Abstract
This paper is a conceptual investigation of whether, and how, action containing judgement can be understood as collective. Using an empirical example from the police profession, the article tries to capture the complexity of a real situation that requires both agency and judgement. The example is analysed in relation to the idea of collective judgement, both regarding ongoing debates in phenomenology concerning the possibility/need for a we-subject, and in social epistemology concerning the idea of judgement based on social evidence. The article claims that a richer account of action is needed in order to describe the collective aspects of judgements. Drawing on an Aristotelian understanding of action, the paper argues that an understanding of certain collective actions requires a notion of judgement that involves both we-subjectivity, and social evidence.
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Notes
- 1.
We will not further discuss the role of discourse as a presupposition for an understanding of We-Intentionality as it is e.g. discussed in relation to a Habermasian perspective, and as s expressed through the use of language in different social contexts (see [6]).
- 2.
List and Pettit place emphasis on their commitment to realism, that is, to the world as an observable and describable object independent from the constitutive perspective of any subject (ontological realism) (ibid. 26). At the same time, the “methodological individualist” is interested in contrasting “the methodological significance in detecting when agency is present, and when not” (ibid. 11).
- 3.
This way of writing the final undergraduate paper is a method developed at the Centre for Studies in Practical Knowledge. This specific essay-form is used at the Police education at Södertörn University in Stockholm, Sweden, as well as at the Police University College in Bodø, Norway.
- 4.
Another crucial aspect it the professional capability to not provoke disputing persons to use violence but instead to prevent the situation from becoming violent. This is discussed by the police officer Markus Antonsson in an interesting text about how to communicate with groups of adolescents [3].
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Schwarz, E., Lappalainen, J.H. (2020). Collective Phronesis? An Investigation of Collective Judgement and Professional Action. In: Giovagnoli, R., Lowe, R. (eds) The Logic of Social Practices. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 52. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37305-4_2
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