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Margaret Gilbert
Margaret Gilbert
Margaret Gilbert
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Margaret Gilbert (born 1942) is a British philosopher who contributed to the foundations of the analytic philosophy of social phenomena. She also made substantial contributions to the fields of political philosophy, the philosophy of law, and ethics. She is a Distinguished Professor and the Abraham I. Melden Chair in Moral Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine.

Life

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Gilbert was born in the United Kingdom,[1] the second and youngest child of Peter Gilbert, a north London jeweler, and his wife Miriam. The original family name Goldberg was Anglicised to Gilbert.[2] All four of her grandparents had been born in the Pale of Settlement in Tsarist Russia (modern Poland and Lithuania).[2][3][4]

She obtained a "double first" B.A. degree in Classics and Philosophy from Cambridge University and a B.Phil. and D.Phil. degree in Philosophy from Oxford University.[1] From 1983 until 2006, she taught at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she was Professor of Philosophy, and became Professor Emerita.[5] As of Fall 2006, she holds the Abraham I. Melden Chair in Moral Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine.[6] She has been a visiting teacher and researcher at many academic institutions including Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study, the University of Pennsylvania, Indiana University, Wolfson College, Oxford, Technische Universität Dresden, King's College London, and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, and regularly gives invited lectures in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Gilbert was married to philosopher Saul Kripke and is the sister of British historian Sir Martin Gilbert. In 2016, Margaret Gilbert was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.[7] In 2019 she was awarded the Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement and Contribution by Phi Beta Kappa in conjunction with the American Philosophical Association.[8]

Works

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In her book On Social Facts (1989) Gilbert presented novel accounts of a number of central social phenomena in the context of critical reflections on proposals by the founders of sociology Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber and others, including the philosopher David Lewis. The phenomena discussed include social conventions, social groups in a central sense of the term, group languages, collective belief, and acting together. Gilbert argued that these were all 'plural subject phenomena'.[9] In a summary passage she wrote, with allusion to Rousseau, that "One is willing to be the member of a plural subject if one is willing, at least in relation to certain conditions, to put one's own will into a 'pool of wills' dedicated, as one, to a single goal (or whatever it is that the pool is dedicated to)" (p.18). If two or more people have openly expressed such willingness in relation to a particular goal, in conditions of common knowledge, then the pertinent pool of wills is set up. In other words, the people concerned constitute the plural subject of the goal. As an alternative to talking of a pool of wills Gilbert refers also to joint commitment as when she writes: "the wills of the parties are jointly committed" (p.198). In later work she has preferred the language of joint commitment. Gilbert compares the plural subject to the singular subject and argues, with allusion to Durkheim, that "In order for individual human beings to form collectivities, they must take on a special character, a 'new' character, insofar as they need not, qua human beings, have that character. Moreover, humans must form a whole or unit of a special kind...a plural subject" (p.431).

In subsequent writings Gilbert continued the development and application of her plural subject theory. Each of the essay collections Living Together (1996), Sociality and Responsibility (2000) and Marcher Ensemble (in French) (2003) is composed of relevant papers authored by Gilbert.

In her book A Theory of Political Obligation (2006; 2008) Gilbert offered a new perspective on a classical problem in political philosophy, generally known as 'the' problem of political obligation. As Gilbert makes clear in her book, there are many versions of this problem. She addresses the question whether there is something about one's being the member of a particular society that means one is obligated to uphold the political institutions of that society. Unlike most contemporary writers on the subject, she does not insist that the obligation in question is a matter of moral requirement. Gilbert argues that there are obligations of a different sort, and that these that are a function of membership in a political society construed as membership in a particular kind of plural subject constituted, as are all plural subjects, by a joint commitment.[10]

Other topics Gilbert has addressed in one or more of her publications include agreements and promises, authority, collective emotions, collective responsibility, personal decisions and intentions, marital love, mutual recognition, patriotism, rights (in particular claim-rights), shared attention, shared values, social rules, and social unity.

