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Philosophical Papers
Vol. 41, No. 1 (March 2012): 57-95
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
Mariam Thalos
Abstract: This essay offers a motivational conception of solidarity that can be employed
across the entire range of sciences and humanities, while also filling a gap in the
motivational spectrum conceived by decision theorists and economists—and expanding the
two-part division between altruistic and selfish motivations into a tripartite analysis that
suggests a spectrum instead. According to the present proposal, solidarity is a condition of
action-readiness on behalf of a group or its interests. The proposal will admit of measuring
the extent to which Prisoner’s Dilemmas are overcome in real life via acts of solidarity.
Introduction
As an analytical category in theoretical and scientific scholarship, the
concept of solidarity has suffered undeserved neglect throughout the
preponderance of the twentieth century. There are many reasons for this
neglect, not least of which are these two philosophically charged ones:
(1) its association with underappreciated sociological theories, as we will
soon discuss; and (2) the fact that groups have enjoyed little or no
legitimate place in moral philosophy since the modern era (Bayertz,
1999). Consequently the notion of solidarity has, until only very recently,
served more as a political watchword than as a term of analysis.
The French pioneer of sociology Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) had
argued that in modern societies, by contrast with traditional ones, the
highly complex division of labor results in ‘organic solidarity.’ This is a
condition in which different specializations in employment and social
roles create dependencies that tie people to one another. In less modern
societies, which he referred to as ‘mechanical societies,’ held together by
‘mechanical solidarity,’ subsistence farmers live in communities that are
self-sufficient and knit people together by a common heritage.
Mechanical solidarity thus comes from homogeneity, when people feel
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connected through similar work, educational and religious training, and
lifestyle. Mechanical solidarity is thus wrought by a sameness of mind
and thought. However, an increasing division of labor begets more
diverse and varied individual consciousness. ‘Individualism’ emerges as
distinct from collective or common consciousness. And the individual
often finds itself in conflict with such collective or common consciousness
as there might sometimes seem to be. And so in modern societies, or at
least so he predicted, we should see the dissolution of that solidarity
wrought by common consciousness (Durkheim 1893).
Durkheim was a father of functionalism in that term’s most notorious
sense. He maintained a belief in the ‘functions’ served by a variety of
practices for the whole of a society, and a belief as well that many times
these functions explained the origins of these practices. While such nowdiscredited views characterized his work and the work of many who were
influenced by him, he also sought to apply the discredited views to
answering an important question still open today: Can differences in
social ‘glue’ explain variations in social practices around the world?
Talcott Parsons and his students developed a mode of analysis founded
on cybernetics (Dynamical Systems), which focuses on the notions of
function and integration (Parsons 1951, Luhmann 1996). Not only were
their methodologies at odds with the methodological individualism
preferred today, but it seems that their focus upon macro features of
social systems gave offense of a different sort as well. This style of
analysis rejects the individual as the fundamental unit of analysis—or at
any rate, the only one.
A Sea Change
Recently, theoretical sentiments have undergone a sea change.
Methodological individualism has come under fire from a variety of
different quarters. Systemic thinking vis-à-vis the social is no longer as
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
59
disreputable.1 And attention in political philosophy to the workings of
race, gender, class and sexual orientation, in social systems, has wrought
a consciousness of the importance of giving attention to the
‘particularities’ and accidents of human birth, and the ways they shape
the moral landscape. This has loosened the strong hold of universalism,
which clung unwavering to the axiom that special groups do not deserve
special treatment in moral theory. Theoreticians have come to view more
favorably the notion of solidarity with those whom history has
mistreated. And attention is now being showered on the term. We are
now blessed with many senses and uses of the term.2
And so, now that the floodgates have been opened, we are beginning
to struggle with how to conceptualize the role of groups and affiliations
with them in human affairs. There are many disciplines concerned with
the dizzying variety of social affiliations, from biology and primatology,
to psychology, animal ethology, anthropology, sociology, law and
political theory, and including everything in the overlaps and interstices.
Each humane discipline has a stake in how the notion of solidarity is
construed. And so every construal will enjoy both friends and critics. The
friends will be keen to construe the concept in terms of disciplinespecific mechanisms or terminology, while the critics will find the
discipline-specific terminology exclusionary. So, for example, a
predominantly political sense of that term (Scholtz, for instance, has
advocated for one) construed in terms of ‘shared commitment to a
political cause in the name of liberation or justice and in opposition to
oppression or injustice’ (Scholtz 2007, 38) will exclude biological,
psychological and even purely personal construals of solidarity, whilst
1 Starting with early work by Mario Bunge (1979) and now with Wimsatt (1976, 2006 and
2007) and Thalos (2009, 2011). Bunge (2000) was met with many sympathetic (albeit
critical) responses, including Sawyer (2001) and (2002), that culminated in two special
issues of the journal Philosophy of the Social Sciences (2004, nos. 2 and 3) dedicated to
Bunge’s contributions to the social sciences by way of his defense of systemism.
2 Bayertz (1998) and (1999); Blum (2007); Dean (1996); Gould (2007); May (1996); Rippe
(1998); Scholz (2008); Shelby (2005) and (2002) ; Mohanty (2003), Calhoun (2002); Wildt
(1999).
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foregrounding the normative dimensions to the disadvantage of the
empirical and ontological. True: even in Roman times the precursor to
the concept of solidarity spoke of obligations and claims—of burdens
and remedies. And these are of course normative concepts. But burdens
and remedies are also an aspect of social functioning—of how in
empirical terms a society operates, the expectations taken for granted
and upon which further social structure is built. The normative is—as it
must be—intertwined with social facts. It is by no means a concept apart.
It is, therefore, worthwhile looking for a conceptual core to all the
forms of solidarity that have been identified—or, at any rate, a
discipline-neutral formulation of it that seeks to explain the manifold
uses and contexts in which it has seemed at home. What is more, it
would be useful to identify a fitting theoretical space in which to lodge
this notion, one that is not otherwise filled. This is precisely what I shall
offer here—a discipline-neutral conceptualization of solidarity that fills a
theoretical gap. It shall be an ontological construal of the concept of
motivation to action, occupying the space between, on one side, selfishness
and, on the other, altruism. A selfishness/altruism dichotomy neglects a
distinct and important intermediate position on the motivational space
between two opposing poles: a very possibly quite potent and pervasive
form of motivational organization in which the individual seeks to serve
(or simply to act in the name of) a collectivity whose interests overlap,
either in whole or in part, with her or his own. At this time, the scholarly
literature depicts altruism as the antithesis to self-service: (1) altruism in
biology is simply defined as behavior that benefits other organisms at a
cost to the organism that performs it (payable in reproductive coin);
while (2) nonbiological conceptions differ only in measuring interests of
social actors by a subjective yardstick; for instance, in relation to actors’
personal concerns.3 Two remarks are in order before proceeding. First,
the dichotomous conceptualization of the motivational spectrum
dismisses out of hand the entire category of collectives. Second, it elides
3 See for instance Sober and Wilson (1998).
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
61
the difference, on the non-selfish side, between (on the one hand) acting
as a member of a collective and (on the other hand) acting in the
interests of another entity, as an entity separate from and nonoverlapping with it. The latter will always qualify as altruistic, but the
former may or may not be, depending upon the manner in which
interests of self overlap with the interests of groups to which one stands
as a member. Here are some illustrative cases in relation to which the
dichotomy is inapt and the trichotomy performs much better.
