Collective Acceptance and Collective Social Notions

RAIMO TUOMELA AND WOLFGANG BALZER

COLLECTIVE ACCEPTANCE AND COLLECTIVE SOCIALNOTIONS∗

1. INTRODUCTION TO THE PROBLEMS

In recent philosophical and sociological literature, two important featuresof sociality in collective contexts have been emphasized by authors suchas Barnes (1983), Bloor (1996), Kusch (1997), and Searle (1995). First,many social things and their characteristics are performatively created by“us” (group members).1 For example, we may collectively bring about thatcertain pieces of metal qualify as money. Second, some central collectiveand social concepts have been regarded as reflexive in roughly the senseindicated by saying that money is not money unless collectively acceptedto be money. Although the features of performativity and reflexivity havebeen discussed earlier (especially outside philosophy), little attempt hasbeen made at giving a precise analysis.2 Our account adds a third featureof sociality, the collective availability or “forgroupness” of collective socialitems.

In this paper, we offer a precise analysis, a model of “collective so-ciality”, including the two features of performativeness and reflexivity. Wespeak of collective sociality, or of the collective-social features of things,rather than merely of “collectivity” or “sociality” here. This is becausethere are many kinds of things called social (e.g., thinking of other people)which need not be collective, and there are collective activities which arenot social. Recall Weber’s example of people in the street simultaneouslyopening their umbrellas when it starts to rain – this is anon-socialcollec-tive action. Basically, the predicate ‘collective’ in a pure sense applies tocollections of people and their features. The predicate ‘social’ in contrastapplies to mental (and other) interrelations between individuals.3 Whatis more, we will be interested in the man-made or socially constructedaspects of the social world. The intersection of collective, social and con-structed aspects forms the set of social features or properties that we willbe interested in below. This we find ananalysandumwhich is intuitively

Synthese117: 175–205, 1999.© 1999Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

176 RAIMO TUOMELA AND WOLFGANG BALZER

relatively clear and worthy of further explication. In this paper, when weuse the compound adjective ‘collective-social’, we mean ‘social’ in a col-lective context (in contrast to an individual context) and understand ‘social’to express a constructive element. Specific ontological claims need not andwill not be defended in our analysis (but cf. Tuomela and Balzer, 1997).

The analysis proceeds in two steps. We formulate our approach byspeaking mainly of the acceptance of collective ideas and thoughts, as-sumed to be linguistically expressible so that we can speak of the accep-tance of sentences (with certain meanings or uses). We first characterizecollective-social sentences or collective-socially used sentences by meansof the features of performativity, forgroupness, and reflexivity, and in asecond phase we analyze collective acceptance in terms of the notion ofholding a special kind (or, rather, one of two special kinds) of collectiveattitude toward the sentence in question.

We will discuss social institutions (or, as we would like to say,“collective-social” institutions) below but mainly in a broad sense. Theyform the most important class of collective-social things. Roughly speak-ing, by a social institution in the broad sense we mean a type of norm-basedcollective activity, that is, a type of collective activity in which some formsof sanction or pressure are present. A corollary of our analysis will be thatsocial institutions in a sense are collective goods.4

Social institutions are dealt with in different senses in the literature. Atleast four notions should be distinguished. First, according to the afore-mentioned broad notion a social institution is a kind of recurrent norm-based collective activity.5 A second, more narrow concept restricts so-cial institutions to those collective activities in which the normative frameis given by a hierarchically structured system of exertions of power orinfluence.6 A third notion used by game theorists is both more generaland more specific than the first one. According to this approach a socialinstitution is an equilibrium point in a repeated game.7 On the one handthis characterization is more general in that it does not involve normativefeatures; on the other hand it is restricted in that it applies only to activitiesthat can be modelled as a game in the sense of game theory. A fourthnotion characterizes social institutions by their social functions.8 We willnot need functional characterizations in our account. The viability of thegame-theoretic view cannot be properly discussed here. Two problemswith it are anyhow that (1) it lacks explicit normative notions – which webelieve to be crucial – and (2) many extant social institutions seem not tobe in equilibrium in the “self-policing” sense standardly required by gametheorists.9

COLLECTIVE ACCEPTANCE AND COLLECTIVE SOCIAL NOTIONS 177

2. THE COLLECTIVE ACCEPTANCE ACCOUNT INTRODUCED

Consider a person’s making a promise by saying “I promise to bring thebook back tomorrow” or giving a name to a ship by saying, in appropriatecircumstances, “I hereby give you the name ‘Nautilus’ ”. This person is do-ing things by words, in a sense. A new state of affairs involving obligationsand rights is created by these utterances, a state involving, respectively,a commitment to keep the promise and a collective commitment to usethe given name. Generally speaking, all this happens by virtue of someaccepted principles, indeed collectively accepted principles.

An utterance of the above kind is performative in the achievement sensethat a commitment is created. We claim that a similar performative el-ement is often present in the case of social properties and entities andalways present in the case of social institutions; and we use the phrase‘the Collective Acceptance account’ for the view, as explicated and devel-oped below, that all those social things are created by performative acts:utterances, agreements, “makings”. An example of an entity which getsits collective-social status by being collectively created is given by money.Almost any kind of physical entity can in principle become money throughthe members of the collective in question accepting it as money. Thus weare told that squirrel fur once was money in Finland. This was based onthe members of the society regarding it as money. As soon as they ceasedto collectively accept it as money and to mutually believe that it is money,squirrel fur lost the status and functions of money.

When speaking of collectively created and maintained notions (insti-tutional and other collective-social notions) and the sentences by whichthey are being expressed we will mostly employ the term ‘collective ac-ceptance’ in this paper, as it covers both production and maintenance.We can often also speak of the (collective) “making” of social entities inthis connection, or of “taking” something to be the case (e.g., of takingsquirrel fur to be money), or of “counting as” (e.g., squirrel fur countsas money). We take collective acceptance to amount, in this connection,to coming to (collectively) hold and holding certain collective thoughts orideas (viz., “we-intentions” and/or “we-beliefs”), and being disposed to acton those ideas. Collective acceptance requires some amount of reflection,as minimally each participant must be disposed to believe something abouthis own and the other participants’ attitudes; in this sense acceptance is asecond-order notion. Let us note, too, that one must of course distinguishbetween the (a) collective creation of an idea, (b) collectively holding andmaintaining it, and finally (c) collectively realizing it or carrying it out.


Our analytical apparatus will mainly consist of the notion of acceptanceof (meaningful) sentences (and derivatively of predicates and terms), thenotion of sentential attitude, as well as the notions of correct assertabil-ity and truth, of which truth is a special case applicable to descriptivesentences. As will soon be argued, we also need to speak of correct asserta-bility and truth “for the group”. This forgroupness in the present context isclosely related to collective acceptance in the “we- mode” or, equivalently,“group-mode” as opposed to the individual mode or “I-mode”. (We cannote here that one and the same sentence can be accepted in either one ofthe two modes; see Tuomela, 1998b, Chapter 2, for discussion.) The we-mode involves “we-thoughts” in the sense of group members being collec-tively committed to seeing to it that what is collectively accepted is madecorrectly assertable or regarded as correctly assertable by group membersfor the group members. The group members, accordingly, are committedto employing the accepted sentences as premises in their relevant infer-ences and as grounds for action when functioning as group-members. For-groupness entails that the group members areprima faciemutually aware(or at least can become aware) of what has been accepted for the group;forgroupness thus is the group members’ collective intentional attitude to-wards the sentences collectively accepted by them. It can be noted thatin our framework any talk about “ideas”, “thoughts”, “views”, “contents”,“concepts”, “properties”, “facts”, etc., will in the last analysis be handledbasically in terms of the mentioned linguistic and metalinguistic appa-ratus, its resources and analogical extensions to non-linguistic items (cf.Tuomela, 1985, for this primarily Sellarsian view).10

Our intuitive idea about sociality links it to the mental connectionsand the ensuing action-based connections between the target persons. Foran entity, a property, or a relationship to be social in the full sense, itmust enter the “intentional horizon” (thoughts) of these peoplequagroupmembers, and their thoughts (e.g., beliefs, desires) about the item in ques-tion must of course be capable of affecting their intentional action as atleast partial reasons for acting. As said, we will in our Collective Accep-tance account take the application of the predicate ‘social’ generally toinvolve a constructive element, an element through which features of thesocial world are created, although we acknowledge that there are “non-constructive” uses of ‘social’.