Gilbert's essay collection Joint Commitment (2014) contains eighteen recent papers that together address most of the topics in the above list along with several others that Gilbert argues can be illuminated by an appeal to joint commitment.

Gilbert's book Rights and Demands (2018) is the first extended treatment of demand-rights, a class of rights that, she argues, are apt to be considered rights par excellence. To have a demand-right is to have the standing to demand an action of someone. That person is, correspondingly, obligated to the right-holder to perform the act in question. Seeking to answer the question "How are demand rights possible?" Gilbert argues for two main theses. First, joint commitment is a ground of demand-rights. Second, joint commitment may well be their only ground. In this connection Gilbert asks whether there are demand-rights whose existence can be demonstrated by moral argument without invoking a joint commitment, and finds wanting existing arguments to the effect that there are. She also argues against the possibility of accruing demand-rights through the existence of a given legal system or other institution without the involvement of a joint commitment. The final chapter of the book applies its findings to the topic of human rights.

In the course of Rights and Demands Gilbert engages with the work of central figures in contemporary rights theory such as H. L. A. Hart, Joseph Raz and Judith Thomson, and with prominent human rights theorists such as Charles Beitz and Alan Buchanan. She argues that promises and agreements - both commonly understood to ground demand-rights - are constituted by joint commitments, rejecting promise theorists' standard assumption that the obligations most closely associated with promises are a matter of moral requirement.

Gilbert's work has influenced a number of theorists outside philosophy including that of developmental psychologist Michael Tomasello.

Selected publications

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  • On Social Facts, London, New York: Routledge, (1989, Reprinted 1992)
  • Living Together: Rationality, Sociality, and Obligation, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD. (1996)
  • Sociality and Responsibility: New Essays in Plural Subject Theory, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD. (2000)
  • Marcher ensemble: Essais sur les fondements des phénomènes collectifs, Presses universitaires de France: Paris, France, (2003)
  • A Theory of Political Obligation: Membership, Commitment, and the Bonds of Society, Oxford University Press: Oxford (2006)(2008)
  • Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World, Oxford University Press: New York (2014).
  • Il Noi Collettivo: Impegno Congiunto e Mondo Sociale, Raffaelo Cortina: Milano (2015).
  • Rights and Demands: A Foundational Inquiry, Oxford University Press: Oxford (2018).
  • Life in Groups: How We Think, Feel, and Act Together, Oxford University Press: Oxford (2023).

See also

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References

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Revisions and contributorsEdit on WikipediaRead on Wikipedia

Margaret Gilbert

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Margaret Gilbert (born 1942) is a British philosopher and academic specializing in social ontology, moral philosophy, and the nature of collective intentionality. She serves as of and holder of the Abraham I. Melden Chair in Moral Philosophy at the , a position she has held since 2006 after previous appointments including Professor Emerita at the . Gilbert earned her B.A. from the , where she studied , and her D.Phil. from the . Gilbert's work centers on the foundational structures of social phenomena, arguing that many collective actions, beliefs, and obligations arise from joint commitments among participants, creating plural subjects with mutual accountability rather than mere aggregations of individual intentions. This approach, first systematically developed in her seminal 1989 book On Social Facts, challenges individualistic accounts of prevalent in and , positing instead that social facts—such as obligations from promises or agreements—stem from participants' commitments to one another as a body. Her theory of joint commitment extends to explain diverse areas including shared agency, , , and as demands grounded in interpersonal commitments. Key publications include Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World (2014), a collection elucidating how such commitments underpin everyday and institutional life, and Rights and Demands: A Foundational Inquiry (2018), which applies the framework to normative demands in and . Through these contributions, Gilbert has helped establish subfields in the philosophy of the social world, influencing debates on how humans constitute groups, obligations, and norms via participatory commitments rather than external impositions or reducible individual psychologies. Her analyses emphasize empirical plausibility in ordinary social experiences, such as walking together or forming obligations through mutual promises, while critiquing reductionist views that overlook the binding force of joint action.

