The Southern Journal of Philosophy (2006) Vol.XLN
Collective Wisdom and
Individual Freedom
Christopher McMahon
University of California, Santa Barbara
Abstract
The paper distinguishes two ways of understanding a wise society. A
society can be wise by v i r t u e of possessing mostly t r u e evaluative
beliefs. Or it can be wise by virtue of employing rational procedures of
collective belief formation. If the first possibility involves t h e society’s
being, in Margaret Gilbert’s sense, a plural subject of evaluative beliefs,
social wisdom will, a s Gilbert says, entail a n abridgement of individual
freedom. But, this paper argues, if a society’s being wise is understood
as its employing rational procedures of collective belief formation,
social wisdom positively requires individual freedom.
Margaret Gilbert has argued t h a t a wise society will be less
free. The argument depends on a particular way of understanding t h e wisdom of a society a n d a particular way of
understanding freedom. I shall first consider whether the argument works when a wise society and freedom are understood in
the way Gilbert proposes. Then I will suggest another way of
understanding these notions on which, I think, the conclusion
does not follow.
Gilbert approaches the wisdom of a society through h e r
theory of plural subjects. A plural subject is a subject identified
by the words “we” or “US.” A plural subject can have any mental
attribute t h a t a n individual subject can have. According to
Gilbert, a plural subject is created by a joint commitment among
the members of some group to make the group a plural subject
of the attribute in question. Most of her work focuses on being
the plural subject of a n action or intention, in which case we
can speak of the members of a group as doing or intending
something together. A central feature of Gilbert’s theory of
plural subjects is that in forming a plural subject, the members
of a group incur an obligation of a special type to act as required
t o maintain t h e plural subject. Those who have undertaken
these obligations in forming a plural subject are open to rebuke
from the other members if they violate the obligation-if they
withdraw from the plural subject. Or t o be more precise, they
a r e open to such rebuke if they withdraw unilaterally. I n
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Gilbert’s view, the obligations of joint commitment that constitute a group of people as a plural subject can only be abrogated
jointly. This seems to mean t h a t a n individual may leave a
plural subject only with the consent of the other members.
In her paper, Gilbert takes this approach to value judgment.
One of the things a society can be a subject of is a value
judgment. We can speak of a plural subject of a value judgment
when the members of a group have jointly committed themselves to doing what is necessary to allow a value judgment to
be ascribed to them as a group. This involves, among other
things, not dissenting, in their capacity as members of the group,
from the value judgment. As Gilbert makes clear, it need not be
the case, for a group to be a plural subject of a value judgment,
that the individual members subscribe to that value judgment.
However, if they dissent from the judgment of which the group
is a plural subject, they must indicate that they are not speaking as members of the plural subject, but are rather expressing
their personal views.
Gilbert regards a wise society as one that is a plural subject
of some true value judgments, and she regards a society as wiser
the more true value judgments i t is a plural subject of. This
presupposes that a whole society can be understood as a plural
subject of at least some attributes. This is something I would
like to hear more about. In the smaller groups on which Gilbert
initially focused, obligations of joint commitment are usually
incurred by the mutual communication among the members of
the group of a readiness to form a plural subject. It is not clear
to me how this could work in a group as large as a society. But
in any case, given that we can speak of societies as plural subjects, and that there can be plural subjects of value judgments,
we have one way of understanding a wise society.
Now let u s t u r n to t h e abridgement of freedom. Gilbert
understands the abridgment of freedom as a n agent’s being
vulnerable to an authoritative forceful reaction. The connection
between the wisdom of a society and the reduced freedom, in
this sense, of its members is a consequence of the obligations
t h a t are incurred in forming a plural subject of a value judgment. An individual who h a s incurred such a n obligation is
open to rebuke if she violates it. To rebuke someone for something she has done is to apply a kind of force, and when the
rebuke is for the violation of an obligation of joint commitment,
the application of this force is justified. Thus we can speak of an
authoritative forceful reaction.
