團體可以成為行動者嗎？ 論李斯特與佩迪特的團體行動者實在論

Abstract

儘管人們於日常生活及社會科學研究中普遍將團體視為行動者，鮮少哲學家曾深入地考慮過這個問題：團體真的可以成為行動者嗎？李斯特與佩迪特最近提出了一個迄今最精緻且全面的關於團體能動性的實在論。本論文旨在詳述並且評估該理論。李斯特與佩迪特訴諸態度匯集理論說明團體態度之形成。然而，我指出這會遭遇一個兩難：或者團體態度與個人態度之間的關係不是函數關係，或者匯集函數在函數關係成立的條件下所產生的團體態度不是團體做為行動者擁有的態度。我根據這個兩難論證李斯特與佩迪特並未成功建立團體行動者的實在性。鑒於李斯特與佩迪特之理論為迄今最成功的理論，其失敗將迫使哲學家對團體行動者的可能性更加存疑。

Despite the prevalence of talk of group agents in both daily life and social scientific research, few philosophers have taken seriously the following question: can groups really be agents in their own right? Christian List and Philip Pettit have recently developed a realist account of group agency, which is arguably the most fine-grained and comprehensive one up to date. The purpose of this thesis is to expound and evaluate List and Pettit's account. To explain the formation of group attitudes, List and Pettit appeal to the theory of attitude aggregation, which however puts them on the horns of a dilemma: either the functional relation between group attitudes and individual attitudes does not hold, or aggregation functions do not output attitudes held by groups as agents under the condition under which the functional relation holds. On the grounds of the dilemma, I argue that List and Pettit have not succeeded in making a case for the reality of group agents. As List and Pettit's account is the most prominent one thus far, its failure may compel philosophers to take the very possibility of group agents with a grain of salt.