Biography

Early Life and Education

Margaret Gilbert, a British philosopher, completed her undergraduate studies at the , majoring in , which encompassed Greek and Roman history, literature, and philosophy. She received a B.A. degree from in 1965. Gilbert then pursued graduate work in at the . She earned a B.Phil. in there in 1967, followed by a D.Phil. in in 1978. Her doctoral research focused on foundational issues in the of social phenomena, laying groundwork for her later contributions to social ontology.

Academic Career and Positions

Margaret Gilbert held her first full-time academic position at the after completing her graduate studies at . She subsequently taught at the for an extended period, serving as a in the Department of until 2006, and retains the title of Professor Emerita there. In 2006, Gilbert joined the , as Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and holder of the Abraham I. Melden Chair in Moral Philosophy, a position she continues to occupy. Throughout her career, she has also held visiting positions at institutions including Oxford University and the Institute for Advanced Study.

Philosophical Framework

Plural Subject Theory

Margaret Gilbert's Plural Subject Theory, first systematically articulated in her 1989 book On Social Facts, provides a non-reductionist account of social collectivity by analyzing groups as plural subjects formed through joint commitments among their members. In this framework, a set of individuals constitutes a plural subject with respect to an , , or action when they are jointly committed to it as a body, meaning the commitment binds the group holistically rather than aggregating individual attitudes. This approach contrasts with individualist theories that reduce collective phenomena to the intersection or summation of personal , emphasizing instead the normative force generated by mutual recognition of the commitment. At the core of the theory is the concept of joint commitment, which arises when each participant openly expresses to the others a willingness to commit together to a specific goal or state, establishing of this mutual readiness. Such a commitment imposes obligations on every member to act in with it, as rescinding unilaterally would violate the created for others in the group; for instance, in a of two walking together, their joint commitment to do so obligates each to adjust their pace to the other's unless the commitment is jointly released. Gilbert argues that this mechanism underpins everyday social facts, such as collective intentions (e.g., "we intend to meet at noon") and group beliefs, where the plural subject's attitude is not merely shared but inescapably collective due to the binding nature of the commitment. The theory extends to larger-scale phenomena, including obligations within social groups and conventions, where plural subjects maintain stability through the normative expectations of joint commitments rather than voluntary contracts or aggregative preferences. Gilbert maintains that this plural subject structure captures the intuitive reality of groups as entities with unified agency, supported by linguistic evidence from phrases like "we did it" that imply non-distributable actions irreducible to individual contributions. Empirical adequacy is highlighted in applications to coordinated actions, where the theory predicts breakdowns in collectivity absent joint commitment, as observed in failed collaborations lacking mutual accountability.

Joint Commitment Concept

Margaret Gilbert's joint commitment concept describes a normative bond formed when two or more individuals, through open mutual expressions of readiness, commit their collective wills as a single body to intend, believe, or act in a specified manner. This arises via matching personal commitments under conditions of , such that each participant has reason to believe the others are similarly committed, thereby imposing the obligation on the group as a unit rather than on individuals separately. Gilbert characterizes it as "a commitment of the will" where "the wills of two or more impose the commitment on the same two or more – as one," distinguishing it from aggregations of independent personal commitments. The concept's normative force stems from the creation of mutual demand-rights: each gains a right to conformity from the others and faces corresponding obligations to uphold the commitment, enabling rebuke for non-compliance. These rights and duties are directed and non-unilateral; unlike a personal commitment, a joint commitment cannot be rescinded by one alone without the others' , as doing so would violate the collective bond. This structure ensures the persistence of the commitment until fulfilled or collectively released, providing a foundation for accountability in social interactions. Gilbert illustrates joint commitments through simple scenarios, such as two individuals agreeing to dance together after one proposes and the other accepts openly, thereby committing the pair as a body to execute the dance. Another example involves friends jointly committing to wait until 6 o'clock, where mutual expressions bind them collectively despite potential individual preferences to leave earlier. These cases highlight how the concept applies to basic dyadic agreements, extending to broader subjects in her theory, and underscores its role in constituting non-reductive social entities without relying on shared individual psychologies.