The first point I want to make about Gilbert’s argument is
that if I have understood her theory of plural subjects correctly,
the reduction in freedom that she describes is not restricted to
t h e case where a society is a plural subject of a t r u e value
judgment. The formation of any plural subject involves a n
abridgment of freedom in Gilbert’s sense. Forming a plural sub-
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ject always means incurring obligations of joint commitment,
the violation of which justifies rebuke. I would like to suggest,
however, t h a t there is a n ambiguity i n Gilbert’s theory, in
particular in the idea of joint abrogation, which raises doubts
about whether these obligations really do bring with them a
reduction of freedom.
It is useful, I think, to compare the obligations of joint commitment that figure in Gilbert’s account with promises as they
are usually understood. It can be argued that if I promise someone to do something, the obligation remains in force unless the
promisee releases me from it. In this sense, joint abrogation is a
feature of ordinary promising. But it is a commonplace of normative moral theory t h a t promissory obligations can be
outweighed, and it is not commonly thought that the decision
about this must be jointly made. That is, I, the promisor, can
legitimately decide by myself that other moral requirements are
more pressing.
It is not clear to me whether this is also a feature of Gilbert’s
obligations of joint commitment. But if it is-if it is up to me to
decide whether other claims outweigh my obligations of joint
commitment-there is a sense in which I retain my freedom
despite having incurred a n obligation of joint commitment. I
retain my autonomy. Moreover, I may be able to r e t a i n my
freedom even in Gilbert’s sense. Of course, the other members
may rebuke me for withdrawing unilaterally. But if my judgment that other claims are more pressing is correct, any such
rebukes will not be justified. So while I will be subject to a
forceful reaction, it will not be authoritative.
The alternative, stronger line on joint abrogation is that not
only is a joint decision required t o release me from a n obligation of joint commitment, but any decision to the effect t h a t
other considerations outweigh a n unabrogated obligation of
joint commitment must be made jointly by all the members of
the plural subject. That is, in entering a plural subject, I hand
over all of my decision making to the plural subject, insofar as
it relates to my participation in that plural subject. This does
not seem to me to be a particularly attractive prospect, and I
think it is doubtful that a plausible theory of reasons for action
would provide for obligations that work this way.l But if entering a plural subject has this consequence, I agree that membership in a plural subject is in conflict with individual freedom.
Once one joins, one will be able-normatively if not de facto-to
leave only if the others consent t o one’s leaving, and intuitively
this seems to involve an abridgment of freedom. I t should be
noted, however, t h a t we do not need to make use of Gilbert’s
notion of susceptibility to a n authoritative forceful reaction to
obtain this result. One’s freedom as an individual is abridged on
entering a plural subject simply because the group’s decision
making replaces one’s own.
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I now want t o turn t o the question of how the wisdom of a
society is t o be understood. For Gilbert, value judgments can be
true or false. In this sense, they have a status similar to that of
beliefs. Perhaps they are just beliefs with a particular kind of
content, one in which normative or evaluative concepts figure.
In any case, the fact that value judgments can be true or false
suggests t h a t a plural subject of a value judgment will have
many of the same attributes as a plural subject of a belief. In
her other work, Gilbert has discussed collective belief, which
she also treats within the framework of her theory of plural
subjects. At one place, she makes the following observations
about collective belief
What I want to stress is that, as I understand it, the behavior that
results from collective belief is driven by the concept of belief and
the concept of X-ing-as-a-body. It is as if the participants ask
themselves, “What do I need to do to make it the case-as best I
can-that I and these others together believe that p as a body?”and then act accordingly. I have suggested that the answer given
by our everyday understanding for the simple interpersonal case is
that, among other things, in reasoning together we say things that
entail p rather than not-p, we do not deny p without preamble, and
so on. More briefly, we attempt as best we can to make it true that
the body we constitute relates to p in the way any individual who
believes that p relates to P . ~
A couple of years ago I published a paper on Gilbert’s views
on collective belief in which I suggested t h a t we need to
distinguish two things that might be meant by a group’s relating t o a proposition in the way a n individual who believes i t
relates to it.3 It could mean the group’s relating to a proposition
in the way a n individual who has formed a particular belief
relates to the proposition believed. Alternatively, it could mean
the group’s relating to a proposition in the way a n individual
who is forming or considering whether to retain a belief relates
to the proposition being entertained.
