Keyboard Shortcuts?f

×
  • →Next step
  • ←Previous step
  • ↓Skip this slide
  • ↑Previous slide
  • mShow slide thumbnails
  • nShow notes
  • hShow handout latex source
  • NShow talk notes latex source

Click here and press the right key for the next slide.

(This may not work on mobile or ipad. You can try using chrome or firefox, but even that may fail. Sorry.)

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

 

Quick Answers Fail

sub-plan

1. primitive actions

2. events (Ludwig)

3. intentions (The Simple Theory)

thf. need shared intention

1

quick answer

Is this argument correct? Is there an objection to it?

2

quick answer

Problem: what does it mean to say that someone is the agent of an event? This is a made up idea, so we answer the question with a stipulation ...
Is this argument correct? Is there an objection to it?

3

quick answer

Recall our question, What distinguishes joint action from parallel but merely individual action?
As we saw, it isn’t just that joint actions are coordinated, nor just that they have common effects.
Maybe we need to think in not in terms of the actions but in terms of the intentions behind them?

We each intend that we, you and I, cycle to school together.

What distinguishes ...
... an ordinary, individual action from a mere happening?

We can understand this idea by comparison with a claim about ordinary, individual action. What distinguishes genuine joint actions from parallel but merely individual actions? For example, suppose the coffee in cup in your hand ends up all over my face. This event might involve an action on your part, or it might be a mere happening. What distinguishes the two?

— Your intention that you throw the coffee at me.

One quite standard idea is that it is intention. Where the event is an action, you must have an intention to throw coffee in my face and this intention must be appropriately related to your action. By contrast, where there is no such intention the event is merely an accident.


... genuine joint actions from parallel but merely individual actions?

— Our intentions that we, you and I, cycle to school together.

The Simple Theory

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.

Explain: ‘I wish I had done that’.
We are no longer talking about joint action generally, only about intentional joint action. Compare individual action: much individual action is arguably purposive but not intentional. Similarly, we might think that there are non-intentional but purposive joint actions.
A further problem concerns the link between intentional joint action and intention. Consider individual action. Bratman has good arguments for holding that actions can be intentional under a description even when no intention specifies that description; and he also holds that agents incapable of intending may nevertheless perform intentional actions. So it is conceivable that not all intentional joint action will involve intention. In that case, the Simple Theory may not even be a fully general account of intentional joint action.
I’m not going to pursue these issues yet, but we will come back to them. For now I just want to note that, for all its simplicity, the Simple Theory raises some tricky questions.
For now I am treating the Simple Theory as offering necessary and sufficient conditions for intentional joint action, because I want to start with an ambitious claim. But reflecion on the relation between intention and intentional action may force us to back down later.
Explain: deviant causal chains.
Next step will be to consider an objection.
Can you think of an objection to the Simple Theory?

Question

What distinguishes 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

Theoretical framework for psychology and formal models.

Joint actions are actions with two or more agents ✘

Joint actions are events with two or more agents ✘

The Simple Theory ✘

actually haven’t objected to that yet, will do so next. But before we get there, I want to say what is coming.

quick responses failed

The so-called Problem of Joint Action really is a problem.

short essay question:

Why, if at all, do we need a theory of shared intention?

(Will be a while before this question makes sense.)

plan d’attaque

premise: Shared intention can only be understood as the solution to a problem.

1. What is the Problem of Joint Action? ✓

2. Can we solve the Problem without shared intention? ✓

3. If we do need shared intention, what is the best account available? ✓

So this is how to answer the essay question.
Think about it for a moment. I’m going to go on and sketch a theory of what shared intention is. But you do not need any such thing in this essay. The question is whether we need a theory of shared intention, not what that theory looks like.
Do you have an idea about how to answer the question?

short essay question:

Why, if at all, do we need a theory of shared intention?

possible argument

1. The Problem of Joint Action is a genuine problem.

2. We need a theory of shared intention only if the Problem cannot be solved without one.

EITHER
3. I will argue that Position X solves the problem without shared intention.
OR
3.′ I will object that Y’s attempt to solve the problem without shared intention fails.

short essay question:

Why, if at all, do we need a theory of shared intention?

(Will be a while before this question makes sense.)

plan d’attaque

premise: Shared intention can only be understood as the solution to a problem.

1. What is the Problem of Joint Action? ✓

2. Can we solve the Problem without shared intention? ✓

3. If we do need shared intention, what is the best account available? ✓

On with the plan: we have to complete step 2