We will argue that collective-social reasons, viz., reasons for the per-formance of collective (viz., many-person) social actions (cf. (c)), are we-attitudes in a technical sense to be discussed below.11 The we-attitudes(social reasons) basically belong either to the intention-family or to thebelief-family of attitudes and must be in the we-mode. To see this, we


consider states resulting from acceptance (“acceptance-states”; cf. (b)) andactions based on them (cf. (c)). Since actions are based on intentions andbeliefs, it suffices to deal with these notions in the first place. It will beargued that the intentions and beliefs have to be in the we-mode (group-mode) rather than in the I-mode in contexts of collective acceptance forthe group (cf. below and Section 5 for these notions).

Let us next say why collective acceptance in the sense required by ourCollective Acceptance account must be in the we-mode and, hence, toentail both forgroupness and collective commitment. First we note that,although being based on a shared social reason (see below), collectiveacceptance (in senses (a)–(c)) need not always be collectively intentional inthe sense of being based on a shared collective intention to accept. Comingto accept is typically individually intentional, in the sense that each individ-ual intentionally accepts the sentence or proposition in question, e.g., thatsquirrel fur is money. (Even if in actual life collective acceptance may becollectively non-intentional, it could have been collectively intentional; inthis our account resembles political contract theories.) Basically, collectiveacceptance as a state can be either in (i) the individual mode or in (ii) thegroup mode. In case (i) each member individually accepts the same sen-tences (e.g.,s = squirrel fur is money), perhaps believing (or perhaps therebeing even mutual belief in the group) that also the others have accepteds. This, however, is not enough for our Collective Acceptance account.The acceptance here must be “for the group”. Each member must take theaccepted sentence or proposition to be appropriate for the use of the groupmembers (e.g., squirrel furs must be generally and mutually understood tobe usable as money in the group). This leads to the forgroupness require-ment, and note that it also applies to cases like the collective acceptance ofa sentence stating a falsehood, e.g., that the earth is flat. If the participantsthen collectively accept something for the group, being also collectivelycommitted to this sentence, we are dealing with collective acceptance inthe group mode (ii). (This will be argued for below.)

Collective acceptance in the sense of coming to hold an idea for agroup is collective social action in the sense of action performed for ashared social reason (cf. note 11). It need not yet be a we-mode action.Collective acceptance as a state of actively holding an idea for the use ofthe group is a disposition to collective social action. The actualization ofthis disposition is a collective social action with the purpose of realizing theaccepted sentence, making it true (or correctly assertable), maintaining itas true (or correctly assertable), or acting on it, depending on the case. Weassume in our Collective Acceptance model, furthermore, that the partici-pants are collectively committed to the accepted sentence because having


collectively accepted it; this indicates the steering function of collectiveacceptance and its we-mode character.

To clarify further the relationship between collective acceptance, col-lective commitment and forgroupness, consider collective action performedwith some collective intentionality, viz., collective social action performedfor the same shared social reason. For instance, in a group there might be a(weak) we-goal to oppose a tax increase; viz., this is the group members’goal, and they believe that the others share this goal and believe that thisis mutually believed among them. Collective acceptance in this kind ofsituation can be construed as acceptance either in the sense of conativecommitment to a sentence or propositions (intention to makes true or touphold s, e.g.,s = the tax increase is to be prevented) or doxastic com-mitment tos (the “acceptance” belief thats is true, e.g.,s = the earth isflat). Collective acceptance here is (a) (weak) “we-acceptance”, viz., eachperson acceptss (based upon his belief or beliefs concernings), believesthat the others accepts, and also believes that there is a mutual belief aboutthe participants’ acceptance ofs. This we-acceptance can be either in theI-mode or in the we-mode.

In analyzing we-mode (as opposed to I-mode) acceptance our intuitiveidea is that we-acceptance, while requiring only mutual belief, is relevantlyanalogous to the participants having based the acceptance on a joint deci-sion, although they actually haven’t. Presumably we-mode acceptance ofthis “as-if” kind only happens in matters significant to a group’s function-ing. In the we-mode case also a collective commitment tos is involved,and we get the minimal sense of acceptingfor the group(and the involvedwe-mode togetherness) which (intersubjectively) involves the group. Fur-thermore, without the we-mode mutual belief there is not enough inter-subjectivity and collective commitment for the applicability of the phrase‘for the group’ and for saying that the participants are attempting to seeto it collectively that the accepted content will become or – as the casemay be – remain satisfied. Acceptance for the group with collective com-mitment can be viewed in this context as coextensive with acceptance inthe we-mode. Thus, “We accept thats is correctly assertable for us in ourgroup-related activities” is truth-equivalent with “We accepts in the we-mode”, assuming the participants’ collective commitment tos. We canalso say that full-blown we-mode collective acceptance, required by theCollective Acceptance account, consists of collective acceptance for thegroup with collective commitment concerning what has been accepted.12

As will be argued in Section 3, when accepting something for the group theparticipants are collectively committed to a rule system which in general


requires that the members perform certain actions (e.g., inferences) andpermits the performance of some other actions.

Stronger forms of collective acceptance for the group are (b) norm-based, institutional acceptance and (c) plan-based or agreement-based col-lective acceptance. Examples of (b) are the collective acceptance of thepropositions that driving when drunk is wrong and punishable, that an-niversaries in a marriage ought to be celebrated, and perhaps also in somegroup that squirrel fur counts as money. The last example is based onthe social norm that everyone in the collective ought to treat squirrel furas money. An example of plan-based or agreement-based collective ac-ceptance is the group members’ joint decision to elect a certain personas their leader. In general, acceptance for a group entails mutual beliefabout the fact of collective acceptance (or minimally belief in the others’acceptance), at least in “egalitarian” groups and in groups in which thenormative structure in the group does not affect collective acceptance. (Thecase of structured groups can be treated as in terms of acceptance actionsperformed by groups – see Tuomela, 1995, Chapter 5 for group actions ofthis kind.)

As seen, while collective acceptance as coming to hold a thought incommon is collective activity which may sometimes be we-mode socialaction, collective acceptance as mere collective holding of a thought, beingdispositional, is not yet literally collective social action (viz., collectivesocial action of the acceptance kind, and of course not causal collectivesocial action such as jointly building a house); but when accompanied bycollective commitment it can be regarded as the action of “seeing to it”that the accepted content will come about or – as the case may be – remain“correctly assertable”. Collectively acting on (viz., because of) collectivelyaccepted thought (reason) is collective social action (also in the sense ofTuomela and Bonnevier-Tuomela, 1997).

The following general thesis of collective sociality (in our “construc-tivist”, acceptance-related sense) will be defended in this paper, wheres

may be an arbitrarily complex sentence.

COLLECTIVE ACCEPTANCE THESIS (CAT): A sentences iscollective-social in a primary sense in a groupG if and only if (a) it is true for groupG that the members of groupG collectively accepts, and that (b) theycollectively accepts if and only if s is correctly assertable (or true).

In the analysans of principle (a) is the assumption of the categorical col-lective acceptance ofs while clause (b) is a partial characterization of thekind of collective acceptance which is needed here. Clauses (a) and (b) of


course entail thats is correctly assertable in the group, in the spirit of ourmodel.

Collective acceptance must be understood as a performative achieve-ment-expressing notion here and, as said, ‘acceptance’ is general enoughto cover both the creation and upholding ofs and has achievement concep-tually built into it.

CAT employs the notion of correct assertability (and truth as its specialcase) for the group. The forgroupness of an accepted, hence correctly as-sertable, sentence is the group’s intentional attitude towards the acceptedsentence, viz., precisely the group’s taking that sentence to have been ac-cepted for it by it. That a sentence is correctly assertable or true forG

means, roughly, that the group membersquagroup members are entitled totreat it as correctly assertable or true in their various intellectual and prac-tical activities in relevant group contexts, no matter whether the sentenceis “objectively” true.

We will in this paper concentrate on cases where the persons involvedin collective acceptance are the same as the target persons, viz., those forwhom s is accepted, so to speak. For instance, a parliament could pass alaw concerning young people. Here the target persons would be differentfrom those involved in collective acceptance. It has been argued that insuch cases (supposing, for simplicity, that laws are not plainly forced uponthe target) the decision-making or “operative” persons must be suitably“authorized” by the target persons (see Tuomela, 1995, esp. Chapters 4–6, for an account of this matter). Our formulations will primarily concerngroups in which a normative structure does not essentially affect collectiveacceptance.

