scholarly journals Accounting for groups: the dynamics of intragroup deliberation

Synthese ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. McKenzie Alexander ◽  
Julia Morley
Keyword(s):  
Prima Facie ◽  
Group Agency ◽  
Close Inspection ◽  
Judgement Aggregation ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Work List ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Normative Constraints ◽  
Group Agents

AbstractIn a highly influential work, List and Pettit (Group Agency: The Possibility, Design, and Status of Corporate Agents, Oxford University Press, 2011) draw upon the theory of judgement aggregation to offer an argument for the existence of nonreductive group agents; they also suggest that nonreductive group agency is a widespread phenomenon. In this paper, we argue for the following two claims. First, that the axioms they consider cannot naturally be interpreted as either descriptive characterisations or normative constraints upon group judgements, in general. This makes it unclear how the List and Pettit argument is to apply to real world group behaviour. Second, by examining empirical data about how group judgements are made by a powerful international regulatory board, we show how each of the List and Pettit axioms can be violated in ways which are straightforwardly explicable at the level of the individual. This suggests that group agency may best be understood as a pluralistic phenomenon, where close inspection of the dynamics of intragroup deliberation can reveal that what prima facie appears to be a nonreductive group agent is, in fact, reducible.

MUST GROUP AGENTS BE RATIONAL? LIST AND PETTIT'S THEORY OF JUDGEMENT AGGREGATION AND GROUP AGENCY

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Sugden
Keyword(s):  
Group Agency ◽  
Discursive Dilemma ◽  
Judgement Aggregation ◽  
Philip Pettit ◽  
Group Agents

As a writing partnership, Christian List and Philip Pettit are probably best known for a paper in Economics and Philosophy that describes and generalizes the ‘discursive dilemma’ (List and Pettit 2002). That paper is one of the main points of reference for what is now a large literature on the aggregation of judgements – a literature to which List and Pettit have continued to contribute, individually and jointly. Their new book Group Agency reviews and synthesizes that body of work, and proposes an analysis of group agency in which the aggregation of judgements plays a central role.

GROUP AGENCY AND EPISTEMIC DEPENDENCY

Episteme ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron Dewitt
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
True Belief ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Group Agency ◽  
Agency Model ◽  
Group Agent ◽  
Or Groups ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Group Agents

AbstractModern epistemic questions have largely been focused around the individual and her ability to acquire knowledge autonomously. More recently epistemologists have begun to look more broadly in providing accounts of knowledge by considering its social context, where the individual depends on others for true beliefs. Hardwig explains the effect of this shift starkly, arguing that to reject epistemic dependency is to deny certain true beliefs widely held throughout society and, more specifically, it is to deny that science and scholarship can provide true belief. Alternatively, Hardwig argues that beliefs could be granted to communities or groups but denied to individuals. This paper approaches these broad assertions using a group agency model from List and Pettit. Through a discussion of the ‘epistemic desideratum’ of group agents, I conclude that List and Pettit give us reason to accept some of Hardwig's concerns, but that attributing beliefs to groups does not require us to deny them to individuals, rather an individual can use a group agent as a source of epistemic dependence.

The Easy Approach to Group Agency. A Simple Realist View on Group Agents

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 81-102
Author(s):  
Andreea Popescu
Keyword(s):  
Group Agency ◽  
Group Agents ◽  
Realist View ◽  
As If

"We talk about groups as doing something, we talk as if groups have agency. Is our talk legitimate? Are there group agents? Is there something like group agency? In this paper, I discuss two ontological frameworks concerning existence questions: the Quinean framework and the Thomasson-Carnap framework. I apply them to the problem of group agency. I review the Quinean-oriented literature debating the existence of group agents and its methodological background. I argue, via Thomasson’s easy approach to ontology, that deflationism can simplify the debate surrounding group agents. Thus, I argue for a Thomasson-Carnap framework and show that it is better suited to answer the particular question whether there are group agents. More specifically, I argue for a non-reductive simple realist view on group agents, i.e. I argue for the truth of “There are group agents,” via analytic entailments, by truths about the actions and deeds of groups. Keywords: Analytic Entailments, Deflationism, Group agency, Group agents, Simple Realism "

scholarly journals Coalescence of rhizobial communities in soil interacts with fertilization and determines the assembly of rhizobia in root nodules

