Shared and Institutional Agency

Abstract

Our human lives involve remarkable forms of practical organization: diachronic organization of individual activity, small-scale organization of shared action, and the organization of institutions. A theory of human action should help us understand these multiple forms of human practical organization and their interrelations. This book argues that a key is our capacity for planning agency. Drawing on earlier work on the roles of planning agency in the cross-temporal and small-scale social organization of our agency, this book focuses on the role of our planning agency within our organized institutions. It draws on ideas, inspired by H. L. A. Hart, that our organized institutions are rule-guided, and that to understand this we need a theory of social rules. This book draws on the planning theory of shared intention and the underlying theory of plan rationality to understand social rules. It understands an organized institution as involving authority-according social rules of procedure. It provides a model of organized institutions that makes room for pluralistic divergence. This leads to a model of institutional intention and—drawing on ideas from Harry Frankfurt—institutional intentional agency. The account charts a path between views of, among others, Kirk Ludwig, Philip Pettit, and Scott Shapiro. It sees our capacity for planning agency as a core capacity that underlies not only string quartets and informal social rules but also, thereby, the rule-guided structure of organized institutions and institutional agency. And it supports adjustments in views of mind, intention, and agency that are built into Donald Davidson’s field-shaping work.

Planning and Its Function in Our Lives

“…Our model of social rules focuses on reasons and rational support for action in conformity with and supportive of a social rule, given that the social ruleand so, associated shared policiesis in place. 54 Our concern is not primarily with an explanation of how social rules emerged but with the rational and reasonable impact of a social rule given that it is in place. So, for example, it might be that a primary mechanism that explains how a certain social rule comes to be in place is along the lines of what Pettit calls a 'reputational motor'.…”

“…In this way our theory of human agency needs to go beyond the twin focus, at the heart of the Anscombe-Davidson tradition in the philosophy of action, on acting for a reason and (insofar as we follow Anscombe) forms of practical knowledge. 65 To these concerns with acting for a reason and practical knowledge, our theory needs to add, at the ground level, a focus on the multiple, interrelated forms of mind-shaped practical organization characteristic of our agency. Our theory needs to emphasize the question: how do we do this?…”

Inequality in Planning Capacity

“…Institutional intentions, on this view, are 'crystallized cross-temporal actionfocused institutional outputs that involve ongoing shared-policy-shaped social rules of procedure, including subrules of follow-through, together with thereby supported conforming intentions on the part of individuals'. 4 The planning theory is a functional account. It describes a structure of human agency that underlies how we are able to coordinate our actions over time with ourselves, with others, and as institutions.…”