States and transgenerational actions

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Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality 12

Tiziana Andina

Petar Bojanić Editors

Institutions

in Action

The Nature and the Role of Institutions

in the Real World

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Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality

Volume 12

Series Editor

Raul Hakli, Dept of Political & Economic Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Managing Editors

Hans Bernhard Schmid, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland Jennifer Hudin, University of California, Berkeley, USA Advisory Editors

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First book series in Philosophy of the Social Sciences that specifically focuses on Philosophy of Sociality and Social Ontology.

Covers a new and rapidly developing field that has become one of the key topics of the international philosophical world.

Aims at an interdisciplinary approach that will bring new perspectives to the study of such topics as communication, unintended consequences of action as well as social structures and institutions.

This book series publishes research devoted to the basic structures of the social world. The phenomena it focuses on range from small scale everyday interactions to encompassing social institutions, from unintended consequences to institutional design. The unifying element is its focus on the basic constitution of these phenomena, and its aim to provide philosophical understanding on the foundations of sociality. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality covers the part of philosophy of the social sciences which deals with questions of social ontology, collective intentionality (e.g. collective knowledge, joint and collective action, joint mental states) and related philosophical topics. The series will include monographs and edited collections on philosophical and conceptual questions concerning social existence as well as conceptual and theoretical analyses of social notions and collective epistemology.

In principle, all phenomena dealing with sociality are covered as long as they are approached from a philosophical point of view, broadly understood. Accordingly, the works to be published in the series would in general be philosophical—without regard to philosophical schools and viewpoints—and they would meet the highest academic and intellectual standards are met. However, the series is interdisciplinary not only in an intra-philosophical sense but also in the sense of encouraging high-level work from other disciplines to be submitted to the series. Others who are active in the field are political scientists, economists, sociologists, psychologists, linguists, neuroscientists, evolutionary biologists, and researchers of artificial intelligence.

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Tiziana Andina • Petar Bojani

ć

Editors

Institutions in Action

The Nature and the Role of Institutions

in the Real World

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ISSN 2542-9094 ISSN 2542-9108 (electronic) Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality

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Editors

Tiziana Andina

Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences

University of Turin Torino, Italy

Petar Bojanić

Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory University of Belgrade

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Chapter 7 States and Transgenerational Actions

Tiziana Andina

Abstract There is a class of actions that, from a metaphysical point of view, has as

its necessary condition some form of cooperation between different generations. This article aims to analyse the metaphysical structure of this class of actions and to show that they are a necessary condition for the existence of social reality.

Keywords Transgenerational actions · States · Institutions

What are actions? The extensive literature on the topic has mainly tried (a) to define the concept of action,1_{(b) to distinguish it from the similar concept of event and, (c)} lastly, to organize a taxonomy of actions that explains what and how many types of

actions there are (Danto 1973; Moya 1990). Keeping this framework in mind, I

would like to suggest that, in order to understand the structure of social reality, it is not enough to consider it as a complex architecture with a certain structure at a time t1. In fact, it is also important to analyse its basic elements, paying particular atten-tion to its components that undergo changes over time.

I will therefore argue that the common taxonomy of actions should include a particular type of action that I will define as “transgenerational”. Social reality needs this type of actions in order to exist and perdure. In other words, there can be no social reality, organized as we know it, without transgenerational actions. Furthermore, I will show that the specific structure of these actions presupposes and requires the existence of particular actors of the social world.

1_{Many pioneering studies have been published on this topic: see (}₁₉₆₅_,₁₉₇₃_).

T. Andina (*)

Department of Philosophy and Educational Sciences, University of Turin, Torino, Italy e-mail: [email protected]

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7.1 Basic Transgenerationality

I will first define the concept of transgenerationality and then the concept of trans-generational actions. I will defend the thesis that transtrans-generationality is a primitive and, as such, shapes our identity as social individuals.Humans, as social and politi-cal animals, are naturally prone to creating relationships, often medium or long term ones. In most cases, these relationships involve individuals who are related neither by blood nor by kinship. These relationships are defined weak.

The transgenerational relationship – like any other relationship – is mainly a con-straint and, in this sense, it implies rights and duties. There are two types of trans-generational relationship. The former is widely considered within social reality and is protected by the law: the relationship between different generations of the same family. The transmission of the father’s surname – sometimes the mother’s or, more rarely, both– is one of the elements that typically identify the generational change. The last name is thus considered an external and characteristic sign that proves to preserve “something” in the transition from father to son. This “something”, in its minimal form, usually coincides with the biological makeup.

In this kind of situations, which are the easiest to identify and define, the living beings’ biological and therefore constitutive structure is believed to be transmitted. An important emotional connection makes this transfer possible: if one considers the situation where x is the father/mother of y, who is therefore the son/daughter of x, the transmission of the biological makeup corresponds to the transmission of part of x’s being to y (at least the part linked to her biological makeup), so that x will maintain a special link with y in the name of natural continuity. The transgenera-tional biological relationship assumes that something physical and therefore clearly identifiable and definable is transmitted from one generation to another. Given this context, the resulting idea is that the transmission of part of the genetic makeup implies a somehow analogous transmission of the material goods available to the subject. The parental relationship, therefore, implies the transmission of some of the biological makeup as well as of some material goods.

