In Searle's social ontology, collective intentionality is an essential component of all institutional facts. This is because the latter involve the assignment of functions, namely "status functions," on entities whose physical features do not guarantee their performance, therefore requiring our acceptance that it be performed. One counter-example to that claim can be found in Carl Menger's individualistic account of the money system. Menger's commitment to the self-interest assumption, however, prevents him from accounting for the deontic dimensions of institutional facts.

The unintendedness of the phenomenon that is to be explained is a constraint visible in the various applications and clarifications of invisible-hand explanations. The article casts doubt on such a requirement and proposes a revised account. To have a role in an invisible-hand process, it is argued, agents may very well act with a view to contributing to the occurrence of the social outcome that is to be explained, provided they see what they do as an aggregation of their individual actions rather than as something they jointly perform. RésuméLa non-intentionnalité du phénomène à expliquer est une contrainte évidente dans les diverses explications par la main-invisible ainsi que dans les clarifications qui en ont été présentées. L'article jette un doute sur une telle exigence et en propose une représentation révisée. Pour jouer un rôle dans un processus de main-invisible, affirme l'auteur, les agents peuvent très bien agir en vue de contribuer à l'occurrence de l'effet qu'il faut expliquer, à partir du moment où ils voient ce qu'ils font comme la simple agrégation de leurs actions individuelles plutôt que comme quelque chose qu'ils accomplissent conjointement.

In his editorial, Nir Eyal argues that a nudge can exploit our propensity to feel shame in order to steer us toward certain choices. We object that shame is a cost and therefore cannot figure in the apparatus of a nudge.

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