Course Instructor:Dr. Biswanath Swain

IPM 2012 Batch, Term - IV

ETHICS AND SOCIETY

Individual Action to

Collective Action

‘Human Needs’ Across Physiological (Organic) Needs: Hunger, Thirst etc. Social (Societal) Needs: Affection, Sense of Belonging, Ownership,

Acceptance etc.Micro, Meso and Macro

Moral Needs: Being Trust-worthy, Performing Righteous Action, To be just in thought and deed so one and so forth.

Environmental Needs: Sensitive to the requirement of other beasts/ animals, Sensitive to the elements of the Universe.

Is this list of ‘needs’ complete and sacrosanct? If it is not, can we, at least, have a list of ostensively closed set.

How would it be possible???

If all the needs are psychologically closed.

Psychological States

Need Desire Motive Will Want Hope Aim Intention

But which one is having logical rigor and logical purity?How can we know the same?

Filtering Mechanism

Action Move from the definition of “Action” Action, by definition, is something that is “brought

about Intentionally”. The explicit from of “Intention” is what we name as an

instance of an action. An action is an outcome/ realization of something

which was in an “implicit” form within Mind.

Why makes ‘Intention’ important across all happenings?

Importance of Intention

“…What is left over, if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raised my

arm?”

-: Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations

Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe, 1953, 621, P – 161

Importance of Intention

That bisects the world of changes into two parts.

That differentiates Actions from the Events.

That keeps apart the mere Bodily Behaviors from the behaviors that makes an action possible.

That draws a dividing line between the answerability and un-answerability.

That produces more often moral or non-moral actions than amoral actions.

A Move from I-Intention to We-IntentionA Move from Individual Action to Collective Action

But why? Why is this move Required?

Because…

We are social beings by the very existence.

Where the gregarious instinct is very much there.

We perform Inter-dependent actions, apart from doing our In-dependent actions.

Involvement in Inter-dependent actions by performing In-dependent actions.

By sharing a public place with others under a common goal.

Keeping individuality and individual goal(s) aside, plunging into commonality.

Becoming a part of that shared intention for the betterment of that group where he/she hails from.

But are they sufficient enough to visualize a collective action?

What is/are Missing there???

Instances

Case 1: Realization of the intention of ‘X’ through the action of ‘Y’.

Case 2: Realization of Intention of an Atrocious King through the actions his/her soldiers.

Case 3: Realization of same intention of great number of people at a particular place.

Case 4: Realization of the intention of the country through the actions of Soldiers.

Case 5: Realization of the Intention of a group through the Ignorant People.

How this gap would be abridged?

Key Points

Internal Evaluative MechanismCollective Agential AbilityJoint Commitment

Internal Evaluative Mechanism

Evaluating the significance of goal framed by collective intention.

In the light of Internal as well as External Prevailing Conditions.

Not to be constrained by the external forces. To be done by the ideals of rationality. To deliberate a course of action which is Sensitive,

Sophisticated and Successful. The ‘my-concern’ is to be inalienably tied up with ‘we-

concern’.

Collective Agential Ability

A reasonable match between the content of the intention and Collective Agential Ability to realize an action plan.

There should not be a mismatch between the Collective Intention and the capacity within.

The collective agent i.e., we should realize the magnitude of the goal in relation to the standard agential limits.

Joint Commitment

Commitment is a matter of will to commit to the Community.

Members are jointly committed to one another.

Plurality of individual wills intermingle to form a single will.

A single commitment is committed for the same intended goal.

Members are jointly committed to one another.

Each one is supposedly obliged to do his/her part of the collective action to make it the case that ‘they all act as a single body’.

Mutual reliance and expectation would ensue from this commitment.