Now, this type of transgenerationality, which I call “basic transgenerationality”, is generally recognized in every culture and is well protected by the law. For exam-ple, those systems (such as the Italian one) that protect the transfer of goods from father to son regardless of the parent’s will are particularly interesting. If, for exam-ple, the parent decides to disinherit the son, what is technically called “reserved share” protects and ensures basic transgenerationality. Therefore, the idea that the continuity between x and y is an objective factor that must be protected, even by the law and regardless of the concerned individuals’ will, is generally recognized by common sense. The paternity acknowledgment – paternity denial must generally comply very severe constraints – and the material protection of the child’s rights are some of the tools for the law to protect this kind of transgenerationality. Basic trans-generationality therefore amounts to a well-defined relationship that can be, and in fact is, well-protected. Thus, basic transgenerationality is essentially a state, a way of being.

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However, the second type of transgenerationality, which I call “secondary trans-generationality”, is theoretically more interesting. I will try to show that the second-ary transgenerationality is a condition of possibility for the existence of a social reality with a certain degree of complexity and articulation, with the property of perduring in time. I will now explain what I mean by secondary transgenerationality and then show why I believe it should be considered a necessary condition for the existence of social reality.

7.2 Secondary Transgenerationality

Secondary transgenerationality is a transgenerational relationship whose condition of possibility is neither parenthood nor kinship. Therefore, secondary transgenera-tionality does not need either of these conditions in order to exist. Given this frame-work, I will focus on the following questions: what features does secondary transgenerationality have? How can one support its existence? And why am I intro-ducing a new relationship – the relationship of secondary transgenerationality – as one of the conditions of possibility of social reality?

To answer these questions, I will try to summarize the issue as Immanuel Kant foreshadowed it. In his political writings, Kant introduced the idea that the relation-ship between different generations (not necessarily blood-related) does not only exist, but is also characterized by a particular structure. We shall see this in detail. In Idea for a Universal History in a Cosmopolitan Intent, Kant argues for the fol-lowing theses. First thesis: “all natural predispositions of a creature are determined sometime to develop themselves completely and purposively”. Second proposition: “In the human being (as the only rational creature on earth) those predispositions whose goal is the use of his reason were to develop completely only in the species, but not in the individual”.

In the first thesis, Kant emphasizes two elements in particular. First, the living creatures’ natural capacities and predispositions develop– that is, become com-plete – only over time. That is to say, it takes time for a human being to completely develop her rational capacities and become fully able to shape and order her ener-gies. Furthermore, and with specific regards to human beings, all natural predisposi-tions whose goal is the use of reason will not develop completely in the individual, but rather in the species. In this regard, Kant wants to point out that the relationships within the species are evidently organized with efficiency and completeness only over time and, particularly, over an indefinitely long period of time. Temporality is thus a central element: the passing of time, embodied in the individuals’ lives, is what allows reason to fully develop.

Reason in a creature is a faculty of extending the rules and aims of the use of all its powers far beyond natural instinct, and it knows no boundaries to its projects. But reason itself does not operate instinctively, but rather needs attempts, practice and instruction in order gradu-ally to progress from one stage of insight to another. Hence, every human being would have to live exceedingly long in order to learn how he is to make a complete use of all his natural 7 States and Transgenerational Actions

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predispositions; or, if nature has only set the term of his life as short […], then nature per-haps needs an immense series of generations, each of which transmits its enlightenment to the next […]. (In Kant’s idea for a universal history with a cosmopolitan aim by Amélie OksenbergRorty, Cambridge Critical Guides, 2012, p. 11).

Notoriously, the basic idea is that human nature is deeply flawed: a crooked tim-ber that, as Kant writes in the sixth thesis, can never be straightened completely. Human beings are in fact governed by two opposing predispositions: the former leads them to gather together and the latter leads them to isolate themselves. Human beings are practically torn between the tendency to work together and the tendency to egoistically and authoritatively impose their will. Kant seems nevertheless con-vinced of the existence of a relationship between generations that has a constitutive function for social life. However, he also seems convinced that this relationship is positive and augmentative – that is, it increases the overall amount of both tangible and intangible goods.

Basically, the idea is that however imperfect human nature may be, the relation-ship between generations is intrinsically positive and creates a virtuous circle in which the work of each generation will somehow benefit the following one.

But it appears to have been no aim at all to nature that he should live well; but only that he should labor and work himself up so far that he might make himself worthy of well-being through his conduct of life. Yet here it remains strange that the older generations appear to carry on their toilsome concerns only for the sake of the later ones, namely so as to prepare the steps on which the latter may bring up higher the edifice which was nature’s aim, and that only the latest should have the good fortune to dwell in the building on which a long series of their ancestors (to be sure, without this being their aim) had labored, without being able to partake of the good fortune which they prepared. (In Kant’s idea for a universal

history with a cosmopolitan aim by Amélie OksenbergRorty, Cambridge Critical Guides, 2012, p. 12).