Gilbert’s view of collective belief adopts the first of these
interpretations. An individual who has formed a belief can be
expected to act in certain ways as a result of holding that belief.
And a group’s relating to a proposition the way a n individual
who believes it relates to it is also a matter of the performance
by t h e members of the group of various actions. They, for
example, affirm the belief and refrain from denying it. It appears
t h a t this focus on action is necessary if the phenomenon of
collective belief is to be brought within Gilbert’s theory of plural
subjects. Central t o this theory is the idea t h a t in forming a
plural subject, individuals incur obligations of joint commitment. An obligation of this sort seems to apply only to the
performance of actions.
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This focus on action explains an important feature of Gilbert’s
view of collective belief, which also plays a role in her account of
the wise society, the nonsummative character of collective belief.
According to Gilbert, it is neither necessary nor sufficient, for
the ascription of a collective belief to a group of people, that the
members of the group, as individuals, have that belief. It is not
sufficient because the individuals in question may not constitute a plural subject, or may not constitute a plural subject of
that belief. And it is not necessary because the individuals can
perform the required actions-the actions that make it the case
that the group relates to the proposition p in the way a n individual who has formed a belief that p relates to the proposition
t h a t p-even if they do not have the belief in question. For
example, they can assert that p even if they do not believe that p.
If, however, we are going to understand the value judgments
characteristic of a wise society as true, it would seem that we
must say something about how a society comes to form true
value judgments. We must say something about how it tracks
the t r u t h . Gilbert does not discuss this, but I think t h a t
consideration of the process of belief o r judgment formation
provides a basis for a different understanding of a wise society,
one t h a t does not have t h e consequences for freedom t h a t
Gilbert describes. I n what follows, for simplicity I will talk
about belief formation. It should be understood that the beliefs
in question concern the possession by items in the world of
normative or evaluative properties, and thus have the status of
value judgments. And it should also be understood that belief
formation encompasses considering whether to retain a belief
previously formed.
I n keeping with t h e passage from Gilbert t h a t I quoted
earlier, we can approach the phenomenon of belief formation in
a group by asking what a group must do to make it true that, in
forming a belief, it relates to the proposition being entertained
i n the same way t h a t a n individual who is forming a belief
relates to the proposition being entertained. I take it that what
is at issue is rational belief formation, so the model is rational
belief formation in an individual. The rational formation of an
individual’s beliefs about empirical matters of fact is tied up in
various ways with the proper functioning of his perceptual
capacities. The situation is different, however, when the beliefs
are evaluative. Of course, to form beliefs about the evaluative
properties of t h e world, a n individual must have epistemic
contact with the world. But the rational formation of evaluative
beliefs primarily involves weighing the force of reasons that are
relevant to the ascription of the kind of value in question. So if,
i n forming a n evaluative belief, a group is to relate to t h e
proposition that provides the content of the belief in the way a
rational individual does, it must consider what is supported by
the relevant reasons. How is this to be accomplished?
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Presumably, what will be required is some form of shared
deliberation or collective reasoning. We can suppose t h a t the
process of collective reasoning is governed by rules designed to
make it effective in producing true beliefs. We do not need to
consider here what these rules might be. There is, however, a
further question t h a t must be faced. If a group is to be
understood as forming a belief as a result of whatever process
collective reasoning is required, this must be reflected somehow
in the individuals who make up the group. The group’s coming
to believe what it believes must be a result of some contribution
to this result made by the individuals who form the group. But
it does not appear, i n t h e case of belief formation, that t h e
contribution can be a n action. Rather the members, or some
subset of them, must contribute to the group’s coming to believe
that p by coming to believe that p themselves.