Distinction from Individualist Approaches

Gilbert's plural subject theory posits that collective intentions and actions emerge from joint commitments among two or more individuals, forming a plural subject whose mental states are not merely aggregative of individual ones. In this framework, participants jointly commit to intending a particular outcome as a body, which creates mutual obligations enforceable by each against the others, distinguishing it from scenarios where individuals act in parallel without such binding norms. Individualist approaches, by contrast, reduce shared to the summation of personal intentions, where each agent individually intends the joint action and possesses higher-order beliefs about others' corresponding intentions—accounts advanced, for example, by Donald Davidson in his analysis of cooperative actions as coordinated individual plans, or by Michael Bratman through meshing subplans and mutual responsiveness. These theories maintain that collective phenomena can be fully explained by individual mental states and beliefs, without invoking irreducible social entities or commitments. The core distinction lies in Gilbert's non-reductionism: joint commitments generate normative demands that transcend , as the subject's binds participants regardless of their personal desires or beliefs about the goal, provided the commitment persists. For instance, in paradigmatic cases like walking together, individualists might cite each person's conditional to continue if others do, but Gilbert contends this fails to capture the unconditional obligation arising from the joint pledge, which precludes unilateral opting out without wronging co-participants. This approach avoids the "summativist" pitfalls of individualist views, where collective obligations dissolve into optional personal choices lacking inherent group-directed force. Empirical and conceptual support for this divide appears in Gilbert's analysis of social facts, such as population-wide intentions (e.g., a group's intent to emigrate), which individualist aggregations cannot adequately explain without assuming implausible uniform individual intents, whereas plural subject formation via joint commitment accommodates divergent personal views under a unified normative structure. Critics of , aligning with Gilbert, note that such theories struggle with the "irreducibly social" nature of commitments, as evidenced in everyday joint ventures where participants feel bound beyond self-interest or mutual expectation.

Applications and Extensions

Collective Intentionality and Action

Margaret Gilbert applies her plural subject theory to collective intentionality by positing that a group's exists when its members are jointly committed to intending a particular goal or state of affairs as a single body. This joint commitment creates a normative bond, obligating each participant to act in accordance with the collective , distinguishing it from mere aggregations of intentions. Unlike summative accounts, which reduce collective intentions to the sum of personal ones, Gilbert's non-reductive approach emphasizes the irreducibly social nature of such commitments, where participants view the intention as binding on the group qua group. In the context of , Gilbert argues that actions performed "together" require this underlying , manifested through joint commitments that enable coordinated behavior beyond individual rationality. For instance, in scenarios like a group lifting a heavy object, participants are jointly committed to the action's success, imposing mutual that resolve potential coordination problems without relying solely on conditional personal intentions. This framework addresses dilemmas—such as free-rider issues—by highlighting how joint commitments generate a sense of obligation that individual incentives alone cannot produce, as the commitment is to the plural subject rather than personal gain. Gilbert extends this to rationality in , contending that rational collective intentions align with participants' joint commitments, even if they conflict with individual preferences, thereby providing a basis for understanding social cooperation's normative force. Empirical parallels in , such as shared intentions in team performance, support the causal role of these commitments in facilitating effective group actions, though Gilbert prioritizes over empirical generalization. Her theory thus underscores collective intentionality as foundational to genuine joint action, rejecting individualist reductions that fail to capture the binding involved.