Prescinding from Kant’s teleological idea – which clearly reflects a cultural con-ditioning – of an anthropomorphic nature committed to accomplishing through the species what could never be achieved by the individual, the basic argument remains interesting: each generation seems to act so as to favour the next generations or at least, each generation seems driven by nature’s plan (obscure as it may be obscure) to reach goals that often remain unknown to humans but that, together, reveal their meaning as a whole. Each generation builds something that only the next generation will completely and fully enjoy. What is interesting here is not so much Kant’s the-sis – he was being optimistic, as one could easily show that the transgenerational legacy is not necessarily positive – but rather the fact that Kant considers secondary transgenerationality an obvious fact. Kant therefore believed that, since nature fol-lows a grand design and makes human history worthwhile, a secondary transgenera-tionality must exists. Otherwise, men would remain crooked timbers. For this reason, Kant’s transgenerationality – which is fundamentally augmentative – exists regardless of the individuals’ will. It is somehow part of a supra-historical dimen-sion in which human beings are acted upon and act a little bit against their will and, in any case, beyond their awareness. Kant therefore deduces the existence of sec-ondary transgenerationality from what he thinks is nature’s general work. Progress

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exists in human history because nature’s goals transcend the individuals and are brought about through the dynamics of secondary transgenerationality.

At this point, provided that Kant’s teleological model can be legitimately ques-tioned, one should ask oneself if the concept of secondary transgenerationality falls with it or if the existence of a secondary transgenerationality can rest on different foundations.In the following pages, I will try to show that this concept is related to some actions that constitute social life and are carried out mainly by states, which also represent their condition of possibility. These actions are those that indeed identify secondary transgenerationality.

7.3 States

Typically, political philosophy answers the question “what is the state?” by subor-dinating the metaphysical analysis to the functional one. Essentially, the question “what is it?” is replaced with “what is it for?” Thomas Hobbes, for example, fol-lowed this strategy when he laid the basis for the philosophical reflection on the modern nation-state. Hobbes’ answer is quite simple and direct. The state’s function is to defend human beings, whoby nature want to be absolutely free and to prevail over others. Since this is their nature, one cannot expect them – unlike other animals that naturally live in a society without coercive forms of power – to be able to live socially without conflicts and fights, unless they are forced to do so (Hobbes and Shapiro 2010: chap. XVII). In short, the animals that live a social life agree natu-rally. Humans, on the contrary, build societies as a result of a conventional agree-ment derived from a common determination due, mostly, to fear: “Therefore it is no wonder if there be somewhat else required (besides covenants) to make their Agreement constant and lasting; which is a Common Power, to keep them in awe and to direct their actions to the Common Benefit”. If this is true – that is, if anthro-pology shows that human nature is characterized by a conflict or, more simply, competition with others – then one has to acknowledge that human societies cannot exist without an agent that regulates them by force.

Abraham Lincoln rightly noted that it is impossible to govern someone without their consent. Starting from this same concept, Hobbes bases his definition of the State on the social contract and the people’s willingness to make such an agreement. However, this concept is rather paradoxical: people must voluntarily agree to give up their right to use force to a third subject. They must therefore submit themselves voluntarily to this condition, permanently delegating their right to self-defence to one or more individuals who, presumably, will make better use of it. Such a delega-tion is so radical that whoever is in charge of the alienated rights must be recognized as acting on behalf of all those who gave up their right to self-defence.

This is more than consent, or concord; it is a real unity of them all, in one and the same person, made by covenant of every man and with every man, in such a manner, as if every man should say to every man, I authorize and give up my right of governing myself to this

man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition: that thou give up thy right to him, and

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authorize all his actions in like manner. This done, the multitude so united in one person is called a COMMONWEALTH; in Latin CIVITAS (Hobbes and Shapiro, Leviathan part I

and II, Broadview Press, 2010, p. 158).

Human beings are weak and therefore need to make agreements that allow them to avoid a permanent state of war. However, in order to do so they must agree once and for all to give up their right to self-defence. This is the pars destruens of Hobbes’ model. I will now analyse the pars construens, which is even more interesting for the purpose of this text because it defines the nature of the state. In this context, what is a state for Hobbes? “It is a real unity of them all in one and the same person”. Therefore, this is a veritable new metaphysical entity: a person, or at least some-thing whose characteristics resemble those of a concrete person and yet is oddly made up by the totality of wills – and perhaps consciences – of those who agreed to found the State. This object reveals rather singular characteristics.

Of course, to argue that the state is roughly like a person has the advantage, from Hobbes’ point of view, of emphasizing the synthesis of wills. In fact, this exact synthesis – embodied in the sovereign or in the assemblies that represent the peo-ple – is entrusted with the exercise of power. Hobbes’ model, however, has some fairly obvious weaknesses. On the one hand, it is based on the idea that the majority gives a third subject both the authority and the delegated power to defence. On the other hand, however, this subject’s features are far from trivial. What does Hobbes mean when he says that the set of wills gives birth to a new person or subject? The idea that the state is a person – that is, what in literature was defined as “organicist paradigm” and spread during the eighteenth century2_{– involves the State’s strict} dependence on the citizens who enable it by willingly delegating some of their rights. It is not difficult to realise what this means on a concretely ontological level.

For example, let’s consider one of the many features that usually identify people, that is, the fact that each individual is marked by individuality. Typically, one is intuitively led to consider an organism as an individual, that is, as a being with pre-cise spatial and temporal characteristics. In biology, some extensive and controver-sial researches have explored the concept of biological individual (Wilson 1999). However, it is debatable whether a determination of this type can also be attributed to the State in a non-metaphorical sense. If, for example, it is intuitively true that a biological organism can generally bear a limited number of changes on its body parts, one’s intuitions are different in the case of the state. Locke (Locke and Phemister 2008: ch. XXVII) thought that memory was a good element of continuity to determine an individual’s identity through time. Where there is continuity of memory, there is also identity, that is, there is an organism and, in some cases, an individual. On the other hand, to transfer an individual’s soul – devoid of any mem-ory and psychological trait – to another individual’s body would not make the latter identical to the former.