When someone votes against individual interest, either as a private
citizen or as a member of a governing body, is that person performing
an altruistic act? And when a person bothers to perform an admittedly
minor civic duty, for example by exercising a legal right to vote, is that
an act of altruism? (As often remarked, the costs of voting normally
exceed in overwhelming proportions its benefits to the individual.) The
question, as will become clear, is ill-framed. For there is an important
difference between (for example) civic-mindedness, on the one hand—
which requires a conception of collective—and bona fide othermindedness on the other. And this difference does not rest entirely with
what the person in question construes as being in their interest. The
notion of solidarity will fill out, on the motivational space, what the
altruism/selfishness dichotomy misses out.
Obviously, this articulation of solidarity foregrounds the notion of
collective as (potential) agent; and consequently the very notion of agent
itself. This might be thought worrisome, as the notion of agent has often
been thought to be proprietarily humanistic, and so unfit for use in
scientific disciplines. However, this concern is misplaced as agency has a
natural history and an indispensable role to play in the economic
sciences (Thalos 2008; Ross 2009). Solidarity will thus demand situating,
within the space of kin, analytical categories that serve the biological and
human sciences. I shall contend that the best way to manage this is via a
tripartite motivational taxonomy that places altruism and selfishness at
opposite poles, and then identifies key roles for collectives (in whose
interests individuals may agitate in solidarity) in the moderation of
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polarizing motivational conflicts. This will enhance the ontological tools
for explanation.
One might worry that a motivational taxonomy is not the right place
to insert collectivities into social science. There might be alternative
ways. And of course these alternatives need not be incompatible with the
one being put forward. But by putting forward the hypothesis, we can
open the debate.
The Basis of Solidarity: Varieties of Bonding in the Animal Kingdom
We know of no close analog of tribes in other species.
Larger, more complex societies are generally able to dominate smaller,
simpler tribal societies, and a ragged but persistent trajectory of social
evolution toward ever more complex social systems continues to the present.
Richerson and Boyd (2001, 211; 1998, 254)
Thomas C. Kohler (2005) remarks that the history of the notion of
solidarity is simply a story about the American people. In fact, however,
solidarity is more profound than that: it is a legacy of the natural history
of the human species. The human species is given to distinctive forms of
social bonding. Our social lives bear no resemblance whatever to those of
such species as tigers, bears or squirrels, whose networks of close social
interaction include only closest kin, and only a superficial resemblance to
the social lives of our closest cousins, chimpanzees and bonobos.
Solidarity is one of the many ways in which the difference between
human and nonhuman social life is manifest.
Human forms of social life pose a profound conundrum to a
biologist. According to E. O. Wilson’s ground-breaking and controversial
1975 treatise Sociobiology, human societies comprise one of four pinnacles
of social evolution, and cannot be explained entirely by mechanisms that
support the welfare of close kin—mechanisms that ably explain the other
three pinnacles of social evolution: colonial invertebrates, eusocial
insects and nonhuman mammalian societies. 100,000 years ago, humans
lived in hunter-gatherer family units tied by cooperative bonds at a tribal
scale, having no more in common than language and distant common
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
63
ancestors (if that). Even the simplest contemporary tribal societies link
family units of a few tens to create societies of a few hundred to a few
thousand, held together by common sentiments of membership,
‘expressed and reinforced by informal institutions of sharing, gift giving,
ritual, and participation in dangerous collective exploits’ (Richerson and
Boyd 1999, 254), These tribal ties—arguably a necessary developmental
stage along the way to large settlement living—are unprecedented in
evolutionary history. The natural history of the human species is a
history of cross-lineage bonding.
Bonding is not a single process; it is a genus that comprises at least
three different processes (Thalos and Andreou 2009). The first and
simplest form of bonding is found in many species that invest care and
nurture in their young: it is called imprinting, and it is as common among
fowl as it is among mammals. The second and less common form
involves feeling (especially sympathy) and emotional attachment, and
this prevails among mammals, particularly higher mammals. The third
and most complex form is identificational bonding, and it is arguably
unique to the human species, helping to explain (or at any rate so this
essay will take as unproblematic) E.O. Wilson’s ‘fourth pinnacle’ of social
evolution. Here is how it works.
Human cognitive capacities are so configured as to allow for
adjustment of motivation by means of purely conceptual acts. So, for
example, each member of a family or clan can conceive of the ensemble
as a ‘we’. And this conception acts upon the individual motivations of
each of them: each is now not only someone with personal interests, but
also someone with collective or communal interests. Communal interests
can be the basis of actions that accord with them because they foster a
form of action-readiness—a motivation that favors corresponding
actions. For instance, the recognition, among a group, of commonalities
in taste, fate or interest, may be enough to sustain among them the
existence of a ‘we,’ and concomitantly motivations favoring a (collective)
good (Kramer and Brewer, 1986). These motivations contribute to
action-readiness. Thus, essential to identificational bonding is not the
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development of certain emotion or feeling, but rather the development of
a certain conception of things that is parlayed into action-readiness
through adoption of group-specific goals.
I shall propose a new and discipline-neutral construal: solidarity is
action-readiness (i.e., motivation) founded in a conception of ‘we’. This
construal can be adapted, on a case-by-case basis, in discipline-specific
ways to suit the needs of a specific inquiry or application.
The Concept in Some Common Usages
Our precocity for bonding notwithstanding, many shrewd observers of
human society have often feared, predicted or bemoaned the dissolution
of the cement holding society together. Edmund Burke, for example, at
the very height of the French revolution, warned that the ‘little platoons’
that gave society its structure would ‘crumble away, be disconnected into
the dust and powder of individuality, and at length be dispersed to all
the winds of heaven,’ leaving men ‘little better than the flies of summer.’4
And this in the era in which the term ‘civil society’ first emerged and in
which Alexis de Tocqueville, among others, famously began to insist
upon the importance of associations for stabilizing society, by securing
equally the well-being of individuals and the health of democracies.
In the midst of the latest sentiments of social dissolution, Michael
Sandel (2005) addresses general audiences about certain indissoluble
underlying solidarities when, in arguing recently against a market for
genetic enhancements, he writes: ‘insurance markets mimic solidarity
… insofar as people do not control their own risk factors … The
solidarity of insurance would disappear as those with good genes fled
the actuarial company of those with bad ones.’ He commends to us a
‘lively sense of contingency of our gifts—a consciousness that none of
us is wholly responsible for his or her success.’ ‘Solidarity,’ he writes,
‘arises when men and women reflect on the contingency of their talents
and fortunes.’
4 Edmund Burke (1790/1955), as quoted by Kohler (2005).
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
65
Sandel’s implicit assumption is that solidarity amounts to people
being prepared or willing to share the fate of others, and that this might
be undermined by knowledge that they are in fact not liable to that fate.5
Sandel’s assumption speaks of a certain sort of individualism. If it is
correct, then there is something very optional—very alienable—about
solidarity. And the proposal that solidarity is alienable in this degree
goes counter to the idea we are developing here—to the effect that
solidarity is a species trait, more characteristic of human life than of any
other form of life on this planet. We will counter Sandel’s assumption,
and advance a more nuanced view of solidarity that challenges the
oversimplifications we find in it.
