Life in Groups: How We Think, Feel, and Act Together

Margaret Gilbert

Dec 2022 · Oxford University Press

About this eBook

Life in Groups: How We Think, Feel, and Act Together is a collection of standalone essays that explores the nature and consequences of our thinking, feeling, and acting together. Topics include collective intentions and their relation to agreements, culture as a collective construction, the impact of collective beliefs on scientific progress, group lies, and the relation of collective wisdom to the freedom of group members. Margaret Gilbert responds to critics of her accounts of political obligation and collective moral responsibility and discusses in detail the mutual rights and obligations she takes to be part and parcel of human life in groups. Throughout the book Gilbert places her notion of joint commitment at the core of our thinking, feeling, and acting together.

About the author

A leading figure in the philosophy of the social world, Margaret Gilbert has regularly applied her ideas in that area to significant problems in moral, political, and legal philosophy, and her work has been influential in such fields as developmental psychology. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Council of Learned Societies, and was awarded the Lebowitz Prize for philosophical achievement and contribution. Gilbert was President of the Pacific branch of the American Philosophical Association in 2023-4, and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.