What’s Special About Collective Action?

Abstract Recent work on collective action appeals to a range of philosophical constructs to explain the difference between collective and individual actions—from joint or shared intentions, we-intentions, and participatory intentions, to collective beliefs and desires, mutual obligations, and so on. I believe this is a mistake. In this paper, I defend a deflationary account of collective action, which holds that the difference between individual and collective actions can be explained purely in terms of the behaviour of the participants. This account faces the challenge of explaining how collective action can be intentional if it is to be reduced to the behaviour of individuals: intentionality is usually held to distinguish actions from accidents (and thus, one would expect, collective actions from accidents), but according to some philosophers, individuals cannot intend to do collective actions. To respond to this concern, I show that individual agency can extend beyond the individual to encompass the actions of others.