While acknowledging that it is a contingent question what a groupcollectively accepts, we now present some sentences tokens of which arenormally rendered as collective-social by our acceptance account, and cor-rectly so: (a) Tom and Jane love each other; (b) Tom and John are friends;(c) Jim is our leader; (d) It is our collective goal to get our lake cleanedup; (e) Squirrel furs are money for us; (f) Marriage obligates the spousesto take care of their children; (g) The policeman shows his badge to giveimpetus to his order; and (h) The Deutsche Bank is a bank. Examples (a)and (b) are here assumed to be based on a mutual belief so that, respec-tively, love and friendship are mutually recognized by the participants.This mutual belief serves to account for the collective acceptability of therelevant sentences involving these notions. Sentence (c) is social in viewof our collective, belief-based acceptance. As one could be a leader basedon e.g., the law, in our present informal example mutual belief is supposedto do the work. Thus, contrary to (a) and (b), the basic predicate (here


‘leader’) does not by itself entail the mutual belief. Case (e) is a standardinstitutional case entailing the creation of obligations and rights. Case (f)gives part of the legal and moral notions of marriage, collectively acceptedin the agreement-making sense by the suitably authorized members of thesociety passing the law and, at least in a well-functioning society, by themembers of society in different, mutual belief-based sense. Case (g) in-volves the badge as a social symbol for the socially constructed powers ofa policeman. Case (h) is complex. The sentence itself can be assumed to becollectively accepted in the mutual belief sense. It involves the institutionalnotion of bank, assumed to have been previously constructed by the accep-tance of the society of a legal-social account of what a bank is, so to speak,viz., by the various laws, rules and collective expectations characterizingthe predicate ‘bank’.

It can be noted that a group can alsocollectively rejectideas. For in-stance, lets = human beings are a product of natural evolution. A groupmight rejects. This entails not only that it does not accepts but that itaccepts−s. (Of course, when in a reflective mood, a group may accept alsothat it rejectss and accepts−s.) We have just seen that social constructionalso has this “shadowy side”.

There are collective-social notions in a derived sense. We say that asentence is collective-social in a derived sense if it is not collective-socialin the above primary sense but presupposes for its truth inG that there aresome relevant sentences true inG which are collective-social in the pri-mary sense. Informally said, a predicate is collective-social in the derivedsense if the conjunction of the sentences centrally characterizing it arecollective-social in the primary sense. For instance, sentences using ‘pow-er’ or ‘wealth’ are at least in some cases candidates for collective-socialsentences in a derived sense.

There are weakly social notions (or predicates) which normally arenotcollective-social even in the derived sense. Thus the sentence “Tom en-vies John for the latter’s new car”, although about an interpersonal weaklysocial, “natural” relation, is not even derivatively collectively constructed(unless it happens to be specifically about a socially constructed aspectsuch as John’s power or wealth). The sentence “Tom and John are neig-bors” is not by itself collective-social even in the derived sense, althoughsocial in a weak spatial sense. Next, “Jane uses lipstick in order to attractmen” is weakly social but is correctly excluded by our account. Sentencesabout social strata, correctly enough, are not counted as collective-social(Cf. “People walking at least three kilometers a day live longer than peopleon average”). Nor is a sociologist’s characterization “This group is sociallycohesive” even derivatively collective-social, taking cohesiveness here to


be based on interaction frequency. Furthermore, latent social influence is asocial feature of the social world that would not – and correctly so – be aderivatively collective-social feature.

Our tests of CAT concerning different kinds of examples in our viewwork correctly respectively as positive or negative cases. Social institutionswill be analyzed in more detail in Section 6 using the present account ofcollective acceptance.13

3. THE COLLECTIVE ACCEPTANCE ACCOUNT MADE PRECISE

The Collective Acceptance model (CA-model) of sociality concerns thecollective acceptance of sentences (“ideas”) for the use of the group. Itsays that the very acceptance of a sentence creates its correct assertability(or truth) for the group in question. If a social sentences in groupG iscollectively accepted by the members ofG, we write CA(G, s). From aformal point of view CA is an operator which, in the case of a groupG

and a sentences, says that inG, s is collectively accepted. As argued,collective acceptance involving collective commitment, must in the presentcontext be acceptancefor the groupin question, so that also objectivelyfalse sentences can be allowed to be correctly assertable in the group. Wealso claim that the collective acceptance account covers not only centralcollective-social properties and entities (including collective attitudes) butalso all social institutions.

To see better what is involved in the collective acceptance model westart by considering the performativity aspect of the model, which is largelysupposed to account for the creation and maintenance of the collectivefeatures of the social world. Our CA-operator in part expresses the groupmembers’ (quagroup members) shared “intentional horizon”. In intuitiveterms, their intentional horizon can be taken to be the “things” (entities,properties, facts, etc.) in the world they are (at least in a dispositionalsense of “when the question arises”) intentionally concerned with in theirthoughts and intentional actions, briefly the class of things intentionallyrepresented in the group members’ attitudesquagroup members. We arehere concerned with that part of the group’s intentional horizon which con-sists of the content of such social sentences collectively accepted for theuse of the group in the we-mode. Let us call this the group’s “intentionala-horizon”.

The group members collectively accept goals (thus intention contents)and joint goals (joint intention contents) as well as views (belief contents)for the group. This kind of collective acceptance is entirely relative to thegroup’s intentional horizon: the group members collectively accept (CA)


sentences for the group, at least in a weak sense, and our account alsorequires that they thereby collectively commit themselves to regardingthe accepted sentences as correctly assertable (or true) for the group. Asargued, this collective acceptance can be weaker than intentionally per-formed joint action performed with the intention to accept something forthe group. It is assumed, nevertheless, that in this context the participantsthink that they are behaving in a group context, with group-mode thoughtcontents.

We mark the fact that a sentence has been thus accepted for the groupby attaching a special intentional FG-operator to that accepted sentence.Basically we read “FG(G, s) ” as “s is correctly assertable (or true) for thegroupG” (or even, “G takess to be correctly assertable or true forG”).Collective acceptance in the strong sense under discussion is assumed toentail forgroupness and collective commitment to the accepted sentence(cf. note 12). We can say metaphorically that the distinction between an“undesignated” sentences and a “designated” sentence, viz., FG(G, s),is that the latter, but not the former, needs to be in the group’s “accep-tance box”. The group members are collectively committed to regardingthe sentences in the acceptance box as correctly assertable (or true). Thisacceptance box has two subboxes, the intention subbox (related to in-tentions and assertability) and the belief subbox (related to beliefs andtruth). All the elements in the group’s acceptance box can be used by thegroup membersquagroup members in their relevant reasoning, in all the“moves” related to correct assertability or truth the members make withinthe intentional horizon of the group. The correct assertability of a sentenceis viewed from the group’s point of view (technically, the sentence is withinthe scope of FG).

Let us introduce a “performative implication” or “group-implication”(→G) expressing the outcome of collective acceptance for the group, viz.,an implication as viewed by the group. It can be taken to represent andspread the performative aspect of collective acceptance, viz., that by col-lective acceptance a proposition gains a certain epistemic status entitlingthe group members in their reasoning to use this proposition as a categor-ical assumption, as something being or counting as “true for the group”or “assertable for the group”.14 In logical terms we proceed as follows.We introduce a group-relative “Forgroup” operator applying to sentences.Forgroup(G, s) is read as “sentences is correctly assertable (or true) forgroupG”; below in our formal discussion we will shorten ‘Forgroup’ into‘FG’.


FG can be used to define group-implication, orG-implication→G, asfollows:

s →G s′ if and only if FG(G, s → s′).

This implication is what the CAT of Section 2 in effect uses. We can notethat from a purely formal point of view there is no implication betweenFG(G, s →G s′) and FG(G, s) → FG(G, s′). Nevertheless, we find itintuitively plausible and have also given an axiomatic justification for thisproperty.15 We will thus assume below that FG distributes over materialimplication, viz.,

FG(G, s→ s′) implies FG(G, s)→ FG(G, s′).(1)

Formally, our approach starts with the following central assumption ex-pressed informally in CAT:

FG(G, CA(G, s)↔ s).(2)

Assuming (1) and (2) we get

FG(G, CA(G, s))↔ FG(G, s),(3)

which our informal discussion also has employed. FG is also assumed todistribute over conjunction, i.e., FG(G, s ands′)↔ (FG(G, s) and FG(G,s′)).