To begin articulating the position, I ask you first to note that many
human beings prove willing to share the fate of others (by going among
the victims of disaster to render aid without the expectation of
compensation, by sending resources to war-torn lands, and by providing
for the impoverished in faraway places), all without feeling exposure
themselves to the risks that those others face in the present, and also
when they are quite certain that they and their kin will not do so, even
unto the indefinite future. The efforts and motivations of these
unstinting souls seem to be in no way undermined by a sense of
protection from exposure to these or related risks, and might even be
heightened by a sense that they are fortunate to have been shielded from
those risks, whereas those now in need have not been so fortunate. To
the extent that we should like to label these acts of mercy as (among
other things) acts of solidarity—as being founded in something like
fellowship—we cannot agree that solidarity is an individual agent’s
5 There is some room for disagreement as to whether Sandel (2005) really takes the view
we attribute to him in the text. Someone might interpret Sandel’s remarks rather
differently, to the effect perhaps that during ‘optimistic’ moments, ‘we recognise the
precariousness of life, recognize that things could have been very different, take the view
that our assets are random gifts to which no one in particular is really entitled, and thus
find oneself moved to generosity.’ (This was suggested to me by Yanis Varoufakis, private
correspondence.) This might well be Sandel’s view, but it is much less interesting as a
conception of solidarity.
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strategy for dealing with their own exposure to risk. If this is right, then
the basis for solidarity cannot be so profoundly individual as Sandel’s
argument presupposes. It must reach to the roots of motivation.
Solidarity in (High) Definition
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy proposes that solidarity ‘is
generally seen in two ways. First, as a commitment to other members of a
group to abide by the outcome of their collective decision-making.
Second, as a concern for other members of a group, which may require an
unwillingness to receive a benefit unless certain others are also offered it,
or an unwillingness to receive a benefit when this will harm these others.
This commitment to the well-being of others is sometimes conceived in
terms of the recognition of special obligations between the members of a
group, which exist in virtue of their being members of it.’6 This
conception is ambiguous between an objective condition and a subjective
feeling of fellowship, and of course silent as to whether either may be a
cause or effect of behavior. This ambiguity is generally reflected in the
common lexicon.
I am proposing that when we move to a definition of solidarity for
scientific purposes, we should shed the mention of subjective feeling or
sentiment, and retain instead the conceptualization of the condition as a
motivational state, for two reasons: (1) there is a gap in the motivational
taxonomy, as we will discuss at some further length below, and this is an
opportunity to build our conceptual took chest; and (2) subjective feeling
is not to the point, even if it is often a precursor to the phenomenon we
should like to illuminate; the motivational construal will do everything
that one wants from a construal in terms of subject feeling, and will do it
in discipline-neutral, purely ontological terms, a topic to which we now
turn.
6 Mason (1998). This ambiguity appears also in definitions of the notion of commitment,
which too may be defined either as an objective condition or as a subjective feeling,
although the former has dominated in philosophy due to the influence of Margaret Gilbert
(1989, 1993, and 2003). Hence T. Brewer (2003).
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
67
There exists a complex and bewildering body of work that revolves
around definitions of the notion of social cohesion, specialized literatures
on particular dimensions of social cohesion (measured by any of the
following variables, or some combination of them: membership
turnover, organizational commitment, categorical identifications,
interpersonal attachments, network structures). Many lines of inquiry
converge on the topic of the social cohesion of specific types of groups
(e.g., families, schools, military units, and sports teams). And there is
the issue of whether to construe solidarity as a quality of an individual
(perhaps vis-à-vis others) or a quality of a collectivity—a question that
pertains equally to the notion of social cohesion, and emerges in the
context of the sociological literature.7 It is imperative that formulation
of the conception of solidarity be poised to contribute positively to
open cross-disciplinary dialog on these topics, making this body of
research both accessible and relevant to a wide academic audience. The
way forward is via a concept that rises above discipline-specific
terminology, while at the same time being open to many would-be
‘operationalizations.’
I propose a definition of solidarity as an objective condition of unity that
can act as a cause of coordinated behavior. (This definition is thus more in
line with the Oxford English Dictionary, which indicates that solidarity is a
condition of unity resulting from common interests, feelings, or
sympathies.) And I shall explicitly treat this condition as a feature of the
agency structures that are produced and reproduced in a social setting.
Solidarity is thus a quality of readiness to undertake action (it is an actionreadiness, i.e., a motivational condition) that proceeds from a fostered
conception of ‘we’. This definition suggests, but does not circumscribe or
limit, the ways in which the condition is manifest in or results from
feelings of fellowship. It insists, however, that feelings are not to the point,
and that it is motivational structures for action that are decisive in
7 For an informative survey see Friedkin (2004). A recent effort on this from is Rajulton et
al. (2007).
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determining both the quality and magnitude of solidarity. Indeed, the
quality of solidarity is consistent with the absence of all affect. But it is not
consistent with an incapacity to conceptualize the social sphere in terms of
‘we’ and ‘they’. The capacity for solidarity thus sits solidly upon a capacity
for forming collectivities via conceptualization.
My definition is therefore less concerned with the source or aetiology of
solidarity—the explanations of its origin—and more concerned with its
ontology. The benefits of this move are numerous:
1.
it facilitates generalization about the role of solidarity in social
processes, no matter its source or origins;
2.
it flags the fact that the origins of the solidarity, and the intensity
of those origins, may in no way measure the strength of the
solidarity itself;
3.
it marks the possibility that different social and ecological
circumstances might have different effects on the ways in which
solidarity is manifested, without affecting its causal powers;
4.
it marks solidarity relations as relations in which stand entities
that are concept-enabled.
This definition is intended to help play a role in explanations of certain
(especially large-scale) human behaviors, as well as facilitate
examinations of how to promote solidarity. But the definition also leaves
its proponent open to charges that the whole notion of solidarity is
entirely too obscure, particularly for an empirical science, because the
notion of motivational action-readiness—implicitly invoking a
preconception of action or agency—is itself so obscure. True, there is no
shortage of philosophical discussion of the subject of agency, but
discussions of the subject from time immemorial have generated
altogether much more heat than light. I have addressed this issue
elsewhere (Thalos and Andreou 2009); let it suffice here to say this: the
present proposal is explicit that agents can be either singular (atomic) or
plural (molecular).
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
69
What is collective action-readiness (which may well include collective
motivations, interests and reasons), as an analytical category, good for?
One very important thing, in this explanatory scheme: collective
motivations can compete against individual motivations in ways that
individual reasons cannot compete against one another. Individual
motivations compete against one another when it comes to determining
which option is the best choice from the perspective of the individual whose
motivations they are. They cannot compete against one another when it
comes to determining where loyalties ultimately lie. In other words, we
cannot think of individual motivations as conflicting with one another
when a group is making a decision as to which perspective—individual
or collective—it shall adopt for the purposes of the choice at hand. But
collective motivations can compete with individual motivations in this
way. For example, my group can have a collective motivation for
pursuing plan A, without my having any such individual—personal—
motivation; and in that way I can be at some odds with my group.8 And
this is why motivational conflict manages to account for the discomforts
in some hard-to-explain cases. I propose calling these cases of loyalty.
They will be the focal point of the ‘neglected third category’ between
altruism and selfishness.
Solidarity as an Analytical Category: The Neglected Third Category
Between the Altruistic and the Selfish
Solidarity, on the present account, is a condition of action-readiness (a
motivational readiness) to perform actions favoring a certain group G
that rests in a conception of oneself as a member of that group. In the
instance where one’s interests overlap entirely with the interests of the
group with whom one is in solidarity, there may well be no difference
between what one is prepared to do in service of oneself, and what one is
prepared to do in service of the relevant group. Therefore, solidarity, on
8 Margaret Gilbert (1990, 1993, 1996) gives a parallel account: there can be a shared
intention to do something, without any corresponding personal intentions.
