Phillip Pettit on Group Agency

First of all, I should ask you to take note of the podcast Philosophy Bites, a delightful podcast out of the UK. Two philosophers take turns hosting guest philosophers to discuss a wide range of topics. These podcasts are great while doing the dishes, mowing the loan, going for walks, etc. Each one is about 20 minutes long. You feel like your listening to a couple of philosophers discuss a subject, but they avoid (or explain) philosophical jargon, so the conversations are aimed a lay persons. It's quite often very high quality, indeed.

Nerd alert! (I'll post this for anyone who wants to avoid a really nerdy type subject.)

The linked podcast is a discussion with political philosopher Phillip Pettit on group agency. The idea that groups can form intentions and take actions. Plain, right? Well, not so easy. Such group powers were little known outside of the State in antiquity, but institutions in the Middle Ages, like guilds, the Church, monasteries, etc. gave rise to thinking about how groups may act. More recently, but only seriously since the 19th century, we developed the idea of corporations. Corporations: good or bad? Well, this is not so easy to answer. I'm having doubts about the power of such remote, single-purpose (pecuniary profit), long-lasting, and uber-rational agents. Do corporations do what no individual would do? Should corporations be held to criminal liability? Where's the "intent"? Can we have a group intent? Here's where we get into the other part of Pettit's talk: how can we decide a group intent? Although he doesn't mention it, I think that he's getting into issues of Condorcet's theorem, Arrow's theorem, and those of others who deal with the paradoxes of group choice. (Garry Wills addresses the issues in layman's terms in Confessions of a Conservative, if you want to check it out.) What this means is that groups have even more problems than individuals (to the extent that we are individuals--are we?) forming intent. The interview covers this topic all too briefly, but we can think of it as a teaser for Pettit's book! Really, it's an interesting problem.

Wills: Confessions of a Conservative

A couple of weekends ago, on a lark, I picked up my copy of Garry Wills's Confessions of a Conservative (1979). As it turns out, the 30^th anniversary of its publication. It was, again, a delight to read. Wills talks about how Bill Buckley plucked him from obscurity and gave him a position at the relatively new National Review as a cultural and book reviewer. During this time, Wills also learned a lot about politics and reporting. Coming out of a Jesuit seminary, Wills described his politics as "distributist" (a la Chesterton) and appropriately Catholic anti-Communist. He'd only read Plato's Republic and St. Augustine's The City of God for reasons other than their political theories. He recounts reading in the traditional works of political theory under the tutelage of some of the NR staff. However, perhaps more interestingly—and he claims more significantly—he also received guidance in his political thinking from Samuel Johnson, Newman, Ruskin, and Chesterton, among others. This made for a very interesting (and heretical) conservative. His take on "conservative" offers a very different perspective on the topic. Indeed, it ended up with him thrown overboard from the NR world, but he expanded thereby to a much wider audience. 


The other fascinating thing about this book is his insight into the political process. His appreciation of politicians, bureaucrats, elites, prophets, elections, and other political phenomena truly enlightens. He quotes the likes of Duncan Black and Kenneth Arrow, who provide the formal analysis of what Wills apparently grasped intuitively: that elections don't give us "the best man" (or woman), and the compromise will inevitably result in our system. Thus, he critiques "liberal" political theory (or what I think is more a "good government" theory of politics). 


The final part of the book includes an appreciation of St. Augustine and Homer, reminding us that Wills brings a classicist's eye to his perspective on our political world today. 


Finally, a quote that reminds me of that "reactionary" that I've been reading, John Lukacs: 


    "Insofar as we steer rationally toward the future, we do so by our rear-view mirror. There is no windshield, because there is nothing to "see" up ahead. We go forward by seeing backward. By tracing the trajectory of past events we extrapolate to future positions. But if we trace only one trend, the chances of steering well are slim; too many other things will jostle and interact with the simple arc we are imagining. That is why so many simple reforms or five-year plans or platform pledges are bound to go awry, even with the best of wills. The best guides to the future are those whose knowledge of the past is broadest and deepest, who are the most cautions and aware of complexity, least confidant that they can "see" something up ahead." (216-217).


How absolutely true!