Failures of Methodological Individualism: The Materiality of Social Systems

Abstract

So, given one form of ontological individualism, we must look for an explanation of the pattern of attitudes that gives rise to the pattern of actions which, in turn, constitutes the social fact.A familiar way to provide such explanations is to illuminate what would make the attitudes in question rational. This has motivated commitment to rational choice and gametheoretic explanations of social phenomena which are, at least implicitly, individualistic (Lewis 1969 -and his followers;Elster 1982; Bicchieri 2006). However, one need not focus on rationality, if one builds into the picture that there are certain robust patters of irrationality. Thus, some explanations relying on implicit bias, or social imaginaries, as a systematic irrational influence on individual behavior may count as individualistic in the relevant sense (Brownstein and Saul 2016; cf. Medina 2013, Gatens 1996.

Rescuing Ontological Individualism

“…Materialists take these formulations as paradigmatic versions of OI (e.g., Epstein 2015, 21; Haslanger 2020, 1). The question, according to Hindriks (2013) and Di Iorio and Herfeld (2018), is whether they are entitled to define OI this way.…”

“…facts that are not even about humans, let alone individuals. Following Elder-Vass (2017) and Haslanger (2020), I will call it the "materialist" challenge to OI. If the counterexamples are genuine, then OI will have to join MI in the cemetery of superseded philosophical theories.…”

“…Brian Epstein (2009Epstein ( , 2015, in particular, has challenged OI by means of counterexamples that purportedly show the dependence of (many) social facts on material facts-that is, facts that are not even about humans, let alone individuals. Following Elder-Vass (2017) and Haslanger (2020), I will call it the "materialist" challenge to OI. If the counterexamples are genuine, then OI will have to join MI in the cemetery of superseded philosophical theories.…”

“… 5 Sally Haslanger (2020)—a fellow materialist—uses a variety of other examples (from money to food and transport systems) to reach the same conclusion. …”

Testimoniale Ungerechtigkeit gegenüber Menschen mit psychischer Erkrankung in der Gesundheitsversorgung. Eine konzeptionelle und ethische Analyse

“…Da Netzwerke sozialer Bedeutung Teil sozialer Strukturen sind und da die Auswirkungen sozialer Praktiken nicht allein auf die Intentionen und Handlungen von Individuen zurückgeführt werden können, sind Interventionen allein auf individueller Ebene unzureichend (Anderson 2012 ; Haslanger 2020 ). Auf institutioneller Ebene berücksichtigt die Organisationsethik, dass Organisationen ein von den in ihren Strukturen handelnden Personen unabhängiges Eigenleben haben, in dem soziale Praktiken und die Organisationskultur eine wichtige Rolle spielen (Wallner 2015 ).…”