Group agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents

249 Pages·2011·1.35 MB·English

by  Christian List

Group Agency
This page intentionally left blank
Group Agency
The Possibility, Design,
and Status of Corporate Agents
Christian List
London School of Economics
and
Philip Pettit
Princeton University
1
3
GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26DP
OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford.
ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship,
andeducationbypublishingworldwidein
Oxford NewYork
Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi
KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi
NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
Withofficesin
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress
intheUKandincertainothercountries
PublishedintheUnitedStates
byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork
#ChristianListandPhilipPettit2011
Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted
DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker)
Firstpublished2011
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,
withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,
orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate
reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction
outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,
OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove
Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover
andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
Dataavailable
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Dataavailable
TypesetbySPIPublisherServices,Pondichery,India
PrintedinGreatBritain
onacid-freepaperby
MPGBooksGroup,BodminandKing’sLynn
ISBN978–0–19–959156–5
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Contents
Preface vii
Introduction 1
Forrealismaboutgroupagents 2
Thehistoricalnoveltyofourformofgroup-agentrealism 7
Methodologicalimplications,positiveandnormative 11
Part I. The Logical Possibility of Group Agents
1. TheConditionsofAgency 19
1.1Abasicaccountofagency 19
1.2Complicationsinagency 25
1.3Theideaofgroupagency 31
2. TheAggregationofIntentionalAttitudes 42
2.1Aparadoxofmajoritarianattitudeaggregation 43
2.2Animpossibilityresult 47
2.3Escaperoutesfromtheimpossibility 51
3. TheStructureofGroupAgents 59
3.1Theorganizationalstructureofagroupagent 60
3.2Thesupervenienceofagroupagent 64
3.3Theunmysteriousautonomyofthegroupagent 73
Part II. The Organizational Design of Group Agents
4. TheEpistemicDesideratum 81
4.1Formulatingtheepistemicdesideratum 82
4.2Satisfyingtheepistemicdesideratum 86
4.3Complications 97
5. TheIncentive-CompatibilityDesideratum 104
5.1Formulatingtheincentive-compatibilitydesideratum 105
5.2Satisfyingtheincentive-compatibilitydesideratum 109
5.3Tworoutestoincentivecompatibility 124
6. TheControlDesideratum 129
6.1Formulatingthecontroldesideratum 129
6.2Satisfyingthecontroldesideratum 136
6.3Broaderlessons 144
vi CONTENTS
Part III. The Normative Status of Group Agents
7. HoldingGroupAgentsResponsible 153
7.1Fitnesstobeheldresponsible 153
7.2Thefitnessofgroupagentstobeheldresponsible 158
7.3Individualandcorporateresponsibility 163
8. PersonifyingGroupAgents 170
8.1Theconceptionofpersonhood 170
8.2Groupagentsaspersons 174
8.3Grouppersonsandrespect 178
9. IdentifyingWithGroupAgents 186
9.1Identificationandself-identification 186
9.2Corporateidentificationandself-identification 191
9.3Multipleidentities 195
References 202
Endnotes 214
GeneralIndex 231
NameIndex 236
Preface
Can groups be unified rational agents over and above their individual members?
In this book, we argue that they can, and identify conditions under which it is
methodologically and normativelyjustified toview acollective asa single agent. We
arguefurtherthatrecognizingtheexistenceofgroupagentsleadsustoreconceptualize
someof thecontours ofthesocialworld, from both positive andnormative perspec-
tives.
Fromapositiveperspective,onecanoftenachievegreaterdescriptiveandexplana-
toryparsimonybyviewingacollectiveasasingleagent,actinginpursuitofasingleset
ofdesires,inaccordancewithasinglesetofbeliefs.Candidatesforgroupagentsinclude
governments, commercial corporations, collegial courts, political parties, and expert
panels,togivejustafewexamples.Todefendtheviewthattherearegroupagents,we
mustexplainhowtherequiredagentialunificationcanemergeatthecollectivelevel,
despitethefactthatindividualgroupmembershavetheirowndivergentsetsofbeliefs
anddesiresaswellasconflictsofinterest.Wesuggestsuchanexplanationandgivean
accountofhowagroupmustbeorganizedinordertofunctionasasingleagent.
Fromanormativeperspective,oncewerecognizetheexistenceofgroupagents,we
are able to assign responsibility to entities that were previously unacknowledged; we
areabletoextendtheuniverseofpersonsinawaythatallowsustotrackobligations,
entitlements, and power relations in places where we did not previously see them;
andweareabletoclarifythenatureoftheconflictingdemandsonpeople’sidentities
thatmayotherwiseseemopaque.
Inshort,thisbookisintendedtolaythefoundationsforarevisedpictureofthelociof
agency in our complex social world. Crucially, our approach seeks to explain the
possibility of group agency in a non-mysterious way. We reject the emergentist