This means that, without consciousness and memory, the identity of the thinking matter is not enough to make a person’s identity. In the case of the state, there seem

2_{For a discussion on this, cf. (Mannheim}₁₉₅₃_{, pp. 165–182.)}

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to be a wider tolerance toward the changes of its parts. Also, it is much more diffi-cult to say what parts the state is made up of. For example, it is quite clear that the individual, as such, is not the necessary condition for the existence of the state: individuals are born and die. This means that they enter and leave the state commu-nity without modifying the identity of the state. Furthermore, this also means that the citizens who founded the State cannot be considered a necessary condition for its existence, as it persists in time long after their death.

The state is indeed an entity that persists over time, that is, it lasts for a consider-able period of time also because some of its elements are replaced. On closer inspec-tion, the relative ease with which the individuals start and stop being part of a social and political community is what actually creates the states. The relatively easy adhesion and distancing from a social and political community, combined with the fact that people perform actions that last considerably (as regards both the duration of the action and the consequences implemented by them), presuppose a subject guaranteeing the consequences that this metaphysical structure entails. The state, therefore, exists; it is not a mere concept and it is not only – as the theoretical hypothesis posits – a guardian of people’s security, but also a guarantor of the indi-viduals’ actions (I will dwell more on this later). In other words, a significant and important part of social actions would not be possible or normatively justifiable without the state.

7.3.1 Ontology of the State

From an ontological perspective, I think it is theoretically appropriate to reject the hypothesis that the State is a fictional entity, a mere concept, and to opt for a

Hegelian realism. However, compared to Hegel’s model (1991: § 269), which

cre-ates an analogy between the biological organism and the state, I propose to consider the State as an object that depends on and emerges from the subjects’ wills – which, as we have seen, vary constantly. In other words, the state is not a conventional term, as some theorists have proposed,3_{but an entity that exists and persists in time, while} its existence in space could even be optional. In these terms, the state is an entity that can be included in our ontologies with full rights.

In order to exist in time, States must fit a precise ontological structure that basi-cally implies two conditions. (1) First, the individuals’ will, characterized by inten-tionality; this will has led to the creation of the state-object at a certain time (the state would not exist without a clear expression of some individuals’ will; it is there-fore a necessary condition for its coming into being). (2) Secondly, it implies “something” that redefines and preserves the structure of the will that led to the formation of the state. Since the components of this will keep changing, it is clear that both its constitution and its expression must be constantly redefined over time

3_{For a deeper analysis, cf. (Abrams}₁₉₈₈_).

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as well. Therefore, the will implies what I define a “vehicle of the institutional struc-ture” – that is, one or more relationships that, whenever the individuals’ wills change, guarantee to verify that both the general will and the mechanisms allowing the will to express itself are still valid.

Between these two conditions, the latter concerns how the state persists over time (de facto and de iure). Therefore, I will develop my analysis on two levels concerning the state’s need to preserve itself over time. The former concerns factual arguments (how can the State concretely preserve itself over time?). The latter is a matter of law (what rights allow it to preserve itself over time?).

7.3.1.1 How States Can Preserve Themselves over Time: Matters of Fact

Edward Robinson (2014) rightly observed that in order to understand how an object so peculiar as the state manages to preserve itself over time, one must first observe its document structure.4_{Robinson’s thesis is widely based on the theory of} docu-mentality and defines the states as objects that are “almost abstract” – that is, they have a temporal, rather than spatial, connotation and their sovereignty is established,

maintained and managed by different kinds of documents (Robinson 2014: 461

et seq.). It is therefore a document – theoretically, a constitution – that brings a State into being: that document is both the origin of the State and one of the tools, perhaps the main one, that preserve it over time. Certain documents, for example, are the archives of the wills that brought a State into being, contain some elements of vali-dation (other elements are likely to be provided by the context and the information offered by history), and entail the occurrence of some facts – some of these facts are regulatory and institutional, others simply involve the formation and preservation of collective memory. From this, one can also infer that states cannot be reduced to documents neither from the point of view of the constitutive elements (documents exist because they must convey contents that do not necessarily derive from other documents), nor, as we shall see, from the point of view of the actions they perform. In some circumstances, therefore, both normative and non-descriptive documents produce actions. Some of these actions – and this is the most interesting theoretical point – are only possible because the states exist.

In his metaphysical analysis, Robinson quite rightly points out the importance of temporality. Unlike most political philosophers, he considers time much more

important than space.5_{As we have seen, time and action are directly connected:}

states perform enduring and persisting actions either directly or through elements that make their agency possible (documents, people, institutions). Some of these actions have a particular structure. I have identified them as actions of secondary transgenerationality. Let’s now look at their characteristics.

