Contemporary philosophy of collective agency, as illustrated by the work of Searle, Bratman, Gilbert, Pettit and others, focuses predominantly on small groups of agents sharing common goals. In his groundbreaking paper “Massively Shared Agency” of 2014, Scott Shapiro shows the limits of this approach when dealing with the large groups of agents that form industrial corporations, armies, or systems of law enforcement. Such groups will involve alienated or uncommitted participants pursuing motives of their own. And as Shapiro shows, they can manifest shared agency only when the actions of all participants are coordinated through authority structures organized hierarchically. Here I wish to focus on that dimension of massively shared agency that has to do with the transmission of authority. I will show that while such transmission almost always involves communication through speech (or through the digital counterparts of speech), transmission of this sort is too transient,
and falls short of creating the type of enduring intermeshing of plans and intentions that is required for the imposition of hierarchical authority structures across large organizations. To create and maintain the needed hierarchical authority structures what is required are complexes of intermeshed documents. Such documents provide for what we can think of as a division of deontic labor, allowing plans, orders, and obligations to be meshed together over time.
Presented at the conference on Truth, Image and Normativity, Cagliari, Sardinia, October 23, 2014
1. The Division of Deontic Labour
Truth, Image, Normativity
Cagliari, October 23, 2014
Barry Smith
1
2. the philosophy of the dinner party
Searle, Tuomela, Gilbert, Bratman deal with
simple local interaction of cooperative agents
communicating by speech
“Would you like to dance?”
“Let’s lift this table”
“Waiter, bring me a beer!”
“Shall we cook dinner together?”
…
2
3. beyond the philosophy of the dinner
party
3
Phase 1: Massively shared agency involving
participants who share a common goal –
example: a symphony performance
Phase 2: Massively shared agency involving
substantial numbers of participants who are
alienated from the overarching goal –
example: an industrial enterprise, an army, the
law, a city planning authority
4. first main thesis:
the meshing of complex actions of
large numbers of people is made
possible through
1. modularization
2. hierarchically organized authorities
both resting essentially on
3. the meshing of (typically diagrammatic)
documents
4
7. The actions of the players in an
orchestral performance
• are intermeshed through the sets of intermeshed
documents we call orchestral scores
These documents are plan specifications (sets of
instructions for playing instruments)
The conductor provides the authority
– to initiate commitment, thus to create a plan from a
mere plan specification
– to resolve disputes which arise along the way, for
example as to interpretation, tempo, …
7
8. Scores bring it about that specific obligation series are
distributed in coordinated fashion across large groups
8
9. players actions are coordinated and steered
through time through conductor’s actions
combined with intermeshed sets of instructions
9
14. Authorities involved in maintaining the
division of orchestral deontic labor that
is involved in a symphony concert:
Conductor
Orchestral section leaders (First violin …)
Rehearsal (drill) manager
Orchestra manager
Concert hall manager
~ Composer
– exerts authority only as mediated through the score
14
15. Documents involved in maintaining
the division of orchestral deontic labor
scores, sub-scores
contracts
orchestra manager and conductor
orchestra manager and players
concert hall manager and orchestra manager
concert hall manager and audience members
(tickets)
laws, including
copyright law
laws governing public assembly
laws governing employment contracts
laws governing sale of tickets
15
between
16. documents hold together the executions
of horizontally and vertically meshed
subplans
through drill
drill, too, is modularized
based on individual and small group
practice all the way up to full orchestra
rehearsal
16
17. How to do things with scores
1. the author authors the score, thereby creates a possibility
of performance, and thereby creates the work
2. conductor and orchestra use the score as the specification
of a plan (with subplans) and commit themselves to its
execution,
3. the orchestra members committing themselves to accept
the authority of the conductor
4. they use the score in to rehearsing the execution of their
plan (develop score-coordinated expertise through drill)
5. they schedule a concert, thereby making a commitment to
each other, to their employer, and to a prospective
audience to perform that work
6. they perform the work
17
18. Scott J. Shapiro, “Massively Shared
Agency”, 2013
[Bratman, Searle …] ‘are unable to account for
the existence of massively shared agency.
they ‘have largely concentrated on analyzing
shared activities among highly committed
participants. The working assumption has been
that those who sing duets or paint houses
together are all committed to the success of the
activity.’