approaches that can be found in some of the older, heavily metaphysical accounts
of group agency which had their origins in nineteenth-century and early twentieth-
century continental traditions and which tended to elevate group agents above in-
dividuals, hailing them like transcendent realities that radiate into the minds of
individuals. Instead, our approach is inspired and informed by recent developments
inrational and socialchoice theoryand other contemporary fields of philosophy and
the social sciences, and so is compatible with the broadly individualistic foundations
ofthosemodernfields.
Afteramoredetailedintroduction,thebookisdividedintothreeparts.Inthefirst
part,wedefendthelogicalpossibilityofgroupagents.Inthesecond,wediscussseveral
challenges that arise in the organizational design of group agents and suggest some
generalstrategiesformeetingthosechallenges.Inthethirdandfinalpart,wediscussthe
viii PREFACE
normativestatusofgroupagents,addressingissuessuchastheirresponsibility,person-
hood,androleinprocessesofidentification.
This book should be regarded as a piece of foundational research rather than
empirical social science or applied political theory. The book is primarily meant to
be a contribution to the philosophy of social science as well as to the foundations of
political theory. We are unable to offer a fully developed social-scientific theory of
group agency, with fully worked-out theoretical models and empirical tests. Neither
are we able here to offer a full account of how group agents fit into the normative
theories of politics that are being developed by political philosophers. Instead, we
sketchwhatwetaketobesomeofthecoreingredientsofatheoryofgroupagencyand
its normative significance. We hope that this general picture proves to be persuasive
and leads to further social-scientific and philosophical work on the many topics and
questionsthatthisvolumedoesnotaddress.
We have worked on some of the material in this book for ten years and have
accumulatedanenormousrangeofdebts,jointandindividual.Itisimpossibletoname
everyonewhohashelpedusoverthatperiod–somepeoplehavebeenthankedinthe
various papers that the research has generated – but we would like to single out for
mentionasmallnumberofpeople.
Indevelopingtheideaspresentedinthebook,wehavebenefitedenormouslyfrom
exchanges with colleagues in the institutional settings in which we have worked
separately and often together. Having worked together in the Research School of
Social Sciences at the Australian National University, and the University Center for
HumanValuesatPrincetonUniversity,wewouldliketoexpressourgratitudetoboth
of those institutions for their intellectual and financial support. Our work has also
benefitedvery much fromthestimulatingintellectual environment ChristianListhas
enjoyedintheChoiceGroupandthePoliticalTheoryGroupattheLondonSchoolof
Economics.
Anumber of individuals in those institutions and elsewhere have been particularly
important interlocutors and collaborators on topics related to this book, including
RichardBradley,GeoffreyBrennan,FranzDietrich,andWlodekRabinowicz,andwe
owe a lot to their friendship and wisdom. We are also greatly indebted to several
peoplewhohavegenerouslyprovideddetailedcommentsonearlierdraftsofthisbook
orsomeofitschapters,includingRachaelBriggsandhercolleaguesAlisonFernandes
and Mark Jago in the epistemology reading group at Macquarie University, Bruce
Chapman and two other, anonymous readers for Oxford University Press, Katrin
Flikschuh, Natalie Gold, Lewis Kornhauser, Carlo Martini, Hilde Nagell, Kai
Spiekermann, Laura Valentini, and several former students at the LSE and Princeton
University, including Lara Buchak, Zsuzsanna Chappell, Krystalli Glyniadakis, and
CecileHoareau.
In addition, we are grateful to a large number of people who in different ways
have shaped our thinking on the present topic and galvanized our efforts over the
years. Inevitably, we can provide only an incomplete list: Jason Alexander, David
PREFACE ix
Austen-Smith,NickBaigent,LucBovens,StevenBrams,MichaelBratman,Johanvan
Benthem, John Dryzek, Christian Elsholtz, David Estlund, Tim Feddersen, John
Ferejohn, Marc Fleurbaey, Margaret Gilbert, Alvin Goldman, Robert Goodin, Alan
Ha´jek, Martin van Hees, Frank Hindriks, Ron Holzman, Robert Luskin, Victoria
McGeer,JaneMansbridge,JoseMarti,PeterMenzies,DavidMiller,PhilippeMongin,
Klaus Nehring, Dan Osherson, Eric Pacuit, Marc Pauly, Rohit Parikh, Gabriella
Pigozzi, Clemens Puppe, Ed Rock, Olivier Roy, David Runciman, Maurice Salles,
David Schweikard, Quentin Skinner, Michael Smith, Katie Steele, Kim Sterelny,
Richard Tuck, and Raimo Tuomela. We hope that we will not seem ungrateful
to others not mentioned. As the authors of a book on group agency, we are acutely
aware of how much we have benefited from the collective wisdom of the academic
communitieswehavebeenfortunatetobelongto.
Christian List also acknowledges financial support from the Nuffield Foundation
andtheLeverhulmeTrust,andPhilipPettitsimilarsupportfromtheCenterforEthics
atHarvardUniversity.
Finally, and most importantly, we wish to thank Laura Valentini and Victoria
McGeer as well as Klaus Jürgen List and Barbara List for their unfailing support and
patience.