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the present account, need involve no self-sacrifice. It need involve no
cost. And this is one difference between our conception and other readyto-use conceptions of other-regarding action on the market.
There are numerous such conceptions in circulation. These are
conceptions of motivation-for-action according to which the agent is
taking into account the interests of other individuals. They enter analysis
in connection with explaining apparent altruism, principally among the
genetically unrelated. There has been considerable discussion of why
genetically unrelated individuals cooperate when acts of self-service
would (at least on average) serve their evolutionary interests much
better. This question, in the literature, depicts altruism as the antithesis
to self-service. But, as already noted, the selfish/altruistic dichotomy is
misguided because it elides the difference, on the non-selfish side,
between (on the one hand) acting as a member of (or simply in service
of) a collective and (on the other hand) acting in the interests of another
entity, as an entity separate from and non-overlapping with it. In other
words, this dichotomy simply misses out on the intermediate third
category of ‘we.’
Altruisms proper are forms of generosity. There are many varieties.
In cases of beneficiary-specific sympathy, for example, the benefactor acts
out of concern or regard for the interests of the beneficiary. In cases of
duty-bound philanthropy, an individual responds—at personal cost—to the
interests or needs of another out of respect for duty, laws of the land,
laws of God, or perceived dictates of reason. But solidarity is not a form
of generosity because the solidary presents him or herself as an
interested party, not a disinterested (albeit benevolent) benefactor.
On the present view, solidarity is a much closer relative of team
alliance. Members of a team typically share common team-specific, but
member-neutral goals. And typically some interests of the members are
advanced to some extent when team-specific goals are achieved. (This
need not be so in every case, such as when advancement of one’s team
would work to some extent against the interests of some one individual in
the team; for example, when my team’s victory in a match overshadows my
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
71
achievements as a star in it.) And in the logic of team reasoning, team
members are to do their part of the team’s chosen strategy.9 But the
machinations of team reasoning spring out of identification with others or
the team-specific goals; team reasoning is not prior to the identification of
the goals. The emergence of solidarity is that process by which alliances
form—the process which leads ultimately (in successful cases) to team
reasoning. Solidarity is the process of alignment with others to form a
unified action-taking entity—a team.10
This definition of solidarity allows labeling acts performed in
alignment with just one other individual as an act of solidarity, because it
takes only two to make a ‘we.’ A critic, however, might insist that solidarity
must involve larger numbers than this (even if indefinite)—it must be able
to go where ‘love and generosity tend to dissolve’ (Anrsperger and
Varoufakis 2003). But, while I agree that solidarity must be able to go
there, I must also insist that it can also stay closer to home. When one
parent takes sides, on principle, with the other parent, against a child’s
wishes, this is solidarity. It is born out of a concern that parents should
present a united front, and not be subject to a child’s attempts to divide
and conquer. They are acting as a ‘we’ that must maintain itself as a ‘we’
for good reasons. Solidarity, then, is a strategy that must be described in
terms of something like sides or perspectives—some ‘we’.11
Arnsperger and Varoufakis (2003), working through some of this same
territory with slightly different instincts, insist upon seeing to it that
solidarity is made larger than this. They insist that solidarity should come
out as a form of selfless generosity that selects its target simply on the basis
of some condition of disadvantage or affliction without regard for the
identity of the beneficiaries—whether or not one takes a personal interest
in their welfare. The motivational force experienced by the benefactor
9 Bacharach (1999, 2006), Hurley (1989), Searle (1990), Sugden (1993) each offer a
variation on this theme.
10 Development of the notion of team reasoning has been given impetus in the work of
Michael Bacharach (see especially Bacharach 2006) and Robert Sugden (2003).
11 This feature of our conception lends itself to defense of the thesis that the personal is
very often political, as will come out below.
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must not be born of special characteristics of members of the group
identified by this condition, and should instead have everything to do with
that condition itself that happens to bind them together. (Of course,
solidarity may also coexist with sympathy and other forms of altruistic
motivation, but these latter—according to Ansperger and Varoufakis—
must be independent forces, and so potentially even additive.) And so
Arnsperger and Varoufakis might be viewed as endorsing the idea that
solidarity is action-readiness born out of a conception of the target
beneficiaries as members of a group whose interests are worth advancing,
even if (or perhaps better yet, because) it is not a group of which I am a
member. And the benefactor’s ability to see themselves as forming a ‘we’
with the target of beneficence has nothing to do with it.
Solidarity, on this conception, is an altogether lofty thing, hardly
modest from a moral point of view, if perchance not uncommon. I, by
contrast, view solidarity as extraordinarily plebeian, and even prior to
self-serving motivation. Where Arnsperger and Varoufakis are prepared
to regard charitable giving—to medical research for instance, or victims
of war or natural disaster, even giving by the ‘winners’ in a lottery to
‘losers’—as a form of solidarity, I regard such kindnesses as acts of
charity, as acts of altruism proper, not as acts of solidarity, unless (and
especially in the case of giving to lottery losers, rather doubtfully) they
are born also of a conception of the relevant individuals as a ‘we’.
Solidarity, on my view, is best contrasted with action-readiness as a solo
entity operating as an ‘I’. This contrast will raise issues of another kind,
as will soon become clear.
It will help to draw on work in experimental economics here to
illustrate further the differences between the present conception of
solidarity and that of Arnsperger and Varoufakis. In a famous study
conducted in the 1970’s, Richard Titmuss (1971) argued that a purely
donational system for procuring blood is superior to a system that relies
on a combination of donation plus a market. Comparing the American
and British systems, he demonstrated that the system of donated blood
(British) is superior in quality to the system that augments donated with
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
73
purchased blood (American), at least in part because blood sellers have a
reason to conceal their illnesses while donators do not. He also argued, to
the surprise of many economists, that a system of altruistic donation for
blood is more efficient than a market system. He claimed that the
introduction of blood markets ‘represses the expression of altruism [and]
erodes the sense of community …’ (Titmuss 1971, 134). If blood is widely
regarded as at least potentially a commodity suitable for market exchange,
then some of those who would have donated when doing so was regarded
as a gift—indeed the gift of life—will decline to donate. Therefore, there is
no guarantee that addition of market will increase the supply of blood;
indeed, Titmuss predicted that the net result of introducing a market in
blood in England would be less blood, and of inferior quality.
In a more recent study, Bruno Frey and his collaborates (1997)
observed that residents of a certain Swiss town identified as a site for a
potential nuclear waste facility expressed less willingness to accept local
siting of the facility when they were offered monetary compensation.
Frey (1998) offers the explanation that there was a ‘crowding-out’ effect
of the offer of incentives—it reduced the people’s sense of control over
their choices and damaged their self-esteem. Elizabeth Anderson (2000)
offers a more compelling analysis. She says that the offer of
compensation changed the perceived relationship of the residents to
their federal government, changing the ‘practical identity’ they assumed
in deliberations over the facility. In originally asking the residents to
accept the facility without compensation, the Swiss government had been
appealing tacitly to them as citizens, encouraging the framing of the
decision as a member of a body charged with determining where—and
there must be some where—to locate the facility. When the government
turned and offered a compensation package, it represented their interest
in waste-free environment as a right whose violation required
compensation. Anderson’s contention is that the second framing of the
decision made the citizens feel less responsible for resolving the problem
of locating the waste facility, and so less prepared to take on part of the
burdens of finding a solution.