Intuitively, the set of all sentencess such that FG(G, CA(G, s)) canbe taken to represent the intentionala-horizon of groupG. There is thusan obvious connection between groupG’s accepting a sentences in theperformative sense ands’s being inG’s intentionala-horizon. In the spiritof our CA model we could say that by accepting a sentences to belongto the group’s (intentional)a-horizon, the members ofG have made itavailable for their group-specific deductions and practical inferences. Theymay use it in their local system of inference (deduction, practical inferenceand what have you) which is obtained from the standard logical systemof inference by adding precisely those sentences which the members haveaccepted plus (at least a “perspicuous” subset of) their deductive and “prac-tical” consequences. Indeed,qua group members, they are collectivelycommitted to so using them, and only them, in appropriate circumstances(e.g., when a view concerning a certain matter is required), and are com-mitted to refraining from using sentences incompatible with the acceptedones (see the examples below).


As claimed, in general the truth of FG(G, s) is compatible with the“objective” falsity of s. For instance, it might be the case that FG(G, Starsdetermine our fate), while it is not true that stars determine our fate.

To discuss and justify our approach in more detail, we consider the left-to-right implication in our central formula (2):

(PERF) CA(G, s)→G s.

Verbally, it is true for the groupG that if they collectively accepts, thens (for the group). PERF is true simply on the basis of the notion of col-lective acceptance, which is an achievement notion relative to the group’s“intentional horizon”. From an outsider’s perspective only Forgroup(G, s)is true.

Here are some simple, idealized examples of the practical inferencesthat are typically licensed for the members ofG when inferring and actingqua members ofG (MB stands for mutual belief andp, q are sentences,we do not here attempt to give a logically rigorous analysis of them):

(i) FG(G, p); (ii) MB(G, p→ q); (iii) therefore, FG(G, q).(I)

(i) FG(G, p) (wherep = we will achieve goal P); (ii) therefore,I, quaa member ofG, will contribute to our achieving goal P.

(II)

(i) FG(G, p) (wherep = the earth is flat); (ii) my goal,qua amember ofG, is to avoid big falls (such as falling down fromthe brink of the earth); (iii) therefore, (I),quaa member ofG,will avoid traveling to (what I believe to be) the brink of theearth.

(III)

The implication from left to right in equation (2) captures the perfor-mative side ofs’s being collective-social: by being collectively accepted,s

becomes (or is performatively made) true for the group.The right-to-left implication in equation (2) can be said to express re-

flexivity. Generally speaking, social concepts and sentences are reflexivein the following sense. A collective-social sentence using a putatively so-cial predicate (e.g., ‘money’, ‘leader’, or ‘marriage’) does not apply toreal things (such as certain pieces of paper or squirrel furs in the case of‘money’) unless collectively accepted and, so to speak, validated for thattask by the attachability of the FG-operator to it. Let us consider moneyas an example. The predicate ‘money’ does not refer to itself, but ratherto coins, dollar notes, squirrel furs, and so on. The reference here meansthat ‘money’ correctly applies to those things. The loose talk about re-flexivity in this context therefore should be understood as being about


presupposition-stating sentences, such as in the colloquial expression“Money is not money unless collectively accepted to be money”. Thisis not a matter of what phrase to use but what the concept of moneyis. (Recall, however, that the members accepting that, say, squirrel fur ismoney, can do it under another description, and need not possess the full,circular concept of money.) This concept is expressed by what the user ofthe predicate ‘money’ in English (‘raha’ in Finnish, etc.) is entitled to sayand, especially, extralinguistically do (and what he may be obligated todo). The concept of money thus also connects with some deontic powersand obligations collectively bestowed upon those who use the predicate‘money’ and who belong to the collective in question. By deontic powerscollectively bestowed upon a person we mean things such as his being nor-matively permitted or required to perform certain actions. The discussedpresupposition (viz., that money is not money unless collectively acceptedto be money) is central precisely because of the following assumed fact:It is up to the members of the collective – and nobody else – to bestowthose extralinguistic deontic powers upon its members. This contrasts withsentences involving only physical predicates like ‘tree’ or ‘mass’. In theircase it is not up to the members of the collective to do more than stipu-late how to use certain linguistic phrases and, e.g., what word to use fortrees.16

It can thus be said that the alleged reflexivity of collective and socialconcepts strictly speaking is not directly concerned with the entities thatthe concepts (predicates) apply to. Rather, we may say that a collective-social concept is conceptually reflexive or “self-conceptual” in the sensethat it presupposes itself; and this can be explicated in terms of truth forthe group as follows. When for a social predicateq a sentenceq(a) istrue for the group this presupposes the collective acceptance ofa asq forthe group members. Thus, ifq(x) expresses thatx is an item of moneyand a stands for a squirrel fur, then the statementq(a) can be true for thegroup only if squirrel furs are, in fact, collectively accepted as money or“made” money for the group members. A similar point can be made about,meanings of words, leaders, marriages, property rights and so on.

Using the above notation we may say generally that for a social sen-tences the group-relative implication “s →G CA(G, s)” is true. ThusCA(G, s) is a necessary condition fors or, in this sense, a presupposi-tion of s. This implication we take to express that the social sentences is“reflexive”, and we say that the collective acceptance CA ofs in groupGsatisfies the condition of reflexivity if and only if

(REFL) s→G CA(G, s).


This principle gives a central and often emphasized “mark of the so-cial”: For s to be correctly assertable for the membersG it must be collec-tively accepted by them and for them.

That a social sentence satisfies a collectivity condition in a group entailsthat necessarily (due to collective acceptance) whenever some member ofthe group finds this sentence to be true then the same holds for any othermember in the group, provided that the group has collectively accepteds. For instance, if the group has collectively created a specific concept ofmoney, then particulara is money for any memberi of the group. Ifa is atoken of money fori, by the reflexivity condition this can be so only if thegroup has collectively accepteda as money.

Using the abbreviations CA(G, s) as above and ASC(i, s) for ‘s is cor-rectly assertable for personi’, we can say that CA satisfies the CollectiveAscribability Condition if and only if

(COLASC) CA(G, s)→G (i) (ASC(i, s)).

This condition can be taken to be entailed by the full notion of collectiveacceptance for a group, viz., the Collective Acceptance model. It representsthe “individualization” of group acceptance for all group members. Puttingthe matter in slightly looser terms, it can be taken to say that (a) whateveris accepted and acceptable for a group in this kind of context is acceptablefor any member and that (b) what is acceptable for a group memberquaa group member is acceptable for any other group memberqua a groupmember.

We can now present the collective acceptance thesis of Section 2 in atechnical fashion as an analysis combining PERF and REFL:

(CAT∗) A sentences is collective-socialin a primary sense for agroupG if and only if (i) FG(G, CA(G, s)), (ii) CA(G, s)→G s and (iii) s →G CA(G, s).

We wish to emphasize that, specifically,s can represent the content ofa collective attitude (e.g.,s = we will achieve goalg).

We have also accepted COLASC as an underlying conceptual condi-tion for CA. As to the derivative sense (“basedness” sense) of collectivesociality, the reader should recall our brief discussion in Section 1.


4. THE PHILOSOPHICAL CONTENT OF THE COLLECTIVE ACCEPTANCE

ACCOUNT

Our discussion in the previous section has clarified especially the contentof the informal CAT of Section 2, but our main idea still needs somefurther philosophical justification and discussion. CAT, and its technicalcounterpart CAT∗, are grand theses saying that collective-social sentencesare precisely collectively accepted sentences satisfying our central formulaCA(G, s)→G s for collective acceptance, or those which are based on it(derivative collectivity). We assume – and this seems to suffice – thats is adescriptively used sentence, although it may contain normative predicatesor presuppose for its truth that certain normatively specified circumstancesor conditions obtain. For instance, the members ofG may accept that agroup memberA is their leader, and by accepting this they also come toaccept the entailed fact thatA has the power to order them to do variousthings.