Obligations, Rights, and

Gilbert's theory of obligations centers on the concept of joint commitments, which she posits as the basis for obligations of a significant type in social life. A joint commitment occurs when two or more individuals commit themselves to support a single commitment as a body, thereby creating obligations for each to conform to that commitment unless released by the others. This account applies to everyday agreements, promising, and shared intentions, distinguishing such obligations from personal decisions by their inherently social nature and the standing they confer on co-committers to demand conformity. In her view, these obligations are normative and binding precisely because they stem from the mutual involvement of wills, not reducible to individual intentions or expectations. Extending this framework to , Gilbert introduces the notion of demand-, which grant the right-holder a special standing to demand performance from the duty-bearer. In her analysis, demand- arise from joint commitments, as seen in contexts like agreements and promises, where the commitment implies correlative to demand adherence. She argues that this grounding resolves philosophical puzzles about the possibility of such at a foundational level, emphasizing their interpersonal and directive character over mere claims or protections. Unlike or claim- in some traditional theories, demand- are tied to the normative force of joint action, enabling demands backed by the inherent in the commitment. In , Gilbert applies joint commitment theory to the problem of , contending that membership in a political society generates obligations to its laws and institutions. She proposes that citizens, by participating as members of a "body politic," jointly commit to its central aims—such as upholding a system of laws—thus incurring obligations to obey and support those institutions. This membership-based account contrasts with consent theories by not requiring explicit individual consent, instead deriving obligation from the normative implications of collective commitment to the polity's directives. Gilbert maintains that such obligations hold generally for members, addressing about their existence while accommodating exceptions like conscientious objection through release from the joint commitment. Her approach integrates and obligations in the political domain, where state directives may impose demand- on citizens to act in accordance with jointly committed political ends.

Social Conventions and Rationality

Gilbert's account of social conventions emphasizes their basis in joint commitments among members of a , rather than arising solely from individual or equilibria in coordination games. In this view, a social convention exists when individuals are jointly committed to conform to a given or norm as a body, creating obligations that bind participants independently of personal preferences or conditional strategies. This approach posits conventions as "group principles" upheld through collective intentionality, enabling stable social coordination. Contrasting with David Lewis's influential game-theoretic framework, which treats conventions as arbitrary solutions to recurrent coordination problems sustained by common knowledge of mutual expectations, Gilbert argues that such an individualistic model fails to capture the normative force of conventions. Lewis's account, as detailed in his 1969 work Convention, relies on players' preferences for mutual benefit without inherent obligations beyond self-interest, potentially allowing defection if expectations shift. Gilbert contends that true conventions involve non-reducible plural subjecthood, where joint commitment generates rights and obligations that render unilateral deviation irrational or impermissible, even absent ongoing coordination incentives. For instance, adherence to conventions like right-hand driving persists not merely because others expect it, but because populations are committed as a body to the principle, fostering rational trust and predictability. This integration of conventions into underscores their role in enabling rational beyond isolated individual deliberation. Gilbert maintains that in interdependent scenarios often require the commitments generated by conventions or agreements, as isolated rational choice cannot guarantee the mutual assurance needed for coordination without risking instability. In contexts, thus demands alignment with joint commitments, where violating a convention undermines the plural subject's intentions and exposes actors to normative from co-participants. Her framework, elaborated in works like Living Together: Rationality, Sociality, and Obligation (1996), critiques prevailing rational choice models for overlooking these social dimensions, advocating instead for an obligation-based that accommodates empirical patterns of human observed in everyday conventions. Empirical support for this non-reductionist stance draws from sociological observations of convention persistence despite alternatives, as joint commitments provide causal stability absent in purely expectant models.

