No. 9 (2015): Joint Commitment: Collective Intentionality, Norms and Justice
Session 1. Collective Beliefs

Joint Commitment and Collective Belief: a Revisionary Proposal

Published 2016-04-07

Keywords

  • collective belief,
  • acceptance,
  • joint commitment

How to Cite

Townsend, L. (2016). Joint Commitment and Collective Belief: a Revisionary Proposal. Phenomenology and Mind, (9), 46–53. https://doi.org/10.13128/Phe_Mi-18151

Abstract

According to Margaret Gilbert, two or more people collectively believe that p if and only if they are jointly committed to believe that p as a body. But the way she construes joint commitment in her account – as a commitment of and by the several parties to “doing something as a body” – encourages the thought that the phenomenon accounted for is not that of genuine belief. I explain why this concern arises and explore a different way of construing joint commitment, in order to avoid the concern. This leads me to propose a revised Gilbertian account of collective belief, according to which two or more people collectively believe that p if and only if they are jointly committed to p as true.