Our central concept of collective acceptance in CAT must be under-stood broadly enough so that agreement-making, authority, and power findtheir place in the account – e.g., those who collectively make things true inthe sense of CAT may be authorized “operative” members in some cases.17

In cases like that of a parliament creating a new law we are thus dealingwith agreement-making by an authorized body of persons who – actingwith the power they have been given – create the laws when acting in theirright positions and in the right circumstances.

It may be noted here that in CAT,s could be about a rather “global”entity such as a natural language. For instance,s = Our language is Finnish.Indeed, although we will not here use space to argue this, natural languageis in part a collective creation based on the collective acceptance model.This may be the most general entity (collective good) that is collectivelycreated. The collective creation of a natural language may be called ‘first-order’ in comparison with the ‘second-order’ creation of social institutionpredicates within such a natural language.

There are some further points to be made about the broad umbrellanotion of collective acceptance and CAT:

(1) First, we can still try to put the philosophical grounds for CAT intoa sharper focus. What is the precise class of sentencess to which CATis claimed to apply? Underlying our Collective Acceptance model is thefollowing general ontological distinction: We assume that there is a ba-sic distinction between sentences whose correct assertability or truth isentirely up to the group members (or, better, up to the group members’conceptual activities, and whose truth they on metaphysical groundscan


fully control) and, on the other hand, sentences whose truth is at least inpart up to nature (as opposed to the group members), to the way the worldis, and thus in part dependent on the causal processes occurring in theworld “outside them” (we include non-voluntary, mental processes here,too). The sentence “Squirrel fur is money” belongs to the first class of sen-tences and “Stars determine our fate” to the second. Thus, the first sentencewill be both true and true for the group due to collective acceptance. Thesecond sentence can only be true for the group as a kind of stereotypicalbelief. It cannot be true in the standard sense, as it is not up to the groupmembers to determine whether stars indeed determine our fate.

CAT of course trivially concerns all things that can be collectivelyaccepted and made correctly assertable for group members. From a con-ceptual point of view there are no restrictions here, as any old falsehoodscan be accepted as group-truths. The central thing here is whether it is inthe power of the group members to fully guarantee the truth in the standardsense. To this question our collective acceptance model by itself gives noanswer. We have just introduced and made use of the “up-to-us” versus“up-to-the-world” distinction to mark this problem.

We may, however, try to be more informative and invite the reader toconsider the following suggestion: The truth or assertability of somethingis up to us to determine if and only if we,quamembers of a collective, cancollectively accept it for our successful long-term “use”. The right handside of the equivalence here involves the generally accepted idea that peo-ple (or “we”) are able collectively to form intentions and accept goals aswell as to represent and give new functions or statuses to entities in termsof linguistic and other devices for representation. Briefly put, people areable collectively to create, maintain, and renew ideas, and this way is theonly way ideas can come about. Thus, for example, they can take squirrelfurs to represent or count as money, and there is no other way to bring thissituation about. People indeed successfully exercise the ability referred toin real life and thus cooperate in bringing about and maintaining collective-social sentences (views, propositions); they also accept new functions andstatuses for things (e.g., squirrel furs may be assigned the new status oftheir being money).18 All this illustrates the up-to-us aspect in a positivesense. As to its negative side, it is of course not up to us to go againstnature and, for instance, accept the sentence “Stars determine our fate”for our successfullong-term use, for natural processes will counteract andmake some of our activities fail. While this sentence thus can be adoptedfor a use as a stereotype we are saying that in a sufficiently long run itprobably cannot function well in the the group.


(2) We can compare the performative operation of collective acceptancewith Tarski’s well known ConventionT : True(p) ↔ p. From a formalpoint of view ConventionT is a fixed point formula as is CAT, and thusboth involve conceptual reflexivity (the latter, however, only within thescope of the Forgroup-operator). CAT∗ contains the formula CA(G, s)↔G s which is quite similar to Convention T. The only difference liesin the relativization to the groupG of our formula. Then we may say thatour account of sociality is a fixed point account at least in spirit if not quitein letter (viz., formally).

A correspondence account of material truth is nowadays standardlybased on the Tarskian account. Assuming such an account, we can say thatwhile according to ConventionT the truth of a sentence (left hand side) isbrought about or made to depend on conditions in the world (supposedlyexpressed by the right hand side), the direction of fit, so to speak, is oppo-site in the case of CAT. The latter formula, furthermore, expresses only thegroup’s perspective or point of view. Briefly, while in a correspondenceaccount the truth of a sentence depends on the way the world is, in thecollective acceptance model the relevant parts of the world are made tocorrespond to what we collectively intend or are kept in line with what wecollectively believe it to be like. In the case of CAT we collectively mold ormaintain or “renew” the world to fit our ideas rather than vice versa. We donot only collectively create meanings (viz., give words uses), which taskis assumed to have been completed here, but we also in part bring it aboutthat the world fits these created concepts (recall the remarks in Section2). There need be no conflict here. Correspondence truth can account fordescriptive truth which is not up to us, while the Collective Acceptancemodel accounts for the rest – the part having to do with language, rulesand norms and indeed all collective- social things – and does so possiblydifferently in the case of different groups.

(3) In the case of CAT we have a self-validating aspect of collective pro-duction: If squirrel fur is money then people are collectively committedto behave in the right way concerning the collectively accepted normsregulating money. But squirrel fur is money even if all individuals donot succeed in such norm-obeying action, as long as it is true that theycollectively take squirrel fur to be money in the sense of CAT.

(4) We have distinguished between creating and maintaining a collective-social sentence or proposition (e.g., a sentence about an institution). Cre-ation may take place via some “operative” members who have been vestedwith the necessary authority (see Tuomela, 1995, Chapters 5–7). For in-


stance, a parliament may legislate with respect to marriage, and a priest ora judge may be granted the derivative power to join two people in marriage.The others (the “non-operative” members) just go along, accepting andmutually believing all this, especially concerning the legal aspects of mar-riage. In the context of our grand thesis CAT, we are primarily concernedwith the maintenance of a social institution and other analogous socialphenomena.

(5) Language is social in the sense of CAT, or so we have argued. Thusall linguistic entities, such as sentences and predicates as syntactical andsemantical entities, are collective-social. It is to be noted that this doesnot of course yet make collective the things (e.g., stars) referred to bythe denoting terms (e.g., the term ‘star’). “Starmaking” is not possible inany serious ontological sense, although the conceptual frameworks andlanguages about stars and other real entities which we use are sociallyaccepted in the sense of CAT. Money is collectively constructed by us ina sense stars – and other things whose existence and behavior are not upto us – are not. The moment we cease to take something (or anything atall) to be money it is not money, although the coins as pieces of metal andthe bills as pieces of paper of course do not disappear. Similarly, a churchbecomes only another building after we collectively cease to take it to be achurch in the institutional sense. What thus disappears when CAT ceases tobe true of something is the deontic powers conferred on the target personsby CAT. Money cannot – at least in the normative sense of ‘can’ – be usedfor purchasing goods as before, after CAT ceases to be true of it. Whathappens to the word ‘star’ in a similar case? Well, obviously that it is notany more correct to use ‘star’ to refer to stars. This of course has nothingwhatsoever to do with the existence of stars, but only with what linguisticmeans we use to refer to them. In the case of money the situation goesdeeper, as the institutional norms concerning money govern also our extra-linguistic practices and thus have a deeper effect, at least on our practicallife.

(6) How about collectively accepted collective skills and the like – such asKuhnian “paradigms” in a scientific community? Speaking of the collec-tive acceptance of sentences may seem criticizable in the case of skills (cf.the skill involved in riding a bicycle or removing a brain tumor). However,it seems that the matter can be handled through speaking of the acceptanceof sentences which serve to describe (and “name”) the skills or practicesin question. For instance, it can be collectively accepted that at a festivedinner the meat has to be carved in a special, skill-requiring way.


