[MD] Sociability Re-examined

[Craig Erb]

[Arlo]
>...Tomasello (I really wish you'd read it to help avoid these misconceptions).

Arlo,
I did read the Wikipedia article on Tomasello, where he seems to agree
with Pirsig that humans have a capacity that non-humans (on earth) don't. This capacity could be the divide between the 2nd & 3rd levels.
The following is the handout of Bratman's talk at Stanford.  I hope it is of some value even without the talk itself.  [Beware, the format might be garbled in transmission.]
Craig


Acting
and Thinking Together 
                                               Michael E. Bratman        April 7, 2014 
We have
the capacity for shared intentional (and shared cooperative) activity. 
Examples: we paint the house together, dance together, have a
conversation together, 
perform an experiment together, walk together (Gilbert). 
Such SIAs
are important in our lives, both instrumentally and
noninstrumentally.
Contrast with 
1.    Mere strategic interaction (e.g., just walking alongside each
other). 
2.    Explicit promises (Hume's rowers row together
"tho' they have never given 
promises to each other.") 
Appeal to
a fundamentally new concept/capacity? 
a. John
Searle: new attitude of "we-intention" (vs. ordinary intentions involved in 
individual agency) in the minds of participating individuals. 
b.
Margaret Gilbert: new inter-relation of "joint commitment" (involves
special 
mutual obligations) between the participants. 
My
alternative: reductive, multi-faceted model of our shared agency. 
·         Exploit theoretical resources already available in the theory of
individual planning 
agency. 
·         Use these resources to "construct"/provide sufficient conditions
for shared 
agency. Strategy of sufficiency. 
Individual
planning agency: 
·         Cross-temporally organized human agency, plans and planning. 
·         Especially given our resource limits, these tend to be partial plans
that need to be 
filled in as time goes by. 
·         Intentions are plan states (in contrast with ordinary expectations) 
Characterize
these plan structures in part by appeal to their characteristic roles in the 
cross-temporal organization of our resource-limited agency: 
·         Settle on certain (future, partial) options 
·         Stable over time (resistance to reconsideration/revision) 
·         Pose problems of means (given partiality) 
·         Filter admissible options 
·         Guide action 
These
roles are explained in part by the guidance by (implicitly) accepted
norms of plan 
rationality. Two especially salient norms: 
·         Means-end coherence [problem posing role] 
·         Consistency and agglomerativity [filtering role] 
Basic
Conjecture: Our capacity for SIA, like our capacity for individual
temporally 
extended intentional agency, is grounded in our individual planning capacities. 
Our SIA it is explained by our shared intention in favor of our so acting. 
•
Overarching roles of shared intention to X include: 
1.    inter-personal coordination of action and planning in pursuit of X, 
2.structure
thinking together (bargaining; shared deliberation) concerning 
-- how to X. 
Ifshared intentions are
successfully to play these roles, the relevant plans of the 
participants need to satisfy (though perhaps not be guided by) norms of 
(a)
social consistency and 
(b)
social means-end coherence. 
Aim:
specify a structure of inter-connected plan states of individuals that would, when functioning in
the norm-guided ways characteristic of individual planning agency, play these roles characteristic of shared
intention and satisfy these associated social norms. 
A
plan-theoretic construction of shared intention to J: 
·        A. each intends that we J 
·         B. interlocking intentions that we J 
·         C. Each intends mutual responsiveness and mesh 
·         D. Interdependence in persistence 
·         E. Conditions are out in the open 
This
construction of inter-connected plan states, when functioning successfully in
the ways specified by the planning theory of individual agency, is sufficient for robust
forms of shared intention and SIA. 
·         Etiology and rational dynamics of SIA will normally involve assurance, intentionally
induced reliance, and the like; and these normally engage norms of 
moral obligation. 
·         There can be SIA even though each participates for
different reasons. 
Theoretical
richness of this multi-faceted planning model challenges an appeal to a fundamentally
new element. 
Too
demanding? 
Extending
the model: 
• Shared policies to apply
certain weightsin our relevant shared deliberation 
(i)
Examples: give weight to diversity considerations in our hiring decisions; give
more weight to market share than to short-term profits in our business decisions;
give weight to beautiful scenery in deciding on a route for our walking
together. 
(ii)
Apply the plan-theoretic construction to these shared policies of weights. 
(iii) Shared policy of weights vs. "public consensus of independent conviction" (Hart, Dworkin) 
·         We share a social normif we have a shared
policy to apply it within
our relevant practical thinking. 
·         Model shared deliberation as a SIA that aims at
settling how to proceed in our overarching SIA, given needs for mesh in thought and
action, by
way of guidance by relevant shared policies of weights/shared social norms. 
·         Shared policies of weights and shared social norms
normally speak for the group: normally, when they guide the group governs
itself.

These planning models of our sociality help support the basic conjecture
that planning capacities are a common structure behind both the cross-temporal
and the social organization of our agency. (Cp. Henry Sidgwick, Thomas Nagel.)