4_{The philosophers theoretically grounded documentality are (Ferraris}₂₀₁₃_{) and (Smith}₂₀₁₂_). 5_{Cf., for example, (Schmitt et al.}₂₀₁₅_{) e (Schmitt}₂₀₀₇₎

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7.3.1.2 How States Can Preserve Themselves Over Time: Matters of Law

States thus exists because of a normative bureaucracy in which people also play a role. Now that I have explained how the state can exist, I shall address the second question: why does it exist? The answer is that the state has to exist because it is the only entity that can perform certain kinds of actions that otherwise would be neither possible nor justifiable: transgenerational actions. Therefore, it is important to firstly outline a taxonomy of collective actions and, secondly, to identify the features of the transgenerational actions performed by States.

Collective Actions: A Taxonomy

Clearly, not all actions are individual – that is, concerning a single person. In fact, there is another type of actions, performed by two or more people. The most fre-quent hypothesis is that they have a different structure compared to individual actions and are typical of social reality. Thus, when creating a taxonomy of actions, it is necessary to distinguish individual actions from collective actions. At the meta-physical level, instead, it is useful to focus on the features of a collective action. The precondition for a collective action is, quite naturally, the fact that two or more people somehow act together, which roughly means that they share something – the purpose of the action. This can be shared in two different ways: 1. in one case, two or more subjects can share the same goal in a way that is, so to speak, accidental (when, hypothetically speaking, a fire breaks out in a movie theatre and the people inside all act pretty much the same way, with the implicitly shared purpose to escape); 2. or, and this is a different case, they can explicitly share the same goal: a fire breaks out and a team of fire-fighters acts so as to maximize their efforts and extinguish it. The latter case, for the purposes of this essay, is the most interesting and better identifies collective action.

Let’s start with this case then. The basic question is: how can two or more people act so as to accomplish the most appropriate set of actions to achieve their goal (to extinguish the fire)? The social ontologies that have tried to answer these questions have mainly resorted to the notion of “collective intentionality”. This allows one, at least according to the theorists who support it,6_{to suppose a sort of marked} predis-position toward collective action. Searle’s version is probably the most challenging, as the American philosopher understands collective intentionality as a primitive that, as such, is prior to the human beings’ disposition to perform individual actions. To be clear, the disposition to act collectively would not only be innate, but also prior (Searle 1995: 23 ff.) to the disposition to act individually.

This means that, according to Searle, people are not only disposed to act collec-tively but they even share intentional states such as beliefs, desires and intentions.

6_{Cf. in particular, (Searle}₁₉₉₅_,₂₀₁₀_{) For a weaker version of collective intentionality, which I}

will refer to repeatedly throughout the article, (Tuomela 2002) 7 States and Transgenerational Actions

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Collective intentions must therefore be added to individual intentions. According to Searle, a good example is that of those actions in which a person is doing something as part of an action that has wider boundaries: think of the players of a football team. Everyone performs their action, which certainly has a specific meaning (the goalkeeper defends his goal), but whose full meaning is entirely given only in con-nection with the totality of the actions that make up the game from beginning to end. The important fact in Searle’s thesis is that collective intentionality can neither be reduced to individual intentionality nor be simply described as individual intention-ality with some additional properties. Rather – this is Searle’s thesis – it is an entirely different thing. I will define this the strong variant of the theory of collective intentionality.

On the contrary, the Finnish philosopher Raimo Tuomela (2002: 19) supports a

weak variant. According to Tuomela, human beings obviously act by including other human beings in their plans of action. This means that they somehow take them and their responses into account. Tuomela’s position is more complex and therefore better captures some facts of reality. It distinguishes between three differ-ent notions of collective intdiffer-entionality that have a specific relationship with their goals:

1. Objectives shared accidentally; 2. Objectives shared intentionally; 3. The objective of a collective.

The first one is obviously the weakest. This is the case, for example, of people at the movie theater when a fire breaks out. Everyone will predictably try to reach the exit as fast as possible. Therefore, everyone shares a goal in that precise moment. However, they do not share it by choice, but rather as a result of a series of things that determine their behaviour. In addition to sharing a specific goal (to do whatever it takes to exit as fast as possible), the people involved in the fire situation are also aware that to escape is, indeed, a shared goal. That is, they know that everyone who is in that situation – unless they have individual and specific reasons – will be will-ing to quickly run away; they know that others will do the same and thus organize their choices accordingly.

The second option is more challenging. It implies that those who share a certain goal do so intentionally, but it also means that they have not shared a plan to achieve the common objective. It is as if, once the objective is shared, the subjects had not shared a plan to achieve it. The idea is that the goal is shared, but the actions and plans of action designed to achieve such a goal are not shared because people could not or did not want to. In this situation, the commitment toward the common goal is, clearly, quite weak. There is only the subjects’ intention, expressed or suspected, but there is no commitment as to how to realize this intention. This creates a significant degree of uncertainty regarding the possibility to realistically achieve the common goal. I think it is reasonable to ask whether this kind of intentional collective action

involves any degree of commitment, as Tuomela suggested (2002: 20). Indeed, a

commitment concerning the intentions already implies collective intentionality. And

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this is true even if no action is performed in order to finalize the goal. I will return to this later.

Lastly, Tuomela’s third form of collective action concerns those actions that do not only imply the identification of a shared objective, but also the identification of the actions necessary to achieve it. In this specific type of action, people work closely together in order to achieve the goal that they jointly established. This type of collective action can obviously be structured in many different ways. For exam-ple, the goal can be shared by few or many peoexam-ple, by people who are only gathered because of the objective or, vice versa, by people who share other and more impor-tant goals, and so on. These actions are clear and distinctive because they imply both the subjects’ voluntary stance and the embodiment of this stance in a number of specific actions.