Different patterns of contribution might be involved. One
possibility is consensus. A group’s coming to believe that p could
be a matter of the emergence of a consensus within the group.
But it may also be possible to regard a group as rationally
forming a belief that p if it employs some decision procedure
that extracts a decision that p from a set of member beliefs only
some of which are beliefs that p , provided that belief formation
among t h e members is t h e result of a process of shared
deliberation within the group as a whole.
It seems that focusing on belief formation provides a plausible
way of understanding a wise society. Wisdom, on this view, is
not a matter of the mere possession of true beliefs. It is a matter
of the employment of a particular process in generating beliefs.
If, however, t h e contributions t h a t the individual members
make to the group’s coming to have a particular belief consist in
beliefs t h a t they come to have as individuals, rather than in
actions that they perform, we get a different result concerning
t h e connection between collective wisdom and individual
freedom.
If a group’s coming to believe a n evaluative proposition
requires that some or all of the members come to believe that
proposition, there will, I think, be no place for the idea that the
members have obligations of joint commitment to make the
contributions by virtue of which the belief can be ascribed to
the group. To the extent that there can be obligations to believe,
what constrains belief is the available evidence. But obligations
of joint commitment are unconnected with evidential relations.
More important, the enhanced epistemic potential that can be
possessed by a group of individuals if they reason together
seems to consist precisely i n t h e fact that t h e members can
correct each other. So if the wisdom of a group is understood to
lie in its employment of a process that enhances its epistemic
potential, those who come to believe, as individuals, t h a t a
belief previously accepted by the group is in fact false must be
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free to express their dissent. This means that a society’s wisdom
is not merely compatible with the freedom of its members. Wisdom positively requires freedom. It requires that the members
be able to express dissenting views without suffering rebuke.
Now let us return to the passage from Gilbert that I quoted
earlier. She says t h a t in a case of collective belief, the participants must bring it about that they relate t o the proposition
believed in the same way a n individual believer relates to the
proposition believed. I have suggested that we need to make a
distinction between two ways this idea might be understood.
The first is relating to a proposition i n t h e way t h a t a n
individual who has formed a belief relates to the proposition
believed. This, as we have seen, involves the performance of
certain actions by t h e members of the group. The second is
relating to a proposition the way an individual who is forming a
belief relates t o the proposition being entertained. This requires
that the members of the group, or some subset of them, allow
their beliefs t o be determined by the relevant evidence-or, in
the case of an evaluative belief, by the relevant reasons. As I
have mentioned, the formation of belief should be understood to
include t h e retention of beliefs already formed, since t h i s
involves consideration of the tenability of the beliefs in light of
new evidence. How are these two aspects of a group’s relating to
a proposition i n t h e manner of a n individual believer to be
reconciled?
We can gain some insight into this by considering how the
two aspects of believing are reconciled in the case of a n individual. As long as a n individual holds a particular belief,
including an evaluative belief, she can be expected to perform
certain actions. In particular, she can be expected to make the
corresponding assertion when the question of what she believes
is broached and to draw inferences in a way that does not call
into question her commitment to the proposition believed. But a
rational individual will monitor her beliefs for compatibility
with the evidence, and if she determines that a belief she has
held is incompatible with the evidence, she will give it up.
There is no conflict between this aspect of individual belief and
the first. If a n individual gives up a belief, there will be no
expectation that she will perform any of the actions entailed by
an individual’s holding that belief.
It appears, then, that we need some analogue at the group
level of this way of reconciling the two aspects of believing. But
there is a n important respect in which the two cases differ.
