The Reality of Group Agency

Speeches on current affairs often involve collective terms such as the State, the Club, the Company or the Institute. This article explores the conditions under which a reality can be acknowledged to entities to which collective terms refer. It gives a critical account of the List and Pettit theory of group agency and proposes an alternative conception of collective entities. It then compares the responses of these approaches to the two issues which every theory giving a reality to collective entities must address: the issue of incorporation, i.e. the manner of conceiving the constitution of collective entities from the plurality of their members; and the issue of their modes of existence