(7) We do not need to take a specific ontological stand in the context ofclarifying collectivity and social institutions in the sense of CAT. We mayjust speak of social sentences and of a collective’s capacity to make themtrue and keep them true. It can be noted here that our criterial distinctionbetween what is totally up to the world (is part of the causal realm outsideus) and what is not excludes e.g., institutional notions from belongingdirectly to this part of the purely causal realm. However, they can entercausal relations in an intentional sense, as contents of beliefs and otherattitudes.19

5. COLLECTIVE ACCEPTANCE AS SHARED WE-ATTITUDE

We have shown that CAT holds true of certain sentences and have dis-cussed what the class of such sentences might reasonably be taken to be.We will below, in this and the next section, present an account ofcollectivesociality, social institutions, andcollective attitudesin terms of the notionof “shared we-attitude”, to get more structure and content for the notionof collective acceptance. The “right” (or acceptable) shared we-attitudesmust involve an achievement aspect, and this seems to be achievable byusing “acceptance-beliefs” (cognitive acceptances as true) in them. As we-attitudes can be either in the individual or in the group-mode, it shouldbe emphasized that in the present context group-mode we-attitudes arerequired.

As noted earlier, collective acceptance may take various forms extend-ing from an established, rule-based system to reach formal agreement atthe one extreme to a rather unstructured build-up of mutual belief (withcollective commitment) or joint intention (and commitment) at the other.What is common to all these forms is that the participants come (inten-tionally or not) to hold a we-attitude – this is what the “construction” or“creation” of a collective idea or thought amounts to. Accordingly, col-lective acceptance always results in and involves that the members of thecollective come to hold a conative or doxastic we-attitude and in generalalso maintain, and act (or at least are disposed to act) on the basis of,this we-attitude (in the group-mode). We can then say that collective ac-ceptance in a sense is “constituted” by the corresponding we-attitude (or,more precisely, by coming to have and holding it). It is the “jointness”of this attitude that yields collective making and acceptance involving thegroup or being for the group.

Our central claim here accordingly is that collective acceptance for thegroup can be explicated in terms of collective attitudes, indeed collectiveattitudes in the group-mode: collective acceptance amounts to coming to


hold and holding the right kind of achievement-oriented collective attitudesor “shared we-attitudes” involving at least weak collective commitmenttowards the sentences accepted for the group. Genuine holding also obvi-ously requires appropriately acting on the attitudes in question. A sharedwe-attitude (viz., the content of the attitude and the fact that it is shared inthe we-mode) is the social reason for why the participants act collectively.This thesis gives a central role to shared we-attitudes, for by means of themwe get an account of collectivity and social institutions, given that full-blown group notions – notions satisfying the collectivity condition CC ofTuomela (1998a, b), for goals or,mutatis mutandis, another relevant col-lectivity condition – appear in the we-attitude in question (cf. also Tuomelaand Balzer, 1997a).20

Before defending and discussing our account a brief discussion of we-attitudes will be needed. Put verbally, a we-attitude amounts to this: Themembers ofG share a we-attitudeA if and only if (a) all the members ofGhave the attitudeA, (b) all the members ofG believe that all the membersof G haveA and (c) they also believe (or are disposed to believe) that itis mutually believed inG that all the members ofG haveA. Of these,the somewhat idealized (a) is required because we cannot of course havea truly shared attitude without basically all the members participating inthat attitude. Clause (b) gives a social reason for adopting and having theattitudeA, and (c) strengthens the reason by making it intersubjective. (Fora fuller defense, see Tuomela, 1998b, Chapter 2.)21

The notion of a we-attitude by itself is social in a general sense, and anaction performed on the basis of a we-attitude is social in a broad sense.In this paper our focus, however, is on collective sociality, and we willsoon connect we-attitudes to CAT. Note that in simple cases of we-attitudesthere is no group-level involved beyond aggregated individual attitudes. Inother words, some shared we-attitudes are only in the individual moderather than in the we-mode, contrary to what our CAT requires.22

Sharing an attitude may mean different things in the case of differentattitudes (even when considering only we-intentions and we-beliefs). In thecase of standard propositional attitudes like belief, sharing encompassesthe total content A because the members ofG cannot each believe theirparts of it, of course. In the case of intentions we distinguish betweenI-mode intentions (i-intentions) and we-mode or group-mode intentions(g-intentions). As to the former, we may all, e.g.,i-intend to have an icecream, and we achieve our present personal goals (intention contents) byour own actions. But in the case of joint action such as painting a housetogether an individual can ultimately only intend to do his part of whatis collectively intended (g-intended). He must believe he can do that and


must be required to perform his part with the intention that the total jointaction be realized. Thus sharing an intention here is to be understoodto entail that a person intends to perform her part, the requirement ofsharing being justified on the basis of the mentioned subjective abilityfeature of the notion of intention. There are also broader “aim-intentions”or “goal-intentions”, such as intending that there be peace on earth. Theircontents can be shared, and the intenders are required to contribute to thesatisfaction of the collective intention. Suchg-goals (states or actions)are assumed to be believed by the agents to be collectively achievable.Collectiveg-intentions andg-goals satisfy the Collectivity Condition.

We can now present a summary argument for showing that collectiveacceptance (in the sense required for an account of social collectivity) canbe explicated in terms of acquiring, holding, and being disposed to acton, a suitable shared we-attitude (basically one in the intention-family orone in the belief-family) in the group-mode. Our argument builds on thefollowing four premisses. First, a we-attitude is a (social) reason for whicha collective-social action is performed, and some we-attitude must, indeed,be present as a reason in any collective social action. Second, collectiveacceptance is either a collective social action, viz., an action performed fora social reason (cf. our joint decision, and hence acceptance, that squirrelfur is to count as money), or a disposition to perform relevant collectivesocial actions (cf. our holding the view that squirrel fur can be used asmoney). Here acceptance is, respectively, the creation of a thought or itsmaintenance and it involves the disposition to act on the thought. Third, theeffective, immediate reasons for collective social actions (manifestationsof the disposition in the second premiss) belong either to the intention-commitment family of states or to the belief family of states. Fourth, thecollective acceptance in question cannot be a mere aggregate of privateacceptances, but must be acceptance, with collective commitment, for thegroup (or, which is equivalent, acceptance in the group-mode). These pre-misses have in fact already been discussed and defended in Section 1.23

They entail that the collective acceptance of a thought amounts to com-ing to hold, and holding of, a group-mode we-attitude and, accordingly,acting, or at least being disposed to act, on the we-attitude in question.As the shared we-attitude here must be in the group-mode, it is a way ofhaving, and being collectively committed to having, thoughts (contents) ina forgroupness sense and being disposed to act relevantly. Shared holdingof a we-attitude is a way of collective thinking and being disposed to col-lective action for a social reason. Here the social reason is the we-attitudeitself, according to the third premiss either a joint commitment-involvingintention or a we-belief in the group-mode. Also this premiss has been


discussed earlier, the general point in its defense being that these two typesof reasons are the immediate reasons why an intentional action of whateverkind can be performed.

We have earlier given some examples of the we-attitudes which (a tokenof) collective acceptance can uniquely extensionally amount to. We havesaid that a joint or collective intention to accept a goal (e.g., to collectivelybuild a bridge or reduce the atmospheric ozone hole) will qualify and sowill a mutual belief (e.g., the mutual normative belief that IndependenceDay is to be celebrated by lighting candles or that one should give Christ-mas gifts to one’s close friends and relatives). To mention some otherexamples, explicit contracts between people having the right authority,e.g., members of the parliament, are one type of collective decision-making(passing a law) binding the whole collective (which has vested the parlia-ment with its authority).24 (Our Collective Acceptance account does notexclude the presence of other we-attitudes, but it does not require them.)

Combining different kinds of norms (such asr-norms ands-norms inthe sense of Tuomela, 1995, Chapter (1) may give other forms of collectiveacceptance. Especially, the existence of special authorized members or,at least, members with authority (viz., operative members for decision-making and/or acting) and non-authorized members in a collective allowsmore variety.

In accordance with what has been said earlier and above, our thesis isthat the family of intention concepts (including intentions, commitmentsand agreements) and acceptance beliefs (doxastic takings) is all that theacceptable set ATT of attitudes needs to contain. Thus we can write ATT= { I , B}, taking I = intention andB = belief, both in the group- mode.25

Refining CAT on the basis of the above, we arrive at the following “we-attitude thesis”:

CA(G,s)↔ (for all i inG) (WIi(s)) or (for all i inG) (WBi(s)).(WA)

To be applicable to our CAT we must assume, furthermore, that CA ac-ceptance is for the group and involves collective commitment. Given this,WA comes to say that collectively accepting thats is extensionally equiv-alent to the following fact: We, the members of groupG, share a relevantwe-attitude – indeed an acceptance-involving attitude – abouts in thegroup-mode (more specifically an attitude in the intention family, WI oran acceptance belief WB) and – as attitudes involve action dispositions –are disposed to collectively act on the basis of this shared we-attitude.


6. SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS

CAT also covers social institutions in the broad sense. A commonly heldview is that such a social institution amounts to collective norm-followingor collective normative social practices. The institution is collectively pro-duced and maintained, as has already been argued in the case of money.Typical examples of general institutions are provided by economic ex-change (involving a transferable good, such as money), practices relatedto property rights and other legal institutions, and language usage. Exam-ples of more specific social institutions are the church and the university.Specific social institutions (in the sense of organizations) involve socialpositions and “task-right systems” associated with them.26 Deontic powersare accordingly conferred on position holders when a social institution iscollectively created or re-created.

Within our Collective Acceptance model collective-social sentences areused to express (what we antecedently take to be) collective-social facts.This can be done using sentences of the formq(a) or by forming morecomplex sentences,s(q, a), out of them.27 In the case of social institu-tions s(q, a) will have to entail sentences involving deontic notions. Forinstance, we may accept that a group memberi is our leader, and by ac-cepting this we also come to accept the entailed fact thati has the authorityto order us to do various things – and we ought to obey. By our acceptanceof i as a leader, we also accept his deontic powers, which therefore mustbe expressed ins(q, a) or be inferable froms(q, a). In the general case,s(q, a) may contain deontic terms like ‘ought’ and ‘may’, meant to in-dicate the conferred deontic powers. This is of course especially pertinentwhen we are discussing the collective making of social norms, as they mustcontain deontic terms.

We will not enter a deeper discussion of social institutions here, butproceed to give our general analysis of them:

A norm-entailing sentences expresses asocial institutionin aprimary sense in a collectiveG if and only if the members ofG collectively accepts for the use ofG, with the understandingthat collective acceptance for the group entails and is entailedby the correct assertability (or truth) ofs for G.

(SI)

Accepting the thesis that collective acceptance must amount to sharing theright kind of we-attitude, we have:

A norm-involving s expresses asocial institutionin a primarysense in a collectiveG if and only if the members ofG share arelevant we-attitude in the group-mode towardss.

(SI∗)


More technically speaking, we combine these into the following analysisfor a norm-entailings:

s stands for asocial institutionin a primary sense if and onlyif, for the group, CA(G, s) and (CA(G, s) ↔ s), and, in ac-cordance withWA, if and only if, for the group, (for alli inG) (WIi(s)) or (for all i in G) (WBi(s)) and (s ↔ (for all i inG) (WIi(s)) or (for all i in G) (WBi(s))), whereWI andWBexpress, respectively, shared we-attitudes of the intention kindor of the belief kind.

(SI∗∗)

We may have e.g.,s = (y)q(y), wherey ranges over squirrel furs andqstands for money, instantiated by e.g.,s = q(a), with a = this particularsquirrel fur.

Social institutions in a derivative sense can be characterized analo-gously. In them the sentences is collective-social in the derivative (ratherthan in the primary) sense. Norm-based social power-relations could becited as examples of social institutions in the derived sense.

We have shown above that only we-attitudes related to two kinds ofnotions, viz., acceptance in the sense of intention and agreement-makingand in the sense of acceptance beliefs, seem to be needed in the presentaccount. Accordingly, our present thesis is that the family of intentionconcepts (including agreements and commitments) and acceptance beliefs(doxastic takings) is all that ATT needs to contain for the purpose of sus-taining CAT.

7. CONCLUSION

We have in this paper made a case for the truth of the thesis that CAT isa central principle for understanding and making philosophical sense of atleast the linguistically codified aspects of the nature of sociality and thesocial world. More specifically the following theses have gained support:

(T1) Consider a sentences = q(a). Heres is a collective-social sentence,viz., a sentence expressing collective-social intentionality (aboutness), in aprimary sense if and only ifs is collectively constructed by the membersof some social group,G, in the following sense: the members ofG collec-tively accepts for themselves, being collectively committed to it, and theycollectively accepts if and only if s (for them).

Formally, this account amounts to the conjunction of the followingtheses rendered in our previous symbolism:

FG(G, CA(G, s)) (Acceptance)(T1a)


FG(G, CA(G, s)→ s) (Performativity)(T1a)

FG(G, s→ CA(G, s)) (Reflexivity)(T1b)

Here CA(G, s) is understood to entailG’s being collectively committed tos.

Collective-social sentences in a derived sense are sentences relevantlybased on collective-social sentences in the primary sense.

(T2) Collective acceptance extensionally amounts to sharing a “right” kindof we-attitude abouts (cf. below).

(T3) The right kind of we-attitude in (T2) is one in the group-mode and it isbased either on an agreement to makes true (this includes plan- based jointintention) or on mutually believing (accepting as true) thats, depending onthe case in question.

(T4) A norm-involving sentences expresses a social institution in a pri-mary sense in a groupG if and only if the members ofG share the men-tioned right kind of we-attitude in the group-mode towardss, such thatsis collectively made to be the case (intention case) or maintained (beliefcase) by the members ofG.

NOTES

∗ The first version of the present paper was written while the first author spent somemonths in Munich as the recipient of the Research Award by the Alexander von HumboldtFoundation. This is gratefully acknowledged. We also wish to thank Ulrich Baltzer, KaarloMiller, Pekka Mäkelä, Kristina Rolin, and Petri Ylikoski for critical comments.1 It is not always clear in these texts whether ‘things’ here mean concepts, or referents ofconcepts, or both.2 Notably in sociology under the label of the ‘social construction of reality’, see, forinstance, Berger and Luckmann (1966).3 For an analytical treatment of these notions, see Tuomela (1998b). In this paper we canget by without giving such a precise treatment.4 Compare Kusch (1997). This idea resembles and is in part explicated by what in Tuomela(1998a, b), is called the Collectivity Condition, a condition imposable on collective atti-tudes, such as collective goals. The states satisfying collective goals are collective goods.5 See, for instance, Tuomela (1995).6 This account is often found in political science, sociology and economic organizationtheory; see, for instance Balzer (1990), Wartenberg (1992) and Weber (1980).7 See for instance Schotter (1981). Schotter speaks of norms in a different sense fromours.


8 For instance, Parsons (1951). Searle (1995) gives a quite different kind of philosophicalfunctionalist account (cf. the discussion in Tuomela, 1997).9 See Tuomela (1998b, Chapter 6), for a critical discussion.10 A couple of remarks on acceptance can be made here. First, while we may speak ofan agent’s intention to accept a sentences, in the case of mental acceptance there is noconceptual gap between the intention to accept and mental acceptance itself: intending toaccept amounts to acceptance. Acceptance is intentional – it is not a mere causal productof the environment, but involves an exercise of intentional agency and awareness (andreflection) on one’s first-order mental states (e.g., a person may accept that the earth is flaton the basis of reflecting upon his relevant evidential beliefs).

Second, it should be noted that strictly speaking we need not even require in our accountthat all the group members accept the same sentence. They may actually accept intension-ally different sentences as long as an external observer can speak of the group’s acceptanceof s. Thus, in our example, while the group members need to share a rudimentary idea ofmoney, they need not possess the concept in a full sense and may each accept one of a classof sentences equivalent in the sense of all suitably expressing that squirrel fur is money.We could here also speak of the group members accepting a sentence “to the effect that”squirrel fur is money.11 Cf. Tuomela (1995, Chapter 1), and Tuomela and Bonnevier-Tuomela (1997) and Sec-tion 4 below for the notion of a we-attitude and the latter work for the notion of a collectivesocial action as an action performed for a shared social reason, viz., a shared we-attitude.12 Let us emphasize that in this paper our central considerations (such as those relying onthe analysis CAT below) rely on collective acceptance for the group involving collectivecommitment (going beyond the aggregation of private commitments) to what has beenaccepted. Note that it seems possible to have cases of collective acceptance for the groupinvolving only private commitments. Suppose thus that it is mutually believed – in a pri-vate, tacit sense – by the Finns that they are the toughest people in the world. This kindof collective acceptance based on mutual private belief would only entail private commit-ments but could still be for the group and even be a reason for collective social action.There is also collective acceptance which is not for the group. For instance, the groupmembers might all accept to go picking mushrooms and accept it as true that everybodywill go, without accepting all this for the group. There might be mutual knowledge aboutthis in the group, but the group members would compete for the mushrooms. This can betaken as collective acceptance in the I-mode without collective commitment to the acceptedactivity.