Criticisms and Philosophical Debates

Challenges to Non-Reductionism

Critics contend that Gilbert's non-reductionist positing of joint commitments as irreducible primitives for collective intentionality violates ontological parsimony, as collective phenomena can be explained through aggregations or interlocks of individual intentions without invoking group-level entities. For example, Michael Bratman's planning theory reduces shared intentions to meshed individual commitments to plans, supported by and conditional responsiveness, thereby accounting for joint action's via individual and principles rather than inherent mutual obligations. This reductive strategy challenges Gilbert's insistence on plural subjects by demonstrating that her theory's explanatory power can be replicated with individualist resources, avoiding the need for a distinct ontological category of joint commitment. A related objection highlights potential circularity in Gilbert's account: entering a joint commitment presupposes prior collective intentionality or coordination among participants, risking an explanatory regress where the plural subject is both cause and effect of the commitment it grounds. Raimo Tuomela and Deborah Tollefsen have pressed this point, arguing that the mutual expression required for joint commitment already embodies the shared agency Gilbert seeks to constitute, rendering her non-reductionism explanatorily redundant. Summativist approaches exacerbate this by proposing that group beliefs or intentions simply aggregate corresponding individual attitudes under conditions of mutual awareness, directly undermining Gilbert's non-summative pluralism without appealing to irreducible commitments. Gilbert's framework also faces scalability challenges, as the requirement for unanimous rescission of joint commitments proves implausible for large groups, such as political communities, where persistence occurs despite individual dissent. Seumas critiques the elusive nature of joint commitments, noting their lack of a clear communicative source in many joint actions and their superfluity where ordinary agreements or moral duties suffice, as in cases of collaboration without deontic binding. These arguments collectively suggest that non-reductionism inflates unnecessarily, favoring reductive models that align better with empirical patterns of social coordination observed in everyday and institutional settings.

Critiques of Political Obligation Theory

Critics have challenged the claim that joint commitments generate genuine , arguing instead that they produce only imputed or defeasible reasons for action rather than binding duties comparable to individual promises or legal requirements. David Lefkowitz, in his review of Gilbert's A Theory of Political Obligation (2006), contends that joint commitments, while providing prudential or social pressure to conform, fail to obligate individuals against their or in coercive scenarios, such as a forced promise under duress, where rational adherence is not compelled. He illustrates this with examples like a coerced agreement not to report a crime, suggesting Gilbert's "obligating power" overstates the normative force, as individuals may rightly prioritize personal moral judgments or survival instincts over the commitment's demands. A related objection targets the applicability of plural subject theory to modern political communities, where widespread ignorance of legal norms undermines the presupposed acceptance. For instance, many citizens lack detailed knowledge of constitutional provisions or statutory rules, casting doubt on the existence of a genuine joint commitment to uphold them as a body, as required by Gilbert's model. This posits that political obligations more plausibly arise from situational roles within institutions or fair play in benefiting from public goods, rather than an imputed intent that ignores empirical realities of or uninformed participation. Further scrutiny arises from the theory's tension with individual autonomy and liberal principles of freedom. Vesco Paskalev argues that Gilbert's emphasis on membership in a jointly committed polity subordinates personal agency to group norms, potentially legitimizing obligations without active consent or participation, which erodes the voluntarist foundations needed for political legitimacy. He proposes that obligations stem instead from deliberate engagement in collective practices, though this alternative introduces its own paradoxes by weakening exit rights and individual liberty. Additionally, the derivation of normative "oughts" from descriptive joint commitments invites a Humean is-ought gap, where the mere fact of collective structure does not entail moral bindingness without supplementary ethical premises. Empirical hurdles for large-scale states compound these issues, as Gilbert's demands of the commitment and mutual readiness to conform—conditions rarely met in anonymous, diverse populations where interpersonal trust is diluted. Critics like Lefkowitz note that immoral joint commitments, such as those endorsing unjust policies, still purportedly obligate under Gilbert's view, yet moral overrides render the obligations hollow or non-genuine, questioning the 's robustness against ethical pluralism. Overall, these arguments portray the as philosophically innovative but vulnerable to charges of overgeneralization from small-group dynamics to sovereign polities.

