Abstract

The contemporary social world is one in which, in addition to interacting regularly with a variety of different individual people, we find ourselves more and more often interacting with entities that we more naturally think of as groups. Thus, in addition to my friends, my co-workers, and members of my family, I also have regular meaningful interactions with my bank, my employer, and my government. It seems correct to call corporations and similar entities groups of people rather than individuals, but in our everyday practices we talk about them as having beliefs, motivations, and goals and as carrying out activities such as thinking, planning, and deciding. We frequently say things like “Airbus and Boeing are...