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While the Arnsperger-Varoufakis conception of solidarity might serve
certain purposes well enough by marking both blood donators (in the
first example) and nuclear power builders (in the second) as altruistic, it
will fail to take seriously Anderson’s diagnosis of the Swiss example. She
claims that compensation actually changes a citizen’s perspective vis-à-vis
bearing a potential civic burden. And this, in our view, is just to say that
a citizen will not view the bearing of a burden as altruistic, because the
body that receives the benefit is not an Other. Anderson’s diagnosis
requires the third analytical category for which we are now providing a
conceptual basis: the category of the citizen or group member who
stands joined in action-readiness to other citizens or group members, as
part of a ‘we’. It is a conception whose time has come.
Motivation
Nowadays, the conception of a ‘Common Mind’ enjoys both friends and
foes, counting Pettit (2003), Gilbert (2004) and Wilson (2004) as friends,
and Rupert (2005) as a foe. Friends and foes alike focus upon the
question of whether groups can be correctly said to share, as one unit,
something deserving of the label ‘mental state’, by which is meant a
representational state, a state with propositional content. Accordingly,
the contents of policy statements or legal opinions are considered the
best candidates for group mental states. As we discussed earlier, no
scholar prior to this ‘cognitivist’ era ever cared about group mentality in
terms of the propositions or even the general sentiments around which
individuals come together to form groups; primarily because they were
not interested in ‘nonorganic’ confederations. Instead, these thinkers
were concerned with what held people together in enduring social
relationships. They were concerned with the adhesive that holds people
together in organic entities that end up taking action together, because of
the ways that they have taken up residence together. And they—rightly—
believed that this has little or nothing to do with the propositions to
which they adhere, and more to do with non-propositional features—
motivational features, as we might now say—of their psyches. The
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
75
sociologists in particular were keen to produce analysis of that which
makes motivational wholes (families, villages, ethnic groups) hold
together, rather than strictly with analyzing a sterile intellectual likemindedness. They wanted to say what renders an association a system too,
in addition to rendering it a loose confederation.
Collingwood’s ideas are especially apt on this topic. He held that when
people are not so much agreed on things as simply take certain features of life
for granted, this results in their simply observing certain boundaries for
their mental cogitations—the contents of their individual minds will be
regulated thereby (Collingwood 1927). For example, a peasant in a
medieval society simply never considers whether to pull up stakes and
move to a village in a neighboring principality, however advantageous to
his or her personal life this move might prove to be. And so, according to
Collingwood, people so regulated by a frame of mind are correctly said to
share a mind among themselves. (Indeed the English language recognizes
the fact that conditions of mind are indeed ‘framed’ in the phrase ‘frame
of mind’ itself.) Depending on the nature of this framing, it will either
constrict or enlarge their collective lives in much the same way that a
frame enlarges or constricts the painting within its embrace. A frame
signposts the sorts of thoughts its frames are liable to hold, the sorts of
proposals they are liable to entertain seriously, and so on; it signposts the
boundaries of their (individual) consciousnesses. Contemporary cognitive
psychologists (Nisbett 2003; cf. Heine 2008, chap 9) do indeed agree with
this idea, even as they distinguish styles of thought prevailing in different
cultures—for example, analytical in the Western descendants of
eighteenth and nineteenth century European societies, and holistic among
East Asians. They might indeed consent to Collingwood’s notion that the
individualist quest for freedom, in our current era, results in the
decoherence of modes of thought—the aesthetic, religious, scientific
modes—that originally cohered much more closely in medieval times and
do still in contemporary collectivistic society.
A word of caution is in order: a Common Mind is decidedly not a
single consciousness. A Common Mind is in no way a Jungian collective
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Mariam Thalos
Unconscious, complete with archetypes. Use of the notion of ‘mind’ in
the phrase ‘the Common Mind’ is decidedly metaphorical. It is much
closer to the notion of a zeitgeist, a ‘spirit’ of the times. By the same
token, to say that something is ‘in the air’ is to say that there is a
preponderant or prevailing or dominant tendency for thinking on the
ground, as distributed in the relevant population, to bear a certain
intellectual, political, or social feature or aspect.
Thus Durkheim’s original idea comes alive once more: a certain form
of solidarity issues from homogeneity in society—which results also in a
certain sort of Common Mind, when people feel connected through
similar work, educational and religious training, and lifestyle. But with
an increasingly baroque division of labor, and therefore increasing
diversity, this sense of commonality dissolves. And, to the same extent,
people experience themselves as individuals distinct from others whose
concerns and lifeways are not always overlapping, not always consonant
within their mental lives; and so to this same extent they will bear the
burden of individual responsibility for their behavior and opinion—in
other words, for having individual, as contrasted with Common, opinion.
If this is right, and I would contend that it is, then it becomes clear
that commonality of mind is an effect, and not the cause, of such
solidarity as there might be in society. And so it is wrong to look for it in
common thought, just as it is wrong to look for it in shared feeling. The
cause, assuming it exists, is already in what frames mind: it lies already in
the motivational structures that ultimately frame people’s lifeways. A
baroque division of labor (in the economic sense—and such as our global
economy surely instances) has everything to do with what we do
intellectually, and the individual opinions we end up espousing. And
division of labor in the economic sense has everything to do with
motivations. So it is the motivational, rather than representational or
affective, aspects of mind that make all the difference for solidarity. This
is the new insight behind academic revivals of the notion of solidarity,
but it is already firmly and pervasively rooted in classical sociology.
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
77
Solidarity and Incentives
Social scientists had always been aware that individuals in groups often
dig themselves into patterns of collectively self-defeating behaviour. Paul
Samuelson’s ‘The Pure Theory of Public Expenditure’ (1954), Garrett
Hardin’s ‘The Tragedy of the Commons,’ (1968), and Mancur Olson’s
The Logic of Collective Action (1965), had all provided very clear examples
of cases where the mere existence of a common interest among
individuals nevertheless failed to provide appropriate incentives for
performance—and indeed was the basis for some disincentive to
perform such actions. This is due to the collective nature of the problem.
The Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD) structure of game theory (see Figure 1a)
captures the point.
(a)
(b)
Figure 1: The Prisoners’ Dilemma. Figure (1a) is the standard representation: if
both players choose ‘cooperate’, they each come out ahead, and their total is higher
than in any other combination of plays; if one cooperates but the other ‘defects’, the
defector makes out much better while the cooperator loses more than in any other
outcome; to protect against exploitation, players can choose `defect’, because that
guarantees they will not realize their worst outcome; ironically, their sum total here
is lowest of all. Still, Defect-Defect is the standard solution to the PD, since Defect
dominates Cooperate for each player. Figure (1b) represents Cooperate-Cooperate
as a collaborative outcome, and so suggests a different set of strategies and a
different set of rationales, as described in the text.
What the
model of
collective
where a
PD game matrix does
an incentive structure
action in, for example
more naïve theory of
is to provide a simple yet powerful
that is diagnostic of the failures of
very prominently, commons tragedies,
incentives would miss out on the
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Mariam Thalos
conflicting interests that plague individual agents. For example,
traditional theories of democratic politics, utilizing the notion of an
‘interest group,’ take it for granted that individuals who share a common
interest, particularly when they are organized, also have an incentive to
promote that interest, by lobbying politicians, funding research, and so
on. Mancur Olson’s (1965) analysis, using the prisoner’s dilemma model,
illuminates the fact that the existence of such a common interest just as
often generates a free-rider incentive: true, individuals would benefit
from acting to promote that interest, but (more importantly) they would
benefit even more by sitting back while other such interested parties as
there might be act to promote that interest in their place. Since this
might be true for every member of a ‘latent’ interest group, it might well
turn out that not a single one of the membership of such a group acts to
promote the shared interest.