Responses and Defenses

Gilbert maintains that joint commitments generate irreducible normative obligations binding participants as a body, countering reductionist challenges by noting that such commitments explain social phenomena—like mutual in group actions—that cannot be accounted for solely through aggregated individual intentions. She argues that the plural subject's will emerges from participants' expressed readiness to act jointly, forming a entity with commitments distinct from personal ones, as evidenced in everyday cases such as couples deciding to walk together, where each holds the other accountable regardless of private reservations. In response to critiques questioning the truth-directed nature of collective beliefs, Gilbert contends that a group's joint commitment to believe a can incorporate a collective aim at truth, even if individual participants' motives include non-epistemic factors like or convention; the relevant attitude is the group's, not the individuals'. Regarding objections that collective beliefs appear voluntary and thus unlike genuine , she redirects attention to the collective will formed by the joint commitment, which aligns with involuntaristic features of at the group level without requiring individual involuntariness. For her theory of , Gilbert defends the plural subject account against particularity and fairness-based critiques by positing that citizens' joint commitment to support a body (e.g., the state) that endorses laws creates obligations specific to co-members, deriving from the commitment's structure rather than hypothetical or utilitarian aggregation. This approach, she argues, fits empirical observations of citizens feeling bound by laws they personally oppose, as the obligation stems from membership in the plural subject rather than individual endorsement. She further contrasts it with individualist theories, asserting that only joint commitment captures the directed duties inherent in political membership.

Influence and Legacy

Impact on Social Ontology

Margaret Gilbert's plural subject theory, articulated in her 1989 book On Social Facts, posits that social groups and facts emerge from joint commitments among individuals, creating binding obligations that are irreducible to personal intentions or aggregations thereof. This framework challenges individualist ontologies by emphasizing how mutual commitments constitute plural subjects—entities with collective intentionality that possess and duties distinct from those of their members—thus providing a metaphysical foundation for social phenomena like shared beliefs and actions. Her approach underscores that such commitments generate normative forces, as seen in paradigmatic cases like walking together, where participants acquire correlative obligations and enforceable by the group. This contribution has reshaped social ontology by bridging with empirical observations of group behavior, influencing debates on the ontology of collective agency and non-summative beliefs. Unlike summative views that reduce group properties to sums of individual states, Gilbert's non-reductivism highlights how joint commitments enable genuine social entities, impacting analyses of institutions and . Her work, extended in Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World (2014), has informed discussions on the , with applications to legal theory via the "social impact theory of law," where joint commitments underpin legal obligations. Gilbert's emphasis on joint commitment as constitutive of has prompted critiques and refinements in social ontology, fostering a subfield focused on the causal role of commitments in generating emergent social properties. By privileging observable interpersonal dynamics over psychological , her theory has elevated causal realism in explanations of social persistence, such as why groups endure despite member dissent, through the binding nature of commitments. This has enduring influence, as evidenced by its integration into broader inquiries into shared agency and the metaphysics of social wholes.

Reception in Analytic Philosophy

Margaret Gilbert's plural subject theory, articulated in her 1989 monograph On Social Facts, has garnered significant attention in for its non-reductionist yet individualist approach to social ontology, positing that social facts emerge from joint commitments among participants forming plural subjects. This framework challenges prevalent in earlier analytic treatments, such as those by Donald Davidson, by arguing that collective intentionality involves normative obligations irreducible to aggregated individual intentions. The theory's emphasis on mutual commitments as constitutive of phenomena like joint action and has been lauded for its logical rigor and engagement with linguistic indicators of collectivity, such as the pronoun "we," influencing subsequent work in philosophy of action and . Within analytic debates on collective intentionality, Gilbert's views have been juxtaposed with alternatives like John Searle's irreducible "we-intentions" and Michael Bratman's planning-based shared intentions, with her account distinguished by its focus on binding commitments rather than mere mutual or plans. Reviews highlight the theory's strengths in addressing normative dimensions of group agency but critique potential overreach, such as accepting Saul Kripke's paradox of meaning without endorsing his skeptical resolution, which some see as inconsistent. Her conative non-summativist position, where group intentions stem from joint rather than summed individual ones, has prompted extensive discussion in bibliographies on collective belief, though critics argue it may impose overly stringent conditions for social phenomena. Gilbert's contributions continue to shape analytic , as evidenced by her high citation impact and defenses in later works like Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World (2014), where she refines the against objections concerning weaker forms of collectivity, such as emotions absent explicit commitments. While praised for bridging and without positing supra-individual entities, the faces challenges in explaining anonymous or hierarchical groups, prompting ongoing refinements in analytic .

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  63. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/004839319402400210
  64. https://philpapers.org/browse/collective-belief
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