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From Team Reasoning to Shared Intention

problem of action problem of joint action we don't need shared intention we do need shared intention Bratman's planning theory Pacherie's team reason- ing theory ??? } } decision theory game theory limits -- hi-lo, prsnr's dlmma team reasoning
team reasoning super short recap

recap

‘somebody team reasons if she works out the best possible feasible combination of actions for all the members of her team, then does her part in it.’

(Bacharach, 2006, p. 121)

individual reasoning team reasoning decision decision intention shared intention
Here is the idea in essence: an intention is what you arrive at by ordinary reasoning. A shared intention is what you arrive at by team reasoning.
What makes the intention shared, on this view, is just that it is a consequence of team reasoning.
This view is easy to understand but difficult to justify.
Why should we accept that this is true?

‘The key difference between [individual and shared intentions]
is not a property of the intentions themselves,
but of the modes of reasoning by which they are formed.

Thus, an analysis which starts with the intention
has already missed
what is distinctively collective about it

(Gold & Sugden, 2007)

Because team reasoning is not supposed to require shared agency; we can therefore attempt to use it in giving an account of shared agency. This has been attempted several times. Gold and Sugden offer a view (which I find difficult to interpret); but perhaps the best developed view and certainly the most recent is due to Elisabeth Pacherie. I will focus on her view.

two accounts involving team reasoning

Gold & Sugden, 2007

Gold & Sugden (2007)

Pacherie, 2013

Pacherie (2013)
Objectives first.
This is very important: Pacherie’s objectives are not the same as Bratman’s (nor Gilbert’s), and Pachiere is very clear about them.
Useful illustration of the method: state your objectives so that **you** set the criteria for success (rather than leaving this to your reader).

Pacherie’s ‘shared intention lite

[Not] ‘all intentional joint actions require the sophistication in ascribing propositional attitudes that Bratman’s account appears to demand.

Pacherie’s view is not that Bratman is wrong in every case: she thinks he is right about some but not all case. You’ll see why this is important later.

[I construct] ‘a modest or ‘lite’ notion of shared intention, less cognitively demanding than what the analyses proposed by leading philosophical accounts suggest and constituting a plausible basis from which more sophisticated forms of shared intentions can [...] emerge’

(Pacherie, 2013, p. 2)

importance: not aiming to tell the whole story

Pacherie is following the standard pattern: to be a joint action is to stand in an appropriate relation to a shared intention.
[skip next quote!]

‘philosophers who appeal to shared intentions are trying to capture a stronger notion of intentional joint action.

For a joint activity to be a joint intentional action in this strong sense, the individuals who engage in this activity must think of its goal

not just as bringing about outcome O, but

as bringing about outcome O together.’

(Pacherie, 2013, p. 5)

‘Two persons P1 and P2 share an intention to A, if:

(i) each has a self-conception as a member of the team T, consisting of P1 and P2 (collective self-framing);

(i’) each believes (i) (group identification expectation);

What is a team?
Pacherie follows Bacherach here.
Psychological group identification. Not a matter of rational control, nor even of choice. It is involuntary.
‘In identifying as a member of a group, an agent conceives this group as a unit of agency acting in pursuit of some group-goal.’ (Pacherie, 2013, p. 16)

(ii) each reasons that A is the best choice of action for the team (team reasoning from a group viewpoint); and

(iii) each therefore intends to do his part of A (team reasoning from an individual viewpoint).’

(Pacherie, 2013)

see also Gold & Sugden (2007); Pacherie (2011)

Step 2b: Pacherie on ‘Shared intention lite’ (best account linking shared intention to team reasoning)
Objections: (a) very limited model (decision theory and team reasoning); (b) requires frames; (c) counterexamples to Pacherie (too ‘lite’)? (d) Not ‘lite’ enough (depending on what intentions are), (e) Still fails the requirements on inferential and normative integration of shared intentions with intentions.
*TODO: Does team reasoning or Pacherie’s account meet Searle’s constraint: ‘The notion of a [shared intention] ... implies the notion of cooperation’ Searle (1990, p. 95)? Yes, beautifully
Does team reasoning meet Bratman’s constraints 1. Shared intentions are inferentially integrated with ordinary, individual intentions. 2. Shared intentions are normatively integrated with ordinary, individual intentions (e.g. aggregation).
If no clarificatory questions, is the account true? Counterexamples?
consider this case. You and I each meet conditions (i)-(iii). However, we are each doubtful that the other meets condition (i); this appears to be possible because there is no explicit knowledge requirement. Despite these doubts, we also meet (ii) for we each intend to do our parts in A in part because we recognise that there is still a small chance that the other meets (i) and in part because we each think doing our parts in A will have positive side effects (perhaps we each think that this result in being viewed as a good team player by some observers). So here it seems that we meet conditions (i)-(iii) and have a shared intention, although if asked whether we have a shared intention we could each reasonably deny that we do (because we each doubt that the other will meet conditions (i)). I suspect that this case is either not possible or not a problem; but it may illustrate why further elaboration of the account could be helpful at this point.
This deals with the potential objection but now the same objection applies with respect to the other conditions.
But check what Pacherie herself says:
‘(i’) [...] isn’t independent from condition (i), but rather constitutes a default assumption given the nature of the psychological processes that are supposed to automatically induce group- identification. In other words, had ‘non-group’ cues be present and salient enough, the’ (Pacherie, 2013, p. 19)
individual reasoning team reasoning decision decision intention shared intention

Does Pacherie’s view succeed where the Simple Theory failed?

The Simple Theory

Two or more agents perform an intentional joint action
exactly when there is an act-type, φ, such that
each agent intends that
they, these agents, φ together
and their intentions are appropriately related to their actions.

‘Two persons P1 and P2 share an intention to A, if:

(i) each has a self-conception as a member of the team T, consisting of P1 and P2 (collective self-framing);

(i’) each believes (i) (group identification expectation);

(ii) each reasons that A is the best choice of action for the team (team reasoning from a group viewpoint); and

(iii) each therefore intends to do his part of A (team reasoning from an individual viewpoint).’

How does this account deal with the counterexample?
What is a team?
Pacherie follows Bacherach here.
Psychological group identification. Not a matter of rational control, nor even of choice. It is involuntary.
‘In identifying as a member of a group, an agent conceives this group as a unit of agency acting in pursuit of some group-goal.’ (Pacherie, 2013, p. 16)
problem of action problem of joint action we don't need shared intention we do need shared intention Bratman's planning theory Pacherie's team reason- ing theory ??? } } decision theory game theory limits -- hi-lo, prsnr's dlmma team reasoning
These are the questions you would want to answer if you were going to pursue team reasoning.

1. What is team reasoning?

2. How might team reasoning be used in constructing a theory of shared agency?

background: aggregate agents

So answering the questions might enable us to decide between the accounts.

What distinguishes joint action from parallel but merely individual action?

Joint action involves shared intention.

What is shared intention?

Bratman’s planning theory

vs

Pacherie’s team reasoning theory

Which, if either, is correct?

problem of action problem of joint action we don't need shared intention we do need shared intention Bratman's planning theory Pacherie's team reason- ing theory ??? } } decision theory game theory limits -- hi-lo, prsnr's dlmma team reasoning