And so incentive structures do indeed have a great deal to do with
motivation, and hence with the extent of helping behavior. The
structures illuminating the conflict of interest are diagnostic of failures of
collaboration. But—and now this is the important point for our
purposes—they are overdiagnostic: if we use the PD as the sole
diagnostic of motivation in a situation with a PD-like structure, we are
likely to misdiagnose the extent of failures to collaborate. The PD device
employed in isolation will frequently underpredict the extent to which
prisoners’ dilemmas are actually overcome in real life; for there is much
more cooperation and failure to ‘defect’ than the rational choice model
can predict.12 While there is less cooperation than is predicted by
‘interest group’ models, there is more than is predicted by the so-called
‘rational choice’ models in which PD structures are typically featured. By
and large, people do not act as monolithic interests blocs, but neither do
they behave as rugged individualists either. There is a middle ground,
on which individuals contemplate their motivations and subsequently
12 A meta-analysis by Sally (1995, 62) reveals that summing across all 130 Prisoner’s
Dilemma experiments carried out between 1958 and 1992, the proportion of subjects
choosing B over A is 47.4 per cent.
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
79
choose according to illuminations provided by reflections upon their
loyalties.
In the middle ground, which we are now seeking to occupy, the
question of motivation is treated as an open question (by the choosing
entities) and as an empirical matter (by the theorists who study them).
The question to be addressed is this: To what extend are the agents on
the ground pursuing goals individually, and to what extent collectively?
In occupying the middle ground, research would explain the extent to
which there is (full or partial) merger of motivation/agency in some cases
but not others. The present account, for example, allows for coalescing
of agencies under a variety of—but not all—conditions. In very general
terms, the model is committed to the following analysis: where there is
solidarity, there will be more cooperation than individualistic models
would indicate, even if it is not as much as interest group models would
predict. The contrast between the middle ground and the now-standard
game-theoretical construal of the prisoners’ dilemma is depicted in
Figure 2.
(a)
(b)
Figure 2: 2x2 decisions. (a) represents a situation in which no bonding is
considered; (b) represents a potential for bonding.
Figure 2a treats both individuals in the PD as separate and inalienably
independent sites of agency. By contrast, Figure 2b identifies a potential
route whereby the individuals operate collectively, and thus find a route
to a positive, but decidedly interdependent (collaborative) outcome. But
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Mariam Thalos
this does not rule out the possibility of acting individually for each. The
rationale for the model of Figure 2b is now as follows.
Nothing dictates that a player must construe the choice in the
original statement of the PD (the ‘word problem’ that conveys the
payoff matrix) as a decision for individuals or for collectives. Thus a
player might conceivably construe him or herself as part of a collective,
receiving only a portion of an interdependently ‘negotiated’ payoff—as
depicted in Figure 1b. In Figure 1b, the payoffs are linked, indicating a
lump paid to the collective, rather than a separate payment to the
individuals. In other words, nothing about the original PD as stated
rules out the following (collective-minded) thought from prevailing: ‘I
can either construe this situation as a problem for me, or alternatively
as a problem for the entity consisting of myself and my partner in play.
Since I’m a social entity, and in addition a civic-minded person, I will
construe it in the latter way.’ And so nothing whatever dictates that a
player in the PD must construe her dilemma as either under Figure 2a
or Figure 2b. A certain cast of mind or self-conception, or a prevailing
cultural norm, can help frame a player’s decision (for instance, as to
whether or not to be a good citizen), but this framing need not be
construed (by theorist or player) as calculated to achieve some further
goal; as such, it is not subject to evaluation as rational or irrational
within the parameters usually discussed in rational choice modeling.
An imaginative person might initially construe the problem both ways
at the same time, or first in the one way and then in the other. In some
cases, a wise agent might resist the ‘civic-minded’ construal, in others
embrace it.
Superimposing Figures 2a and 2b onto 1a and 1b helps to illustrate
further the point I am trying to make (see Figures 3a and 3b). Interestgroup theories do not articulate clearly enough the rationale for choosing
‘cooperation’ in PD-like cases. By contrast, theorists who model a situation
exclusively via 2a, are committed to the view that agency is always and
everywhere an individual proposition; they will underpredict the extent of
cooperation on the ground. More problematically, they will label
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
81
individuals who select ‘cooperate’ as irrational. Whereas my model would
embrace the use of both Figures 2a and 2b, arguing that in any PD-like
structure there are sure to be some who choose according to 2a and those
who do so according to 2b. And the precise mix between the two is most
emphatically an empirical matter. And, importantly, neither is irrational.
(a)
(b)
Figure 3: Figure 2 (a and b) superimposed upon Figure 1 (a and b).
The suggestion that a player in a true PD might rationally cooperate is,
to certain prominent game-theoretical minds, little short of apostasy. It
can only proceed, as Ken Binmore (1994, 114) writes, from ‘the wrong
analysis of the wrong game.’ For, according to Binmore, it follows from
the very meaning of the notion of ‘payoff’ taken together with the
fundamental game-theoretic conception of rationality that a rational
player in a PD must choose ‘defect’, and hence if a rational player does
not do so, it was never a PD in the first place. The idea that players in a
PD might give some pride of place to the benefits and burdens borne by
a group, adding in payoffs not reflective of their individual concerns—as
implied by the suggestion I have been making that an agent might well
construe their options as depicted in Figure 3b—would suggest to
Binmore and others that players in the game I am describing do not
perceive themselves to be playing a true PD.
To explain why players in real-life experiments (both in and out of
the laboratory) frequently choose ‘cooperation’ when faced with
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dilemmas whose material payoffs accord with the PD, many strategies
have been devised that involve the transformation of material payoffs
into utilities whose structure deviates from the PD sufficiently as to make
the observed behavior consistent with the game-theoretic solutions.13
Specific implementations of this include ascribing to players a dislike of
or aversion to inequality, or ascribing to players a liking for
reciprocation (or retaliation); either way, the result is a boost in
subjective attractiveness (i.e., payoffs), to the relevant players, of
cooperative outcomes.14 The move to considering these ‘psychological
games,’15 in which the attractiveness (the payoffs) of the outcomes to
individual players is modulated by how the players construe other
players expectations and construals of their own behaviors, is akin to the
role that prophecy plays in pure coordination games with an
insufficiency of common knowledge: if I have to choose a place to meet
you in (say) New York City, but I am unable to communicate with you,
then I am very well served by a ‘prophecy’ to the effect that the two of us
are quite capable of ‘reading’ the other’s mind; such prophecies can be
self-fulfilling, but only if we are prepared to act as if they are.
I want here to be crystal clear about the achievements of the ‘civicminded thought’. It succeeds in doing just exactly what Binmore names:
a transformation of utilities in the original ‘word problem’ to a particular
construal of the problem—namely, from the matrix of Figure 2a to that
of Figure 2b. (And typically in a prophetic way, just like my ‘prediction’
to the effect that we are able to read each other’s minds when trying to
coordinate upon a meeting place in NYC.16) But what I am contending is
that the transformation brings about the construal of the problem as
13 A useful cross section of this literature is surveyed in Hargreaves-Heap and Varoufakis
(2004, chapter 7).
14 For specifics, see for example Fehr and Schmidt (1999), Bolton and Ockenfels (2000)
and Rabin (1993).
15 The label comes from Hargreaves-Heap and Varoufakis (2004).
16 Concerning the much-discussed cases of equilibrium selection, and refinements to the
Nash Equilibrium concept in their wake, there is an enormous literature. For a succinct
critical review of this literature, see Hargreaves-Heap and Varoufakis (2004, chapter 3).
