From a philosophical perspective, viewing cooperation as “joint action” involves exploring the deeper concepts and implications of collaborative endeavors. This perspective deals with questions of intentionality, action, common goals and the nature of collective action. The following section explains how cooperation can be understood philosophically as joint action:
1. intentionality:
- Common purpose: Cooperation means that individuals or entities intentionally come together with a common purpose or goal. They realize that by acting together they can achieve results that would be impossible to achieve individually.
- Conscious decision: Each participant makes a conscious decision to contribute to the joint effort and to align their individual intentions with the goal of the collaboration.
2. agency and shared agency:
- Individual capacity to act: Capacity to act refers to the individual’s ability to make decisions and take action. In the collaboration, each participant retains their individual capacity to act, i.e. they make their contribution on the basis of their own will and their own decision.
- Joint ability to act: When acting together, the individual contributes his or her ability to act to a collective project. The combined capacity for action of all participants creates a joint capacity for action in which the collaboration becomes a unit with its own intentions and actions.
3. mutual influence:
- Interdependence: The actions of the participants in the collaboration are interconnected and interdependent. The actions of one person can influence or be influenced by the actions of another.
- Mutual empowerment: The participants strengthen each other through their contributions. The collective effect is greater than the sum of the individual efforts, which shows the strength of the collaboration.
4. coordinated efforts:
- Harmonization: Joint action involves harmonizing individual actions to achieve a common goal. This can include assigning roles and dividing tasks and ensuring that efforts are coordinated and aligned.
- Unity in diversity: The participants bring different skills, perspectives and strengths to the collaboration. The collective effort uses these differences to accomplish more complex tasks.
5. common goals and values:
- Common purpose: Joint action requires a common purpose or goal that is supported by all participants. This common purpose determines the direction of the joint efforts. The causal relationships of individual purposes become an interacting system – a “cause taking on a life of its own” (Hegel).
- Value alignment: Collaboration often requires that the values of the participants are aligned with the goal of the collaboration. This agreement promotes a sense of commitment and dedication to the joint project.
6. emerging properties:
- Collective outcomes: When individuals act together, the combined actions lead to newly emerging properties that differ from the individual actions. The result is a result of collaborative synergy.
7 Ethical considerations:
- Ethics of cooperation: From a philosophical perspective, the ethical dimension of cooperation encompasses the fair distribution of benefits, respect for individual agency and the moral implications of collective action.
- Ethics of shared intentions: The shared intentions and goals of collaboration often require participants to adhere to ethical principles, maintain transparency and ensure mutual respect.
8 Philosophical theories:
- Collective intent ionality: Philosophers such as John Searle have explored collective intentionality, where individuals ascribe intentions to a group that enable them to act together as a unit.
- Social contract theory: Cooperation can be seen as an expression of social contract theory, where individuals enter into agreements for mutual benefit and sacrifice certain individual freedoms for the greater good.
In summary, the philosophical view of cooperation as “joint action” emphasizes the deliberate, coordinated efforts of individuals or institutions to achieve common goals. It involves a dynamic interplay between individual action, common intentions, coordinated actions and the emergence of collective results. This perspective invites reflection on the nature of collaboration, agency, ethical considerations and how people come together to accomplish more than they could alone.