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ETHICS AND SOCIETY

Course Instructor:
Dr. Biswanath Swain
IPM 2012 Batch, Term - IV

Individual Action
to
Collective Action

Human Needs Across


Physiological (Organic) Needs: Hunger, Thirst etc.
Social (Societal) Needs: Affection, Sense of Belonging,
Ownership, Acceptance etc.
Micro, Meso and Macro
Moral Needs: Being Trust-worthy, Performing Righteous Action,
To be just in thought and deed so one and so forth.
Environmental Needs: Sensitive to the requirement of other
beasts/ animals, Sensitive to the elements of the Universe.
Is this list of needs complete and sacrosanct?
If it is not, can we, at least, have a list of ostensively closed set.
How would it be possible???
If all the needs are psychologically closed.

Psychological States

Need
Desire
Motive
Will
Want
Hope
Aim
Intention
But which one is having logical rigor and logical
purity?
How can we know the same?

Filtering Mechanism
Action
Move from the definition of Action
Action, by definition, is something that is
brought about Intentionally.
The explicit from of Intention is what we name as
an instance of an action.
An action is an outcome/ realization of something
which was in an implicit form within Mind.
Why makes Intention important across all
happenings?

Importance of Intention
What is left over, if I subtract
the fact that my arm goes up from
the fact that I raised my arm?
-: Ludwig Wittgenstein
Philosophical Investigations
Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, 1953, 621, P
161

Importance of Intention
That bisects the world of changes into two parts.
That differentiates Actions from the Events.
That keeps apart the mere Bodily Behaviors
from the behaviors that makes an action
possible.
That draws a dividing line between
answerability and un-answerability.

the

That produces more often moral or non-moral


actions than amoral actions.

A Move from I-Intention to WeIntention


A Move from Individual Action to
Collective Action
But why? Why is this move Required?

Because
We are social beings by the very existence.
Where the gregarious instinct is very much there.
We perform Inter-dependent actions, apart from doing our Independent actions.
Involvement in Inter-dependent actions by performing Independent actions.
By sharing a public place with others under a common goal.
Keeping individuality and individual goal(s) aside, plunging into
commonality.
Becoming a part of that shared intention for the betterment of
that group where he/she hails from.

But are they sufficient enough to


visualize a collective action?
What is/are Missing there???

Instances
Case 1: Realization of the intention of X through the
action of Y.
Case 2: Realization of Intention of an Atrocious King
through the actions his/her soldiers.
Case 3: Realization of same intention of great number
of people at a particular place.
Case 4: Realization of the intention of the country
through the actions of Soldiers.
Case 5: Realization of the Intention of a group through
the Ignorant People.
How this gap would be abridged?

Key Points
Internal Evaluative Mechanism
Collective Agential Ability
Joint Commitment

Internal Evaluative Mechanism


Evaluating the significance of goal framed by
collective intention.
In the light of Internal as well as External
Prevailing Conditions.
Not to be constrained by the external forces.
To be done by the ideals of rationality.
To deliberate a course of action which is
Sensitive, Sophisticated and Successful.
The my-concern is to be inalienably tied up
with we-concern.

Collective Agential Ability


A reasonable match between the content
of the intention and Collective Agential
Ability to realize an action plan.
There should not be a mismatch between
the Collective Intention and the capacity
within.
The collective agent i.e., we should
realize the magnitude of the goal in
relation to the standard agential limits.

Joint Commitment
Commitment is a matter of will to commit to the Community.
Members are jointly committed to one another.
Plurality of individual wills intermingle to form a single will.
A single commitment is committed for the same intended
goal.
Members are jointly committed to one another.
Each one is supposedly obliged to do his/her part of the
collective action to make it the case that they all act as a
single body.
Mutual reliance and expectation would ensue from this
commitment.

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