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Josep Ramoneda ◽  
Johannes Le Roux ◽  
Stefanie Stadelmann ◽  
Emmanuel Frossard ◽  
Beat Frey ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Community ◽  
Soil Microbial Community ◽  
Root Nodule ◽  
Root Nodules ◽  
Arable Land ◽  
Soil Microbial ◽  
Soil Mixing ◽  
Environmental Setting ◽  
Widespread Phenomenon ◽  
The Individual

AbstractSoil microbial community coalescence, whereby entire microbial communities mix and compete in a new environmental setting, is a widespread phenomenon whose applicability for targeted root microbiome assembly has not been studied. Using a legume shrub adapted to nutrient poor soil, we tested for the first time how the assembly of communities of rhizobial root nodule symbionts is affected by the interaction of coalescence and fertilization. Seedlings of the rooibos [Aspalathus linearis (Burm.f.) Dahlg.], were raised in pairwise mixtures of soil from cultivated and uncultivated land of five farms, as well as the individual mixture components. A fragment of the symbiosis maker gene, nodA, was sequenced to characterize the taxonomic turnover of the rhizobia associated with all root nodules at the age of eight month. Soil mixing promoted taxonomic turnover in the rhizobial communities, while fertilization amplified such turnover by increasing the number of rhizobia that became more abundant after soil mixing. Soil mixing and fertilization had a synergistic effect on the abundance of a particular taxon, which was rare in the component soils but became highly abundant in fertilized plants raised in soil mixtures. These findings provide the first evidence that fertilizer addition can interact with soil microbial community coalescence, probably through increasing the chances for rare strains to prioritize root nodule colonization. The combination of soil mixing and fertilizer addition may be a still unexplored measure to (re)introduce root microbial mutualists in arable land.

Municipal Reform in Canada: Reconfiguration, Re-Empowerment, and Rebalancing

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 974-975
Author(s):  
Warren Magnusson
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
The Other ◽  
Recent Period ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Municipal Reform ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Northern Territories ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Oxford University Press

Municipal Reform in Canada: Reconfiguration, Re-Empowerment, and Rebalancing, Joseph Garcea and Edward C. LeSage, Jr., eds., Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. ix, 350.This book will be an essential reference for students of local government in Canada. It deals with the most recent period of municipal reform, from 1990 onwards. There are chapters on each of the ten provinces, plus a combined chapter on the northern territories. The editors establish an analytical framework for the book in their introduction, and then try to bring things together in a long concluding chapter. The individual chapters differ somewhat in approach, but the editors were fairly successful in getting the contributors to keep to a common analytical framework. Reading the whole book straight through is a bit of a slog, because there is so much detail; on the other hand, it is handy to have all this material collected together. It will stimulate useful reflection, as much about what is not here as what is.

Surreptitious Drug Administration: Collective Decision Making Over Riding Personal Autonomy

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (S1) ◽  
pp. S612-S612
Author(s):  
R. Nagpal ◽  
V.G. Jhanwar
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
Mental Health Policy ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Collective Decision Making ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Competing Interest ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Management Issues

A quaint problem indeed. This is an issue where ethical and practical management issues lock horns. An individual with no insight on a rampage, a threat to self and others cannot be given medicines without consent except in an indoor facility and admitted under a specific provision of the current statute. Contrary to the law, the mental health policy envisages community care of the individual. For a time defined interval, surreptitious medication can be administered providing much needed relief to the caregivers and calms the recipient. Surreptitious medication can of course be an instrument of control and hence would necessitate a system of checks and balances. Surreptitious medication tests legal and ethical boundaries. It offers relief to caregivers but can be an instrument of abuse. The act of administering a drug without the individual's consent is prima facie wrong but if the context is woven in, a whole new dimension arises.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

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