While an individual’s performance of the actions entailed by her
holding a particular belief is a public performance, her monitoring of the belief for compatibility with new evidence need not
be public. It can take the form of thinking t h a t does not find
expression in speech acts until a belief has been altered. This is
not the case at the group level. The monitoring by the members
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of a group of a belief that the group can be said to have formed
involves the performance of speech acts by the members of the
group. It involves challenges to the belief by some members of
the group and collective consideration, through shared deliberation, of whether these challenges warrant the abandonment of
the belief. So in the group case, the distinction between public
action and private thought has no place. Monitoring the belief
involves public actions too. The upshot is that if a society is to
be wise, in the sense that belief formation is based on consideration of the relevant reasons, the members must be able to call
into question, without suffering rebuke, any belief t h a t the
group may previously have formed.
If this argument is correct, the members of a society must
choose between the two aspects of relating to a proposition in the
way a n individual believer does. And since the possession of a
body of true beliefs presupposes a means of generating true
beliefs, i t seems clear t h a t the choice must be to establish a
social analogue of rational belief formation in an individual. But
given what has just been said, if the members choose rational
belief formation, they must refrain from constituting themselves
as a plural subject, in Gilbert’s sense, of the beliefs yielded by
the procedures they employ.
It may be, however, that we can still find a role for Gilbert’s
distinction between speaking personally and speaking as a
member of the group. We can do this by distinguishing between
actions t h a t the members of the group take in their dealings
with the wider world and actions they take in their dealings
with each other. If a group can be regarded as having formed a
particular evaluative belief by employing some decision
procedure, then it will be appropriate for all the members, in
their dealings with outsiders, to affirm that belief-to say, “We
believe t h a t p.” And it will be appropriate for members who
disagree with the group’s view to make it clear that in rejecting
the belief they are not speaking as members of the group but
. ~ their dealings with
rather expressing a personal ~ p i n i o nIn
each other, however, it will be entirely legitimate for the dissenters to say, without preamble, “It is not the case that p.” For
i t will be legitimate for any member, as a participant i n a
process of rational belief formation, t o initiate the reconsideration of any group belief that he regards as false. And this is
most effectively done by simply denying what the group affirms.
I think these conclusions receive some support from intuitive
considerations relating to dissent from a society’s value judgments. Gilbert does not say what exactly is involved in a society’s
making a value judgment, but one possibility is that it can be
regarded as doing this when it passes laws that place it on one
side or the other of a disputed issue involving values. Consider,
then, the legal permissibility of abortion. In making abortion
legally available, a society might be regarded as judging that
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abortion is morally permissible. So when asked by a n outsider
what the society believes about abortion, i t would be appropriate for any member to say “The society believes that abortion
is morally permissible.” And a dissenter would naturally remove
the implication t h a t she herself regards i t as permissible by
saying, “But personally, I think that abortion is morally impermissible.” But i t does not seem t h a t a dissenter speaking
internally would be open to rebuke if she simply said, without
preamble, “Abortion is morally impermissible.” I t is precisely
statements like t h i s t h a t provoke reconsideration a n d i n
provoking it, initiate the social processes that enable the society
to claim for itself the attribute of wisdom.
Notes
I argue for t h i s conclusion i n Christopher McMahon, “Shared
Agency and Rational Cooperation,” N o h 39 (2005):284-308.
Margaret Gilbert, “More on Collective Belief,” i n h e r L i v i n g
Together: Rationality, Sociality, and Obligation (Lanham, MD: Rowman
and Littlefield, 1989), 356-7.
Christop h e r McMahon, “Two Modes of Collective Belief,”
Protosociology 18/19 (2003):347-62 (available a t www.protosocio1ogy.
de).
Indeed, a member’s failure to ma k e it clear, i n d e a l i n g w i t h
outsiders, that he is speaking personally will be open to rebuke. But it
may not be necessary to u n d e r s t a n d t h e r e q u i r e m e n t h e r e , t h e
violation of which justifies rebuke, as a n obligation of joint commitment. I t could simply be a pragmatic requirement to avoid saying
things that will create misunderstanding.
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