Ontological Holism Without Mental Holism
Bratman on Institutional Agency
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25365/jso-2023-8099Keywords:
collective agent, institutional agent, mental holism, ontological holism, shared policy, social ruleAbstract
In his recent book Shared and Institutional Agency, Bratman (2022) argues that institutional agents consist of social rules of procedure. Those rules are policies that are shared among many of their members. In this review essay, I argue that the theory can plausibly be interpreted in terms of ontological holism. It shows how a holistic theory can be constructed out of individualistic building blocks. At the same time, Bratman rejects mental holism, the idea being that institutional agents form only a limited range of mental states. Furthermore, he claims that they can perform actions literally for no reason. I propose that, if this is indeed possible, a morally accountable agent will avoid doing so.
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