viz. and end that the agents acting as a group have chosen as their end, but the end is not one that the agents have accepted as their joint end or group end. The analysis thus seems too weak, if taken to be able to capture acting jointly as a group. The basic element that is missing is full-blown intended group end – something that the agents have accepted as their collective end, viz. for their group, and that involves their collective or joint commitment to it. (As seen, in my theory the joint commitment ensues essentially from the participants’ full collective endorsement of intention expressions of the kind “We will do X together”.)
On the other hand, the analysis is also too strong. We may consider Miller’s (2001) example on p. 56 about two persons traveling from Oxford to London where one has a car and enough gas for the trip and the other one has some money (to pay for his share of the consumed gas) but not enough to get to London alone. According to Miller, this is not a joint action, because the car owner is not relevantly dependent on the other person. But I claim that it can be – e.g. if the agents agree to travel together to London. Similarly, we can take a walk
together but equally well walk alone – we voluntarily decide whether or not to make ourselves relevantly dependent on each other. So in this sense the above analysis is too strong. (See also Mathiesen (2002, p. 195), for somewhat different kinds of examples against both the necessity and the sufficiency conditions.)
7 Within my account one can prove that an agent must intend that the others also
intend to perform their parts:
(1) We will, by our joint actions, see to it jointly that X (e.g. a joint action) [joint intention];
(2) I aim-intend X [aim-intention] and hence
I intend to perform my part of our seeing to it that X [action intention]; (3) I aim-intend that you (or the others, more generally) intentionally participate in our seeing to it jointly that X [aim-intention involving collective commitment];
(4) I aim-intend (to see to it) that you aim-intend X. [aim-intention, collective commitment, and the assumption that intentional collective action requires aim-intention];
(5) I aim intend to see to it that that you action intend to perform your part of our seeing to it jointly that s [aim-intention and the view that (your) aim-intention requires action intention for its satisfaction].
Conclusion (5) shows that my account also requires a participant’s aim- intention towards another participant’s aim-intention and action intention. The view that joint intention entails collective commitment is the basic premise in the above argument. Joint intention thus entails collective commitment, and collective commitment again entails joint persistence (also cf. my schema (W2)). Thus joint intention in my sense involves both collective (and hence social) commitment and joint persistence.
8 Searle (1990) criticism is directed in particular against the analysis of we-
intentions presented in Tuomela and Miller (1988). He presents an example in which a person (a member of a group of businessmen influenced by Adam Smith’s theory of the invisible hand) is assumed to intend to help humanity by pursuing his own selfish interests. This agent accordingly forms the intention to pursue his own interests and believes it to be his part in helping humanity. Searle claims that this example can be made to fit our analysis (viz., the analysis (WI)), even if there actually is no we-intention involved. But he is mistaken here; his criticism is based on a misunderstanding of our paper. We explicitly require in our paper that the we-intending agent must be assumed to intend to perform his part (here: pursuing his selfish interests)as his partof the joint action X (helping humanity). Clearly, however, this requirement is not satisfied by Searle’s example, which thus is not a counterexample to our analysis.
Let me note, too, that Searle incorrectly assumes in his paper that (concep- tual) reduction of we-intentions to personal intentions and mutual beliefs was attempted in our paper (cf. our contrary desideratum on p. 367). To see this, one in fact need only to study (WI) and what has earlier been said about its analytic concepts.
Searle also states in his paper that if, on the other hand, the notion of “doing his part” is understood in a sense which is adequately strong, then it will include the notion of collective intention, creating a circularity problem. However, as will be shown in Section VI, this is a false claim. (For further points related to Searle’s criticisms, see Tuomela, 1995, note 6 to Chapter 3.)
9 Mathiesen’s (2002, p. 192) precise formulation is this: A intends to perform her
part of X in order that the participants succeed in doing X.
10 Intention entails commitment (at least in an instrumental sense), and joint
intention entails joint commitment. Accordingly, using commitment language, (2)(a) entails that A is we-committed to performing his part of X and (2)(b) entails that he is we-committed to X (viz. to X getting performed, if it is a joint action, or brought about if it is a state). Here we-commitment means being committed as a team or group member, the group consisting precisely in those who participate in performing X together. (We can analyze minimal person-level we-commitment as follows: A is committed to X as a joint project and believes that the others are and that this is a mutual belief among them.)
Christopher Kutz (2000) has recently argued that in a “minimal” joint action the participants need not share a collective end but need only have a “participatory intention”,viz., an intention to do one’s part in joint action (accompanied by the belief that the part action indeed will contribute to the collective end or goal). See my critical remarks, focusing on the lack of collective commitment to the end in Kutz’s analysis, in Tuomela (2000b, pp. 386f.).
11 Let me finally make a comment on “weak” we-intentions defined on the basis
of the we-attitude account discussed most recently in Chapter 2 of Tuomela (2002b). We recall that in the case of a strong we-intention (WI) the agent A intends to participate in accordance with and partly because of the participants’ joint intention to perform X (or to jstit X). Thus hebelievesthat there is such a joint intention, but this belief might be false. This is even more perspicuous in the case of weak we-intentions – and here I consider especially “reason-based” weak we-intentions. According to this kind of weak we-intention with joint action content, A we-intends to participate in jstiting X if and only if he intends to participate and does it in part because he believes that the others also so intend and that this is mutually believed by them. We can say that, put together, we have a joint intention: each participant intends in the present reason-based sense to participate in jstiting X a partial reason for this being that he believes that the others (and indeed all the participants, including himself) so intend and that this is mutually believed by them. Thus the joint intention is there: it consists of the agents shared reason-based we-intention in the present sense. It should be clear that the notion of a reason-based weak we-intention is not directly circular, as a joint intention here at most refers to an agent’s belief about the existence of a joint intention and, as emphasized, the joint intention is one understood only in a preanalytic sense.
12
I wish to thank Pekka Mäkelä, Kaarlo Miller, Hans Bernhard Schmid, and Maj Tuomela as well as my audience at the Department of Philosophy of the University of Florida for comments.
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