Christian List, Philip Pettit (2011), Oxford University Press (hardback ISBN 9780199591565, 26 May 2011; paperback 19 May 2013) — DOI-10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199591565.001.0001
Standing in the record
Filed on 2026-10-02 at the owner’s request, as one of the works bridging Minsky’s Society of Mind (LIT-429, with the memos LIT-399 and LIT-402 and Singh’s exposition LIT-444) to Schwitzgebel’s “If materialism is true, the United States is probably conscious” (LIT-159, read in NOTE-131).
Unavailable because no lawful full text was reachable, so it is not read
and no NOTE is filed. What follows is only what the publisher and the
chapter metadata say, and what List’s later paper (LIT-401, read in
full) says about this book.
What the publisher says. The description opens: “Are companies, churches, and states genuine agents? Or are they just collections of individual agents that give a misleading impression of unity?” It says the authors “take the line that there really are group or corporate agents, over and above the individual agents who compose them”, and that their account is “entirely unmysterious in character and, despite not being technically difficult, is grounded in cutting-edge work in social choice theory, economics, and philosophy”.
Contents (OUP’s part titles; chapter titles and pages from Crossref):
- Introduction (pp. 1–17)
- Part I, The Logical Possibility of Group Agents
- 1 The Conditions of Agency (19–41)
- 2 The Aggregation of Intentional Attitudes (42–58)
- 3 The Structure of Group Agents (59–79)
- Part II, The Organizational Design of Group Agents
- 4 The Epistemic Desideratum (81–103)
- 5 The Incentive-Compatibility Desideratum (104–128)
- 6 The Control Desideratum (129–150)
- Part III, The Normative Status of Group Agents
- 7 Holding Group Agents Responsible (153–169)
- 8 Personifying Group Agents (170–185)
- 9 Identifying With Group Agents (186–201)
What List’s 2016 paper says the book does (LIT-401; NOTE-340):
- It defines a group agent by applying a general, functionalist belief–desire definition of agency to collectives, rather than defining group agency sui generis.
- Much of its analysis opens the “black box”: it asks which internal organisational structures and mechanisms of aggregation let a collective function as an agent.
- Its chapters 7 and 8 assert a normative asymmetry: group agents are responsible for their actions but should not have individual-grade rights. List says this was “asserted, but not fully defended” there.
Where it sits on the seam. It sits on the composition side, for agency only. On what was seen, it is a case that agency composes from minded members. Its subject is not consciousness, so on Schwitzgebel’s claims as NOTE-131 numbers them it is neutral on C3, C4 and C5 as far as can be told. Whether it discusses group phenomenal consciousness at all is unknown. The bridge needs it for one thing: it is the standard source for the premise that a group can be an agent “over and above” its members. Schwitzgebel’s US argument relies on that premise informally; List’s 2016 paper makes it explicit and then denies that experience follows. Part I’s “aggregation of intentional attitudes” is where a reader should look for how the group’s attitudes relate to the members’. That is the composition-side counterpart of how Minsky’s agents’ states combine into a mind, and a close reading should check how far the book’s aggregation results (not stated in anything seen here) constrain it.
Neighbours. Wenmackers’s thesis on the philosophy of probability (LIT-163; NOTE-139) relates its chapter 5 to List (2005) on the discursive dilemma, the judgment-aggregation problem that Part I’s chapter title suggests this book takes up; that link has not been checked against the book. Tomasello’s account of obligation (LIT-125) works with joint commitment between individuals, which List (LIT-401, §2, citing Pettit & Schweikard 2006) distinguishes from group agency. Pilgrim et al. (LIT-046) give a computational framework for collectives that this book’s Part II design questions overlap with in subject.
Topic. agency is primary: the blurb names agents “in organisms,
collectives or machines”. society-and-governance and ethics hold
Part III (corporate responsibility and personhood in law and morality),
social-science holds its use of social choice theory and economics, and
mereology holds the claim of agents over and above their members.
No instruction for machine-learning practice appears in what was seen, so nothing here points to the Anthology of the SOTA.
Substitutes read (2026-10-04). Two shorter works by the authors are read and filed in its place for Part I. “Group Agency and Supervenience” (LIT-705) shows, from judgment-aggregation results, that a robustly rational group’s judgment on a proposition cannot in general be a function of its members’ judgments on that proposition, and shows that set-wise supervenience allows it. That answers the first question below, “holistically”, as far as a paper can. “Three kinds of collective attitudes” (LIT-700) uses the result to separate aggregate, common and corporate attitudes, and cites this book’s chapters 1, 3 and 5. Neither covers Parts II and III, the organisational design and the normative status of group agents.
What a reading should check.
- What Part I’s aggregation results say about how the group’s attitudes supervene on the members’ (holistically or proposition by proposition), and whether that supports “over and above” in any sense beyond explanatory autonomy.
- Whether chapter 8, Personifying Group Agents, says anything about group phenomenal consciousness, or whether consciousness is first addressed in List’s 2016 paper.
- What exactly chapters 7–8 claim about the rights of group agents, to test List’s statement that the asymmetry was asserted there and not defended.