The theoretical precondition that allows Tuomela to speak in all three cases of basic taxonomy of collective actions, as I have already mentioned, is the idea that: (a) people do not only have beliefs; but (b) usually tend to share them and choose the most advantageous option. If I am in the midst of a fire and decide to exit as fast as I can, I expect whoever is in the same situation: (i) to have beliefs about the fire and how to save herself; (ii) to plan actions and solutions similar to mine and, lastly, (iii) to choose to implement these solutions. Now, in this example, some obvious external reasons suggest that, indeed, things could go this way and that all subjects would potentially act predictably, at least when choosing the objective (to save themselves). As we know, living beings base their choices on the survival instinct, that is, a primary biological instinct. These choices are therefore usually easy to predict.

This presupposition is confirmed by reality as long as there are practical or nor-mative constraints external to the subject that are quite strong and difficult to over-come. When this does not happen and the situation is like 1 or 2, it is not infrequent that the shared objectives remain unfulfilled, causing one to even doubt the fact that this was a collective action based on a collective intention. In other words, the inter-esting cases to test the idea of a collective or plural intentionality are those where the outside world does not “force” the subjects to cooperate by applying constraints of some kind – be they biological, normative or cultural. Obviously, these cases exist and have been studied. The biologist Garrett Hardin (1968) proposed one of the most interesting ones.

• Collective Actions and Commons

In seventeenth century England, “open” fields – i.e. fields available to public and shared management – were widespread. Peasants, who lived on the edge of the pov-erty line, had at least the opportunity to work the land, thus gaining sustenance for themselves and their families. Overall, the situation was far from prosperous, because the overall wealth was very little. Survival was probably guaranteed, but there was not much else to hope for. Between 1700 and 1810, the British Parliament emanated a series of ‘enclosure acts’ that forced to enclose open fields and common lands. This generated two main consequences: it determined a concentration of land in the hands of the richest owners, namely those who could afford to bear the costs

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of the enclosures, and an increase in productivity. Interpretations of this dramatic change have often been contrasting: on the one hand, those in favor of enclosures claimed that this was the only way to increase the overall productivity of the state and, therefore, to increase the wealth of the country. Conversely, detractors have argued that enclosures marked the beginning of the institution of private property and liberal policies.

In The Tragedy of The Commons Hardin engages with an issue that touches only briefly on commons, and that is rather related to the problem of overpopulation of the planet. Is there a way, a technical solution – Hardin wonders – so that overpopu-lation will not lead to the collapse of the earth? The answer is “no”, in the sense that any solution we might imagine will be nothing more than a temporary solution. Producing more food will result in an increase in population that will in turn oblige us to produce more food, in an unstoppable crescendo.

To support his thesis, Hardin uses a number of targeted examples, all of which have an underlying leitmotif: it is utopian to hope that common property will be managed, by those who use them, with the same caution with which they would manage their own private property. But what are commons and how do they work? Hardin does not provide a definition, but he explains it through many examples, extensively analyzing “small” commons.

Consider, for example, an unfenced field, or a stretch of sea where fishing is free. Experience shows that the field or stretch of sea will be exploited until total deple-tion, which is dangerously irreversible. This is precisely what Hardin, with an effec-tive formula, christens ‘the tragedy of the commons’: it occurs when individuals, who act in independent and rational ways, squander a shared resource, despite knowing that such behavior will go against their own interest. The reason for this is simple: the fear felt by those who make this kind of seemingly counter-intuitive choice, is that by doing otherwise they may suffer a double loss. If they acted differ-ently, they might gain less than all the others, who are likely to use the field reck-lessly. In such situations, therefore, people do not seem to be able to coordinate in order to achieve a collective goal and benefit. Now, whether they are unable to find the salient and rational option or whether, despite having identified it, they decide to act regardless of it, what matters is the result (Hardin 1968: 1246–1247): the pas-tures are depleted, the seas plundered of their fish, and the same fate awaits water and oil resources. The moral of the story is very clear: while the individuals are really inadequate to act in a cooperative way to preserve the richness of a common, the only hope to this aim is that an entity including all parts involved in the actions concerning the commons, without reducing to them, may be the actor having the power of taking the necessary decisions for a proper management of the common.

That described by Hardin is a typical case of a transgenerational action. We have individuals, who act in an independent and rational way, exploiting a shared resource. In the framework proposed by Tuomela, these individuals are supposed to share an intention (namely, a we-intention), which allows all people who share a certain situation to take the right decisions in order to exploit the common at best. Exactly as in the fire example, the people involved in the exploitation of – say – a portion of the sea, are sharing the situation (all of them have access to the exploitation

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of the resource), the objectives (to fish as much as is necessary to have a good life), and the technical instruments to do so. Nevertheless, even though all the conditions listed by Tuomela seem to be present in our imaginary case, very often people are not collaborative and cooperative – at least, this is often the case in the real life. This means that, even though the goals and the intentionality are often collective, the actions in most of the cases remain largely based on individual choices. My view is that the commons testify the main weakness of the hypothesis of a collective inten-tion driving collective acinten-tions: there is no reason why rainten-tional objectives and shared intentions should necessarily entail that people engage in common and cooperative actions. Rather, the opposite is true. Common actions are just a possible choice between many others.