18
19. Shapiro: To adapt standard theory of collective
agency to deal with massively shared actions we
need to add authority
Authorities are … “mesh creating” mechanisms.
When disputes between participants break out with
respect to the proper way to proceed, authorities
can create a mesh between the subplans of the
participants by demanding that both sides accept a
certain solution.
Basis for Shapiro’s theory of the nature of law
19
20. Legal systems are (roughly)
• systems of intermeshed obligations
• systems of intermeshed plans
• systems of intermeshed instructions
• system of intermeshed authorities
which allow
• conception of ever more complex intermeshed plans
through reliance on shared commitments and on
development of intermeshed expertise
• excution of these plans through shared agency
• investment in human and physical capital
20
21. Searle: Directions of fit
• world-to-mind: a plan is formulated to
change the world (to make it conform
to the mind of the planner …)
• mind-to-world: an assertion is about
something in the world
• automatic mind-to-world-and-world-to-
mind: I say “I promise to pay you
$100 dollars” and thereby make it true
that I promise to pay you $100 dollars
21
22. directions of fit for documents
• world-to-mind: a plan is formulated to
change the world (to make it conform to
the mind of the planner …)
• mind-to-world: a report is published
evaluating the success of the execution of
the plan
• automatic mind-to-world-and-world-to-mind:
Act of Parliament is published
declaring that such-and-such is the law and
such-and-such is the law
22
23. what begins as a plan,
ends as a record
23
cartographic directions of fit
26. Blueprint associated with multiple series of
documents with deontic powers
chain of commitments
from order
to blueprint creation
to acceptance of
blueprint
to process of building
in accordance with
blueprint
to acceptance of
finished building 26
27. Plans will be modified along the way
physical changes to the
building to meet
building codes
changes in
materials/suppliers
changes in allowed
physical processes
changes in administrative
(approval) processes
27
28. Documents with different directions of
fit become intermeshed through being
stapled together over time
28
29. second main thesis:
there is a division of deontic labor
effectuated through the medium of
intermeshed documents, which allow the
deontic effects of episodic acts to be
extended through time
29
30. • testaments allow the will of the testatrix to be
made effective even after her death
• mortgage notes attached to title deeds allow
the value of your home to be used twice: as
shelter and shelter and simultaneously as
collateral on a loan
30
31. documents attached to building plans create
31
• certification from planning authorities as to conformity to
building codes of work performed
• insurance against loss as a result of or in the course of building
work being performed
• warranty on behalf of architects and builders concerning
quality of work performed
• warranty on behalf of suppliers concerning quality of materials
• security to architects, builders and suppliers that they will be
paid in pre-specific instalments
• all of these in turn create surety in the eyes of
utilities companies when connecting the building to
electricity, gas and water supplies
providers of insurance protection for the building when
once complete
• potential purchasers thus adding to the monetary value of
the building itself
32. conclusion
the meshing of plans, authorities and groups
of agents of the sort that is provided by
documents and document acts is an
indispensable pre-requisite of all that is
valuable in modern civilization
32
33. Role of plan + authority in the
industrial enterprise
the cooperation of the wage-laborers … their unification
into one single productive body, and the establishment
of a connection between their individual functions, ... are
not their own act, but the act of the capital that brings
them together and maintains them in that situation. …
the interconnection between their various labors
confronts them
in the realm of ideas as a plan drawn up by the capitalist,
and in practice as his authority, as the powerful will of a
being outside them, who subjects their activity to his
purpose. Das Kapital (quoted by Shapiro)
33
35. scores and subscores / plans and subplans
also allow training (rehearsal = pretend realization
of a plan in advance of actual realization)
35
36. it takes practice also to understand how to
interpret and follow the instructions of the
conductor
36
37. we need training (drill) in order to
learn how to execute diagrams
37
38. How to do things with documents
• An orchestral work (as something that
can be rehearsed, performed and re-performed)
– could not exist without a score
– could not be rehearsed without scores and
subscores
– could not be performed without (either)
scores or rehearsal
38
40. We need training in order to execute
the rules of civil procedure
40
http://www.kibagames.com/Game/Lawyer_Dr
ess_Up
http://www.kibagames.com
/Game/Lawyer_Dress_Up
41. 41
modularity of command and control in the military also
Fire
Support
Intelligence
Air Logistics
Operations
Civil-Military
Operations
Targeting
Maneuver &
Blue Force
Tracking
US military operations center in Afghanistan