Conference Agenda
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Daily Overview |
| Session | |
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S52: Social Philosophy 3 Location: 23.02 U1.24 Session Chair: Stefan Gosepath | |
| Presentation 2 | |
3:45pm - 4:30pm
Three Accounts of Irreducibly Collective Interests Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, Germany Suppose there are irreducibly collective interests. Suppose, that is, that at least some groups have interests that are irreducible to the interests of individuals. What might these collective interests consist in? In this paper, I examine three accounts of group interests, applying the Parfitian trichotomy of hedonism, subjectivism, and objective list theory to groups. To start, I briefly argue that group agents do indeed have irreducible interests. Then I defend the following three claims. First, hedonism fails as an account of collective interests. Second, subjectivism-for-group-agents (though not for non-agent groups) is a reasonable option but faces the same problems as subjectivism-for-individuals. Hence, one’s evaluation of the subjectivist account of collective interests should depend on what one thinks about the familiar debates about subjectivism-for-individuals. Third, objective list theory initially appears difficult to apply to groups, but a type of perfectionism-for-group-agents warrants further examination. I conclude with an indirect argument for irreducibly collective interests. | |