It is now the time to add a third example. In the example we are imagining, people involved in actions have achieved a good level of cooperation, after sharing common activities. The third example is a classical one. People playing something – say, a game or a piece of music – are sharing an objective (indeed, to play a game or a piece of music) and are doing the proper actions in order to achieve those objec-tives (to win the match or to play a beautiful sonata). What are the differences between these three cases? Or, to put it in other words, why is it that in one case people are supposed to act jointly, while in the other case (that of the commons), they are supposed to act individually? Let us pay attention to the differences. • The differences are in the details.

It is now the time to ask ourselves why, even ifthe three cases are so similar, they actually differ. To this aim, I would suggest two steps. Firstly, I would add another case, very similar to the third example: another case of exploitation of a common. Secondly, I would propose a comparison, trying to clarify the reasons why most examples show cases in which the collective intention fails to obtain its objectives. I will call this last case the good management of the commons.

In Norway, as is well known, oil is one of the most important national resources. The “Government Petroleum Fund” is a sovereign fund set up by the Norwegian government in 1990. The purpose of the fund was to invest part of the profit coming from the extraction of oil. In 2006 it changed its name and status, becoming the “Government Pension Fund Global.” It consists of a deposit in Norwegian kroner run by the Bank of Norway on behalf of the Ministry of Finance, with the aim of ensuring that “a reasonable portion of the country’s petroleum wealth benefits future generations.”7

The reasoning behind this operation is very simple: the fund aims to be a sort of piggy bank in which to set aside the surplus proceeds from the sale of oil. The bank, in the intention of the legislature, maintains and produces new financial resources that the state is committed to providing for future generations. Oil, unlike pastures or fishing resources, is bound to run out. For this reason the state has decided to

7_{In Ethical Guidelines for the Government Pension Fund-Global, 22 December 2005, on}_www.

regjeringen.no.

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make part of the wealth produced by the exploitation of that common good renew-able, and thus accessible to future generations that will no longer have oil. This is an exemplary case that seems to confirm Hardin’s thesis: the public institution not only regulates the management of the common good, but it also finely programs a way to reconstitute its value, although in a different form.

We are now facing a very simple question: why is it that Hardin’s example ends up in disaster while Norway’s case is, in a way, a wonderful paradox? The case of people facing a fire seems to show that, in a very particular way, people are able to act establishing a kind of cooperation. This seems also true in the case of people playing a game. So the point is: why do people seem able to act together when play-ing a game or escapplay-ing a fire, but apparently fail to exploit a common resource?

My view is that in all the positive cases the context is rather peculiar: first of all, there is a very strong constraint, external to the will of the subjects (think of the fire and Norway’s government). Moreover, in both good cases, there isa power (natural or normative) that is external to the subjects and makes the difference. This means that collective intentionality, supposing it really exists, in most cases has no real influence on the choices of the subjects acting in a certain way. Subjects surely have both the disposition and the ability to be cooperative, when needed. However, the point is that this disposition is contrary and equivalent to the disposition to act indi-vidually. It is a matter of choice (and often of advantage) to choose to be individual-ists or not. At the end of the day, in fact, the only way to win a football match is to think of oneself as a part of a team, which means thinking of a strategy involving all players, rather than acting as a single player. The role of the others – as co-players and as opponents – is impossible to bypass especially if one aims to win the game.

The question at this point is the following: are we sure that, in the case described by Hardin, people are sharing a collective intention which is concretized in a collec-tive aim? If this is the case, what is the aim that is shared? It is impossible to affirm that it is the will to exploit the common natural resourcesin a sustainable way. However, this is precisely a case in which cooperation is needed in order to find a good balance between private and public interest. But people, at least in most cir-cumstances, do not have the intention of exploiting the commons for public advan-tage. The case of the Norway’s oil shows a different end precisely because the public good is managed not by individuals but by an institution, Norway’s govern-ment and, in the long run, the State. Those institutions may choose public over pri-vate advantage, considering the fact that their decisions as well as their acts will be judged in the light of the chain of consequences they have over time.

At this point of the argument one may conclude as follows: it is a matter of fact that people have the disposition to act and think together, but it is another matter of fact that people, generally speaking, have the disposition to get a certain advantage from the situation in which they find themselves. This means that, in most cases, they simply do not intend to be involved in cooperative actions.

This is why normativity, declined in different forms, is not a choice, but the real precondition of every large social community that aims to live together for a long time.

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• A final remark about the State

Concerned by the fate of future generations in the face of the vital challenges of the next millennium, conscious that […] the very existence of human kind and his environment are threatened, […] Determined to […] hand on a better world to future generations […] whose fate depends to a great extent on decisions and actions taken today […] Convinced that there is a moral obligation [whose fate ] depends to a great extent on decision and actors taken today […] Convinced that there is a moral obligation to formulate behavioural guide-lines for the present generations [so that] … the needs and interests of […] future genera-tions are fully safeguarded […] Each generation inheriting the Earth temporarily should [have the responsibility to bequeath it to future generations], take care to use natural resources reasonably and ensure that life is not prejudiced by harmful modifications of the ecosystems […] and should preserve […] the quality and integrity of the environment.

