How We Do What We Do: Joint Action and Spontaneity

The dissertation defends a novel account of joint agency, one that accommodates the neglected phenomenon of spontaneous joint action. The goals of the dissertation are to reveal the importance of spontaneous joint action, to show why these actions are problematic for many accounts of joint agency, and to produce a satisfactory theory of them. Chapter 1 argues that being capable of explaining spontaneous joint actions is in fact a requirement on a satisfactory theory of joint agency and this poses a challenge to meeting the other requirement on such a theory, the togetherness requirement. Spontaneous joint actions are those performed by co-agents who have not interacted in ways that bind them together. The challenge, then, is to adequately explain how co-agents are joined together without binding interaction. Chapter 2 reviews the literature and argues that extant theories do not meet the challenge of spontaneity because they cannot satisfy both requirements together. Chapter 3 develops the reasons account of joint action, which appeals to normative group reasons, in order to meet the challenge. Grasping a group reason forces agents to occupy the co-agential point of view because the group reason indicates who is to act and what they ought to do together. If two agents grasp their group reason, they are already bound together such that were they to act on the reason, they would act together spontaneously. Chapter 4 investigates which theory of normative reasons is consistent with spontaneity. Both motivating reasons and internalism about normative reasons are found lacking. Instead, it is argued that realism about normative reasons provides the best account of normative group reasons because the objective nature of real reasons eliminates the need for binding interaction, and it can more easily accommodate the inherent publicity of group reasons. Finally, Chapter 5 argues for realism about normative reasons, the existence of group reasons, and the unrestricted publicity of normative reasons. It does this by showing how these are all consequences of Davidsons triangulation argument.