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
83
under the structure of matrix 1b rather than that of 1a—a very minor
transformation, for there are no changes at all to the utility matrix or to
the structure of the temporal dynamics (that could make the problem
iterated, for example). The main difference between the two matrices is
that in the second, the utilities are not just ordered pairs, but conjoint
pairs—viewed as the outcome for the collective (there being a collective in
existence, when once the civic-minded self-fulfilling prophecy has been
performed), whereas there is no outcome for the collective in the first
matrix, there being no collective in existence in the corresponding
context.
The point needing emphasis is now this: while I am prepared to
concede that the solution to a true PD is defection, and assuming Binmore
would concede that the solution to the game of Figure 1b is mutual
cooperation, the bone of contention between us concerns how to describe
a real-life dilemma as to whether they are true PDs or not. Binmore just
seems to assume that external circumstances dictate whether the players are
playing the game of Figure 1a or that of Figure 1b—and that consequently
a researcher could manipulate the situation to put players into either
game—determinately. I am denying this, and urging that players
themselves contribute to deciding whether they are playing the game of
Figure 1a or that of Figure 1b. It is not all up to the researcher;
transformations of games can be effected by players themselves.
The view I am presenting is thus closest to that of Michael
Bacharach.17 On Bacharach’s account, ‘team reasoning’ is fundamentally
opposed to individual reasoning, so that if you are conducting reasoning
in the one idiom, you cannot simultaneously be conducting it also in the
other. Any given concrete dilemma is ‘spontaneously’ framed either as an
individual choice or as a collective one—never both at the same time.
Still, it is rationally open to you to do either. Someone, on his view,
reasons as a team member if she chooses the act (if this is unique) that is
17 Unfortunately, Bacharach is not clear on the point of whether a team can really find
itself in a true PD. His untimely death in 2002 prevented him from completing the sketchy
arguments we find in Bacharach (2006).
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Mariam Thalos
her component of the profile that (as she has worked out) is best for the
objectives of some group (1999, 32). This reasoning, as Bacharach (2006,
121) maintains,
is a basic decision-making proclivity of mankind; that it is fundamental to the
workings of organizations of diverse forms; that it is a concomitant of group
identification; … and that it completes the theory that group identification is
the basis proximal mechanism for successful human group activity.18
Solidarity and Politics
The positive moral value of solidarity is, at least in many cases, abundantly
palpable. A person who experiences himself as joined, action-ready, with a
body or group, will be inclined to promote the interests of that body or
group, and so discharge such moral (and other) obligations as he has to
that group. But solidarity might also work to the moral disadvantage of
that individual, if by promoting the interests of a group he fails to honor
moral obligations owed to persons or groups whose interests are disserved
thereby. Solidarity (when it exists) is a simple fact of agency structures, on
the ground, and for that reason favors a priori no particular moral values
or principles. On the other hand, the questions of whether solidarity
ought to be promoted, and under what circumstances, are undeniably
moral questions—or, at any rate, political ones.
There is a familiar distinction between the moral and the political.
And there is also a familiar philosophical position according to which
political imperatives must rest on moral imperatives, which latter are in
any case more fundamental. This occupation of the philosophical space
creates a kind of puzzle: for if the political and the moral are so related,
what is distinctive about the political? Are we saying anything intelligible
when we are talking about the ‘political sphere’? In this section, I will
offer an answer to the question of the distinctiveness of the political, and
18 There are many points of agreement between my view and Bacharach’s, but many
disagreements too, which I will document in a future work. Our disagreements (for
instance, as to the process whereby players control which game they are playing) are of no
real significance for the question of solidarity.
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
85
in that way make a small contribution to the debate on the relationship
between the moral and the political.
I propose a conceptual innovation: the arena of politics is, distinctively,
the arena in which interactions amongst collective bodies, formed through
relations of solidarity, interact with one another as well as with individuals.
In the past the term ‘politics’ was used to refer, vaguely, to ‘arenas of
power’, conceived as consolidation of force or its monopolies, or influence
thereupon, where groups manage to ‘take decisions,’ ‘enact laws and
conventions,’ and interact via a rigid, ‘formalized system of transactions.’
But all of these terms are as apt in relation to nonpolitical transactions
(such as, for example, in simple business dealings between individuals, or
even in family affairs) as they are in relation to what is considered
distinctively political. I therefore propose that the term ‘politics’ should be
used to refer exclusively to that realm where solidarity, founded
specifically upon identificational bonding, is prominent and a force to
reckon with. (And notice: to say that politics is the arena where solidarity is
a fact to be reckoned with is by no means another way of saying that it is
the arena of power brokerage: power and bonding do not always go
together, for power is by no means the sum of persons on one’s side, as a
naïve democratic notion might have it. Indeed, one is tempted to say that
bonding occurs more frequently among those who enjoy less power, as a
means of bringing into existence an entity that wields power in their
service.) And this conception of the political steers a neutral course vis-àvis the question of whether political imperatives must rest on more
fundamental moral ones, but it allows the debate on that matter to
proceed with rather more clarity.
If politics is the realm where solidarity, founded specifically upon
identificational bonding, is prominent and a force to reckon with, then,
particularly in politics, the ability to respond to collective responsibility
and collective culpability will be crucial. This is something that
contemporary society is still painfully lacking, and especially so in cases
of espionage and wartime atrocities. As things now stand, there is no
basis in international law for bringing forward criminal charges against a
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Mariam Thalos
state, or an administrative unit thereof. (After World War II, there
existed no pragmatic reason—and perhaps no political will either—to
prosecute the Nazi regime, or any of its entities—for example, the
Gestapo—for crimes against humanity, since these entities had
effectively been dissolved already.) That there is no international
precedent for the criminal prosecution of collectivities is ultimately
explained by the fact that the twin notions of collective agency and
collective culpability have not been sufficiently utilized in legal
proceedings against such entities. Rather than assigning culpability to
these kinds of collectivities, we have too often been satisfied with
schemes that place the burden of responsibility squarely upon individual
shoulders: neither the charge of treason nor that of espionage can be
brought against a state or an administrative unit of a state. This is not a
satisfactory state of affairs. But to make progress on improving our
capacity for handling corporate responsibility, we need a conception of a
molecular entity, such as is on offer here, that handles collectivized
interest in an appropriate way.
And matters are no different in the area of domestic law. As Erik
Luna writes (personal communication, 2008):
On the domestic level, criminal responsibility is almost always based on
individual culpability—although it can be premised on the actions of other
individuals and even collectives (through concepts of complicity or
conspiracy, and even vicarious liability in some contexts). So, for example,
the CEO of a pharmaceutical company can be criminally liable for
distributing misbranded drugs even if he neither misbranded the drugs
himself nor intended that it be done (see the famous case, U.S. v.
Dotterweich, 320 U.S. 277 (1943)). [However,] there is a (somewhat
controversial) body of domestic law that allows criminal prosecutions of
corporations, with the enterprise itself held criminally liable.
(If domestic law vis-à-vis criminal prosecution of collectivities were better
developed, we might hope for speedier development of it in the
international sphere.) But while solidarity as an analytical category is
obviously absolutely essential to the development of a body of law and
policy in relation to collective responsibility, it will also (but less
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
87
obviously) make contributions elsewhere. So consider the issue of
whether to legalize trade in human organs. This is obviously a political
issue, on which moral reasoning is routinely brought to bear. Societies
sometimes ban the sale of goods and other things whose supply they
might wish to enlarge or encourage (votes and children are obvious
examples). In the United States, sale of organs, such as kidneys, are
currently illegal, and those needing transplants must rely on donation.
