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'Life in Groups' develops and applies Margaret Gilbert's influential perspective on topics to do with joint commitment: collective beliefs and intentions; rational choice and preference; group lies and corporate misbehavior; remorse and other emotions; rights, obligations, and freedom.

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Preface and Acknowledgements -- I. Introduction: everyday concepts and social reality -- II. 'Social action' and the subject matter of social science -- III. Action, meaning, and the social -- IV. Social groups: a Simmelian view -- V. After Durkheim: concerning collective belief -- VI. Social convention -- VII On social facts -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

Margaret Gilbert offers an incisive new approach to a classic problem of political philosophy: when and why should I do what the laws of my country tell me to do? Beginning with carefully argued accounts of social groups in general and political societies in particular, the author argues that in central, standard senses of the relevant terms membership in a political society in and of itself obligates one to support that society's political institutions. The obligations in questionare not moral requirements derived from general moral principles, as is often supposed, but a matter of one's part

One of the most distinguished living social philosophers, Margaret Gilbert develops and extends her application of plural subject theory of human sociality, first introduced in her earlier works On Social Facts and Living Together. Sociality and Responsibility presents an extended discussion of her proposal that joint commitments inherently involve obligations and rights, proposing, in effect, a new theory of obligations and rights. In addition, it demonstrates the extensive range and fruitfulness of plural subject theory by presenting accounts of social rules, scientific change, political obl

Following up her landmark work On Social Facts, this collection of essays by noted social philosopher Margaret Gilbert develops and deepens her theory of social groups as 'plural subjects.' She asks, how far can our rationality take us when we pursue our personal goals? What does it mean to be a member of a group? Does group membership involve obligations and rights, and, if so, how? Gilbert argues that, in order to understand the social dimensions of human life, we must go beyond the prevailing 'game theoretic' picture of people acting as independent individuals, to incorporate their situatio

This paper focuses on a kind of reasoning in which the members of a group with a goal of its own may engage, herein referred to as "real team reasoning." Starting with four challenging observations on what is, and is not, involved in acting together towards a group or collective goal, an account of a collective goal that accords with these observations is offered. This account appeals to a joint commitment of the parties, understood as is explained. Several virtues of the account are noted, and it is defended against a methodological objection privileging theoretical parsimony by reference in part to the need to invoke joint commitment in other contexts.

Abstract
Drawing on earlier work of the author that is both clarified and amplified here, this article explores the question: what is it for two or more people to intend to do something in the future? In short, what is it for people to share an intention? It argues for three criteria of adequacy for an account of shared intention (the disjunction, concurrence, and obligation criteria) and offers an account that satisfies them. According to this account, in technical terms explained in the paper, people share an intention when and only when they are jointly committed to intend as a body to do such-and-such in the future. This account is compared and contrasted with the common approach that treats shared intention as a matter of the correlative personal intentions, with particular reference to the work of Michael Bratman.

Collective action is interpreted as a matter of people doing something together, and it is assumed that this involves their having a collective intention to do that thing together. The account of collective intention for which the author has argued elsewhere is presented. In terms that are explained, the parties are jointly committed to intend as a body that such-and-such. Collective action problems in the sense of rational choice theory—problems such as the various forms of coordination problem and the prisoner's dilemma—are then considered. An explanation is given of how, when such a problem is interpreted in terms of the parties' inclinations, a suitable collective intention resolves the problem for agents who are rational in a broad sense other than the technical sense of game theory.

Competing accounts of remorse are studied to determine which perspective provides the best strategy for reconciling relations between groups that have committed war crimes & those victimized by such wrongdoing. Overviews of the function of remorse & of the possibility of group remorse are presented. Several problems with the aggregated personal remorse account are identified, eg, group members who were passive in the group's criminal act may not express group remorse. In addition, the intelligibility of the aggregated membership remorse perspective, defined as each member's expression of remorse for the group's act, is questioned. After challenging the logic behind the notion of group blameworthiness, the viability of the membership remorse account is further questioned on the grounds that joint commitment among members may hinder public expressions of group remorse. Consequently, a notion of collective remorse stipulating that a group feels remorse only if all members are jointly committed to expressing remorse as a group is advanced to resolve these dilemmas. It is concluded that collective remorse & collective responsibility are needed to reconcile relations between involved groups. J. W. Parker