We may consider the items in a group’s intentional horizon (IH) from the point of viewof collective acceptance (CA), forgroupness (FG), collective commitment (CoCom) andwe-modeness (WM). Given our discussion, the following can be taken to be conceptuallyvalid truths:

CA(G, s) & CoCom(G, s)↔WM(CA(G, s)),(i)

CoCom(G, s)→ FG(CA(G, s)).(ii)

Verbally, (i) says that we-mode acceptance amounts to collective acceptance with col-lective commitment, and (ii) says that collective commitment in the context of collectiveacceptance entails collective acceptance for the group.

More generally, using obvious short-hand terminology, we may consider the followingcombinations of features within IH:

(±) CA & (±) FG & (±) CoCom.


Of the eight possible combinations the first one, viz., CA & FG & CoCom is equivalentto WM and is the combination our Collective Acceptance account requires. Of the othercombinatory possibilities only CA & –FG & Cocom, –CA & FG & CoCom and –CA &–FG & CoCom are not possible, if we take collective acceptance (CA) to be collective so-cial action or disposition to collective social action in the discussed, relatively precise senseof Tuomela and Bonnevier-Tuomela (1997). (For further discussion of these possibilitiessee Tuomela, 1998c.)13 We will not here give a precise analysis of the broad notion of group in CAT. Basically,if some persons belong to the same group they must at least think that they do. The groupcould be a small group in one of the senses proposed in Tuomela (1995, Chapter 4), or itcould be an organization, or a society, and so on.14 Collective acceptance in our full sense involves the thought that what is accepted isaccepted for the group and hence is shared, with collective commitment, by the groupmembersqua group members. The collectivity in the formation of the attitude is meantto carry over to whatever is collectively brought about or comes about in reliance on itsacceptance. We shall put this idea a little more generally in the form of an intuitive, looselyformulated principle, the Principle of Intuitive Collectivity, embedded in our ordinaryframework of agency:

If some sentence (or “thought”) has been accepted by the members of a groupfor the group, then it is treated by group members as being prima facie sharedfor that reason. The same holds true of whatever the group members take theaccepted sentence to imply or, more widely, “implicate”.

(IC)

15 Here is a brief note on the formal aspects of our system:

Notation (syntax)gr, gr ′: groupsS, S′: sentencesFG: the forgroup operatorCA: a predicate for collective acceptance, CA(gr, S)i: variable for individualsme: special membership relation, (i me gr),i is a member of groupgrbe: belief, be(i, S)in: intention, in(i, S)

We need the following assumptions (axioms):

(A1) If FG(gr, S) and FG(gr, S→ S′), then FG(gr, S′).(A2) If CA(gr, S) and for all i (i me gr ′ → i me gr) and there existsi (i me gr ′),

then CA(gr ′, S).(A3) CA(gr, S)→ FG(gr, S).(A4) [FG(gr, S) and FG(gr, S′) ] if and only if FG(gr, S andS′).Rules: modus ponens.

Clearly, (A1) and (A4) yield: FG(gr, S↔ S′)→ (FG(gr, S)↔ FG(gr, S′).Semantics:W : set of possible worldsI : set of individualsG: set of groups (can be explicitly defined (G: = Po(I ) − ∅)ca: GxW → Po2(W ) (for CA)


fg: GxW → Po2(W ) (for FG)bel: IxW → Po(W ) (for be)int : IxW → Po(W ) (for in)eps: W → Po(IxG) (interpretation forme)

Assumptions:

(S1) ca andfg are normal; i.e.,for all g in G, w ∈W : ∩ (ca(g, w)) ∈ ca(g, w);for all X, Y (X ⊂ Y andX ∈ ca(g, w)→ Y ∈ ca(g, w), and similarly forfg;

(S2) for allw in W , eps(w) = ∈;(S3) for allg,w: ca(g, w) ⊆ fg(g,w);(S4) for allw, g, g′: if a nonemptyg ⊆ g′, thenca(g′, w) ⊆ ca(g, w).

This suffices for proving that the axioms (A1)–(A4) are valid in the semantical system, ifwe stipulate

w |= CA(gr, S) iff // S// ∈ ca(g, w),

w |= FG (gr, S) iff // S// ∈ fg(g, w) and

w |= i me gr iff (i, g) ∈ eps(w),

whereg interpretsgr, i interpretsi and //S// is the set of worlds in whichS is true accordingto further standard requirements, which need not here be made explicit.16 Compare Barnes (1983), Kusch (1997), Searle (1995) and Bloor (1996) for discussion.Here we just wish to make two points: (a) As noted, group members generally need not beconcerned with any circularities (such as money is not money unless collectively acceptedto be money) as they are not required to possess the full concept of money that our Col-lective Acceptance account yields. Even in context when they have – and are required tohave such as in the case of, say, of the notion of a cocktail party – the full circular conceptin their minds, there is in principle nothing vicious about this circularity – the accountof collective attitudes given in Balzer and Tuomela (1997) removes the viciousness. Thisis because they prove that one can in principle (and under idealized conditions) alwaysgive up the circular, fixed point account in favor of a non-circular, “direct” account. (b)Searle’s basic formula for collective acceptance in the context of social institutions is “Weaccept thatS has power (S doesA)” (Searle, 1995, pp. 104, 111). This is understood tobe implicitly entailed by our central acceptance sentence “We collectively accepts” (orCA(G, s)), however, what is explicitly accepted in our account is the sentences, e.g.,s= squirrel fur is money, and not the underlying powers, rights and duties, concerning thepossessors of squirrel furs and other members of the group.17 Compare Tuomela (1995, Chapters 5–7).18 Here we use the terminology of Searle (1995).19 See Tuomela and Balzer (1997) for an application of the Collective Acceptance modelto questions of social ontology.20 In Tuomela (1998a, b), the following characterization is given:

On “quasi-conceptual” grounds it is true that if a collective goal P is satisfiedfor one of the group members holding, it is satisfied for any other groupmember.

(CC)


Here ‘quasi-conceptual’ basically means that a collective goal in this strong sense is notone unless constructed and accepted by the participants via their conceptual activities asbeing one. This reflexive feature is central.21 In symbolic terms, we have for a we-attitude WA that a participantx has:

WAx(A, s)↔ Ax(s) & Bx((y)Ay(s) & MB(( y) Ay(s))).

Here x and y are variables for persons (members ofG), B stands for belief and MBfor mutual belief, andA is some attitude in a set ATT of attitudes. In a finer accountpresuppositions would also have to be added. See Balzer and Tuomela (1997) where theseare called initial conditions.

The present notion of we-attitude is the full-blown notion. For some purposes the fullnotion can be weakened. Thus in Tuomela and Bonnevier-Tuomela (1997) it is argued thatsometimes collective social actions are based on “weak” we-attitudes in which the belief inthe mutual belief only means belief in others’ simple belief. In some very elementary casesthere need not be a belief about mutual belief or even simple belief. Thus one may speakof a “rudimentary” we-attitude when only clauses (a) and (b) are required to be fulfilled.22 There are group-beliefs in a stronger sense, but they will belong to agreement-conceptsin our present classification, see Tuomela (1995, Chapter 7).23 Cf. also the discussion in Tuomela and Bonnevier-Tuomela (1997).24 This corresponds to the creation and maintenance ofr-norms in the sense of Tuomela(1995, Chapter 1).25 Compare Tuomela (1995, Chapter 3), for a fuller discussion.26 See Tuomela (1995, Chapter 10).27 s(q, a) is used to denote a sentence in which the termq occurs, and the constant (name)a possibly occurs.

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The Proceedings of the Marvin Farber Conference ‘Social Ontology’, Buffalo, April1998.

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Raimo TuomelaDepartment of PhilosophyP.O. Box 2400014 University of HelsinkiFinland

Wolfgang BalzerInstitut für Philosophie, Logik und WissenschaftstheorieLudwig-Maximilians-Universität MünchenLudwigsstrasse 3180539 MunichGermany

Collective Acceptance and Collective Social Notions

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