How can we think about the public policy questions here, in relation to
the entities they might hurt or harm? A traditional analysis routinely sets
out the policy options, and then examines questions of two kinds: (1)
what is likely to occur on each scenario? And (2) how do the outcomes on
each scenario compare on a variety of moral, practical and economic
dimensions? In the organ donation example, open questions of the first
kind include whether the supply of (high quality) organs would rise
(since Titmuss’ work would challenge the assumption that it would). And
(very) open questions of the second kind include whether we accept the
scenario on which a person’s organs—in addition to their financial
holdings and earning potential—is subject to collateralization.19
If we did not have the tools of thinking about solidarity, public policy
analysts would presumably be restricted to this sort of analysis. But with
19 Satz (2010) argues that, while restrictions on (for example) kidney sales are in some
respects autonomy-inhibiting for certain persons, they may be autonomy-enhancing in
other respects for other people. And this is due to the fact that markets tend to overlap,
and in that way tend to affect people’s choices in other markets too. For example, when
kidneys can be put up for sale, they become potential collateral, and moneylenders may
acquire incentives to change the terms of loans. So:
if kidney selling became widespread, a poor person who did not want to sell her kidney
might find it harder to obtain loans. Ceteris paribus, the credit market allocates loans to
people who can provide better collateral. If a kidney market exists, the total amount of
collateral rises, which means that those without spare kidneys or those that refuse to sell
them, will get fewer loans than before, assuming that the supply of loanable funds is more
or less fixed. In other words, these people are made worse off by the kidney market. If
this is so, then although allowing a market in kidneys expands a single individual’s set of
choices, if adopted in the aggregate it may reduce or change the available choices open to
others, and those others will be worse off (Satz, 2010, 200-201).
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Mariam Thalos
the tools for analysis on offer here we can do more. For example, we
might consider how different policies on markets in human organs give
rise to different constituencies and action groups. How do these groups
(whether they are latent or active, or nonexistent at the moment) affect
the political and moral landscape? Perhaps—as is likely the case—the
very existence of these groups itself has moral dimensions. Is it better
that such groups form, perish or remain latent? Is it a good thing that
such groups be allowed to take action on the political stage? (For
example, it is quite possible that, were it known that persons with a
certain type of blood, or from a certain genetic pool, or belonging to a
certain ethnic or social group, tended to suffer loss of certain organs at
higher rates, persons from that group would feel more inclined, or even
obligated, than the general population to donate—if no market existed.)
Or is it preferable that no such groups ever form, that they always
remain latent or nonexistent? These are questions pertaining to the
long-term health of a community of entities living not only cheek-by-jowl
but also (and very substantially) tongue-in-groove.
Raising these questions transforms the debate from one simply about
rights, liberties and the delights of markets, to one that includes also
concerns about the ecology of agency and the sustainability of certain
modes of social organization. And these debates are ones whose time has
definitely come.
One feature of this transformation will be that no party to political
theorizing can simply take for granted the overriding value of autonomy,
as so much political theorizing in our era has done. The valuing of
individual autonomy as a basic moral and political ideal was very much an
invention of the modern era. It enjoys a fundamental status in John Stuart
Mill’s version of utilitarian liberalism, but is especially prominent in the
tradition of moral philosophy that descends to us through Kant. Emphasis
on an individual’s ability for self-government is a legacy of Enlightenment
humanism, of which contemporary political philosophy (both liberal and
conservative) is itself a continuing thread. As such, it continues to be
promoted for numerous reasons, but especially as a shield against
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
89
governmental tyranny; but, as with many other Enlightenment values,
individual autonomy has not been unanimously embraced. Among
political philosophers with reservations, some worry—and are right to do
so—that promotion of individual autonomy undermines solidarity, which
according to some (particularly communitarian) philosophers and political
theorists, is intrinsically valuable because it enriches human life, while
according to others, it is instrumentally valuable as a shield against
exploitation by capitalists. And so, each of individual autonomy and
solidarity is conceptualized, at least in part, as a shield—the one against
the excesses of the other. The present conception of solidarity explains
this ambivalence, at least in part.
It is initially important to notice that one can speak about autonomy
as a feature of any agent, including a collective agent. (In fact we
routinely speak of the autonomy of a governmental entity under the
term sovereignty.) And so, the relevant issue concerns the relationship
between solidarity and individual autonomy.
On our view autonomy—understood as the exercise of self-rule
through mobilization of reasons and motives that are unequivocally an
entity’s own and not the products of external forces (manipulative,
distorting, or simply paternalistic)—can result (though it need not) from
an absence of solidarity with other entities. And, by the same token,
solidarity with other agents can result from an absence of autonomy
practices among those agents. In other words, the absence of a potential
for either solidarity or autonomy enhances the potential for the other’s
development—this, recall, was Durkheim’s observation. And this, more
importantly, provides some evidence that solidarity and autonomy can
place conflicting demands upon an entity. Still, this does not rule out
conditions under which an agent both (a) complies with a prior
commitment to carry out such decisions as are reached, under specified
conditions, by a body or collectivity to which she belongs—and (b) does so
in an autonomous way (i.e., one that honors reasons and motives that are
unequivocally her own). And so, while we recognize the tension between
individual autonomy and solidarity, we also recognize a possibility for
90
Mariam Thalos
some reconciliation. And accordingly there are good reasons for some
ambivalence about individual autonomy, if conditions do not favor the
reconciliation we envision.
Perhaps the more profound concern about solidarity is not so much
that it stands in the way of an entity’s autonomy, but rather that it might
facilitate exploitation of others, under the pretext that a proposed policy
is for the good of the whole. So, for example, a tyrant might declare that
suppression of certain liberties is in the interests of the collectivity, when
in fact it shields his own criminal activities and advances only his own
interests while eroding the collective’s quality of life. But the antidote to
these uses of solidarity cannot simply be a moratorium on mobilization
of the concept, or promotion of autonomy practices instead. Autonomy,
remember, has its own excesses. And in fact the excesses of solidarity are
better neutralized through a clearer and wider dissemination of the truth
about how lip service to solidarity, as contrasted with genuine solidarity
founded in true concern for the welfare of the collective, can shield a
criminal’s true motives. Knowledge about solidarity’s possible uses can
therefore serve us better than proscription of (all or some of) its delights
as forbidden fruit.20
University of Utah
[email protected]
20 It is a pleasure to acknowledge my indebtedness to colleagues, friends and family who
have stood with me in solidarity. My largest debt is owed to my friend and colleague
Chrisoula Andreou, with whom I share several by-lines and countless conversations on
philosophical topics having to do with bonding—among many other things that have
drawn us together. Thanks to Lije Millgram and Ron Mallon for conversations they did not
know helped me, and to Kim Johnston for diligent editorial assistance. Thanks are due
also to the personae of Nancy Cartwright and Ken Binmore, for inspiring the voices in my
head and the windmills at which to tilt. To my family (Rob, Oliver and Eli) I owe the
pleasure of philosophy, as well as intimate acquaintance with the spirit of activism on
behalf of those who cannot act for themselves. You (Rob, Eli, Oliver) are each in your own
ways embodiments of what this essay is about. Some research on topics of this essay was
supported by the National Science Foundation under grant no. SES-0957108.
Solidarity: A Motivational Conception
91
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