This is a Declaration on the Responsibility of the Present Generation towards Future Generations adopted by UNESCO in 1997. This declaration is particularly impor-tant because it shows very well how institutions address the problem of the relation-ship between generations. At this stage I would like to make some final remarks on the rule and function of the State as regards transgenerational actions. My view is that every complex society, whose members aim at living together for a long time, must reflection on this point. The case discussed by Hardin shows how the kind of actions requiring cooperation between people involved may not be guided exclu-sively by the intentions of the people involved. This is why there is no guarantee that people asked to act will decide for the best option, that is, for public utility.

A provisional analysis of transgenerational actions includes at least two main types: 1. Those actions that cannot be completely accomplished by people who chose them, but require other people, belonging to different generations, to be com-pleted; 2. Those actions implying a regular and substantial diminution or alteration of a common, that is, of a good whose propriety rests upon a society for a long period of time.8_{The actions of type 1 and 2 exhibit similar properties. They both} have a long duration over the time, and both involve a number of different agents performing the action or a part of it, at some point in time. These two types of actions imply transgenerationality in two different ways.

Type 1 requires transgenerationality because these actions imply the trust that people who never decided for them will carry them out them anyway, assuming that the decision is the right one. This trust is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for the existence of these actions. It is interesting to note that this trust is based upon a prevision; namely, the prevision of a certain behaviour on the part of people that do not yet exist. If the prevision does not have a good possibility to be realized, the actions depending on that prevision would never possible, or would never have a

8_{Commons were firstly conceived as a tertium genius between public and private property. It is}

very interesting to look at the definition of commons proposed by the an Italian commission, the Rodotà Commission, which received in 2008 the task of reshaping the discipline of the public goods as stated by the Italian Civil Code, which dated back to 1942. The definition is the following: “Commons produce utility that is functional to the exercise of fundamental rights and the free development of individuals. Therefore, the law must guarantee in all cases that they are enjoyed collectively, directly and by all, including future generations”.

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positive conclusion. As for the second type of actions (2), that requiring a regular and substantial exploitation of the commons, transgenerationality is not a necessary condition for the accomplishment of the action, but it is a criterion of the normativ-ity accompanying these actions. The case made by Hardin paradigmatically describes this group of actions.

To sum up: while in the first case (1) transgenerationality is a “condition” for the action, in the second case (2), transgenerationality must be considered as the refer-ence for the normativity accompanying some actions, as has been gradually recog-nised by the laws and constitutions of many states. In Germany, for example, with the revision of the Federal Court in 1994, it was added that “the state, also in its responsibility for future generations, protects natural resources” (article, 20 a).9_One can also note that, in the first case, transgenerationality goes together with the trust of people in the fact that transgenerationality itself will be effective over the time. This point makes a great difference, which is very remarkable in the perspective of metaphysics as well as in that of practical consequences.

As for the metaphysical implications, one should consider the subjects of trans-generational actions. What is a generation? How can it be past, present and future? Who belongs to a given generation? Each of these questions constitutes a compel-ling metaphysical problem, which is ever more compelcompel-ling in the perspective of law. In the juridical framework, in fact, only where there is a subject is there a right. But what kind of subject is a generation? Namely, if it is possible to define in some way what a generation is and how it is composed, it is very clear that the adjective “future” makes things quite complicated. How it is possible that a non-existing object can be the subject of something, for example, of rights?10_{My take is that it is} the action itself, that is, this particular type of action that brings into life a new sub-ject: the future generation. This is also a new type of entity, whose nature needs to be investigated. In a few words, the subject – that is, the “future generation” – is something constructed by people and institutions referring to it through their practices.

The most evident implication is that concerning the institutions’ ability to not preserve transgenerationality as well as the set of rights connected to it. Most of the present forms of protection of transgenerationality are based on the idea that the attention for the future generation is a form of – we may say – over-generosity toward still non-existing people. This is the reason why most of the references to transgenerationality produce negative definitions. In fact, these definitions focus on needs rather than aspirations, projects and wishes. They essentiallylimit themselves to the notion that one should avoid dangerous excess that would significantly affect the actions of future generations. However, quite evidently, this is just a half of the story. The other half concerns the fact that, in our very complex societies, the pres-ent generations imply the fact that the future generations will carry on some of its

9_{For an overview of the international laws regarding this matter cf. (Bailey et al.}₂₀₁₃_).

10_{A preliminary reflection on this can be found in M. Spanò, Who is the subject for future} genera-tions? An essay in genealogy, (Bailey et al. 2013, 45–59.).

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actions; this means that for some of our actions we take the will of future genera-tions for granted. As far as I can see, the conclusion follows necessarily: if we assume that transgenerationality is a necessary condition to define some of the actions performed by individuals, institutions and states, then we have to conclude that states, and institutions in general, must be necessarily guarantee that the conse-quences of transgenerationality (at least the foreseeable ones) must be carefully considered along with the rights of future generations.

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States and transgenerational actions

Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality 12

Tiziana Andina

Petar Bojanić Editors

Institutions

in Action

The Nature and the Role of Institutions

in the Real World

Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality

Volume 12

Tiziana Andina • Petar Bojani

ć

Editors

Institutions in Action

The Nature and the Role of Institutions

in the Real World

Contents

Chapter 7