Unintentional collective action

In this paper, I examine the manner in which analyses of the action of single agents have been pressed into service for constructing accounts of collective action. Specifically, I argue that the best analogy to collective action is a class of individual action that Carl Ginet has called ‘aggregate action.’ Furthermore, once we use aggregate action as a model of collective action, then we see that existing accounts of collective action have failed to accommodate an important class of (what I shall call) ‘unintentional collective actions.’     

Means or outcomes? Goal orientation predicts process and outcome focus

Previous research has demonstrated that the representation of goals primarily in terms of means (process focus) compared to outcomes of goal pursuit (outcome focus) increases across the lifespan. Nothing is known, however, about the processes underlying this age-related difference. The current study investigates age-related differences in growth and maintenance orientation as one of the factors contributing to age-related differences in goal focus. A self-report study (N = 123, 18 to 82 years, M = 48.59) presents first evidence that process focus is predicted by maintenance goal orientation, whereas outcome focus is predicted by growth goal orientation. Moreover, maintenance goal orientation mediates the positive association of age and process focus. Results are discussed taking a functional perspective of the role of goal orientation in age-related differences in goal focus.     

运动员的生活满意感:个人自尊与集体自尊的贡献

评估了个人自尊与集体自尊在预测运动员的一般生活满意感和训练比赛满意感时的相对重要性。被试为139名中国运动员,男68名,女71名,平均年龄19．64岁。分层回归的结果发现,在控制了人口统计学变量、个人自尊和社会支持3类变量以后,集体自尊单独解释了训练比赛满意感总方差的13％。优势分析的结果表明,预测训练比赛满意感时,集体自尊最为重要,贡献了已解释方差的67％。这些结果提示,需要用不同的自尊来预测不同的满意感。     

大学生价值取向的特点及其与家庭因素的相关研究

采用问卷法对大学生的价值取向及其与家庭因素的关系进行了研究。发现当代大学生的价值取向呈现出注重平等、公正,男生比女生更看重个人发展的特点;相对来说,不重视个人需要的表达,而对权威的服从表现了相当的重视;大学生价值取向的特点状况与家庭因素,尤其与父母的养育风格、个体认同的影响源密切相关。     

Collective Guilt and Collective Guilt Feelings

Can collectives feel guilt with respect to what they have done? It hasbeen claimed that they cannot. Yet in everyday discourse collectives areoften held to feel guilt, criticized because they do not, and so on.Among other things, this paper considers what such so-called collectiveguilt feelings amount to. If collective guilt feelings are sometimesappropriate, it must be the case that collectives can indeed beguilty. The paper begins with an account of what it is for a collectiveto intend to do something and to act in light of that intention.According to this account, and in senses that are explained, there is acollective that intends to do something if and only if the members of agiven population are jointly committed to intend as a body to do thatthing. A related account of collective belief is also presented. It isthen argued that, depending on the circumstances, a group's action canbe free as opposed to coerced, and that the idea that a collective assuch can be guilty of performing a wrongful act makes sense. The ideathat a group might feel guilt may be rejected because it is assumed thatto feel guilt is to experience a ``pang'' or ``twinge'' of guilt –nothing more and nothing less. Presumably, though, there must becognitions and perhaps behavior involved. In addition, the primacy, eventhe necessity, of ``feeling-sensations'' to feeling guilt in theindividual case has been questioned. Without the presumption that it isalready clear what feeling guilt amounts to, three proposals as to thenature of collective guilt feelings are considered. A ``feeling ofpersonal guilt'' is defined as a feeling of guilt over one's own action.It is argued that it is implausible to construe collective guiltfeelings in terms of members' feelings of personal guilt. ``Membershipguilt feelings'' involve a group member's feeling of guilt over what hisor her group has done. It is argued that such feelings are intelligibleif the member is party to the joint commitment that lies at the base ofthe relevant collective intention and action. However, an account ofcollective guilt in terms of membership guilt feelings is found wanting.Finally, a ``plural subject'' account of collective guilt feelings isarticulated, such that they involve a joint commitment to feel guilt asa body. The parties to a joint commitment of the kind in question may asa result find themselves experiencing ``pangs'' of the kind associatedwith personal and membership guilt feelings. Since these pangs, byhypothesis, arise as a result of the joint commitment to feel guilt as abody, they might be thought of as providing a kind of phenomenology forcollective guilt. Be that as it may, it is argued the plural subjectaccount has much to be said for it.     

Group Responsibility for Ethnic Conflict

When a group of persons such as a nation orcorporation has a relatively clear structureand set of decision procedures, it is capableof acting and should, it can well be argued, beconsidered morally as well as legallyresponsible. This is not because it is afull-fledged moral person, but becauseassigning responsibility is a human practice,and we have good moral reasons to adopt thepractice of considering such groupsresponsible. From such judgments, however,little follows about the responsibility ofindividual members of such groups; much moreneeds to be ascertained about which officialsor executives are responsible for what beforewe can consider individual members of nationsor corporations responsible.Whether an unorganized group can be morallyresponsible is much less clear, but there havebeen useful discussions in recent years of thepossible responsibility of whites for racism,or males for sexism, and the like. In thisessay I explore arguments for consideringgroups or their members responsible for ethnicconflict. Such groups may lack a clearorganizational structure, but they are notrandom assortments of persons. Groups can andoften should take responsibility for theattitudes and actions of their members, and cansometimes be considered responsible for failingto do so. And persons often can and shouldtake responsibility for the attitudes andactions of the groups of which they aremembers.     

Collective Responsibility

The basic bearer of responsibility is individuals, because that isall there are – nothing else can literally be the bearer of fullresponsibility. Claims about group responsibility therefore needanalysis. This would be impossible if all actions must be understoodas ones that could be performed whether or not anyone else exists.Individuals often act by virtue of membership in certain groups;often such membership bears a causal role in our behavior, andsometimes people act deliberately in order to promote the prospectsof members of a given group. Nevertheless, it is rational to awardproportionally to individual contributions to those actions andindividual shares in the production of the consequences of thoseactions.     

Can Collective Responsibility for Perpetrated Evil Persist over Generations?

In the first part of the paper an argument is developed to the effect that (1) there is no moral ground for individual persons to feel responsible for or guilty about crimes of their group to which they have in no way contributed; and (2) since there is no irreducibly collective responsibility nor guilt at any time, there is no question of them persisting over time. In the second part it is argued that there is nevertheless sufficient reason for innocent individual members of a group (that persists over time) to take on responsibility and guilt for the evil other (earlier) members have committed. The reason depends on the acceptability of a particular psychological theory of personal identity.     

Joint Commitments

I question the adequacy of Margaret Gilbert's account of collectivefeelings of guilt as collective judgments which do not necessarilyhave any phenomenological components. I question whether joint commitment theory in its present form helps us to understand orresolve social conflicts.