Summary of Part III

Ordinary discourse about groups often seems to treat them as the subjects of attitudes such as belief and desire (§11.1). Realism takes these attributions to be true; eliminativism takes them to be false. Substantive realism takes them not to be readily dispensable in terms of attributions to individuals; synoptic realism accepts them as true but holds they are readily dispensable in favor of attributions to individuals (§11.3). Attributions are getting at different things in different cases (§11.2). So different positions can be taken for different types of attribution. Substantive realism is most plausible in the case of corporate beliefs because they appear to track official policy or decisions, which can be reached (via judgment aggregation procedures) without being endorsed by decision makers individually (§11.4). Even here most theorists endorse Supervenience Individualism, according to which corporate beliefs supervene on the properties of individuals, their actions, and the consequences of those actions. Substantive realism is compatible both with treating the type of attitudes we attribute to organizations and to individuals as the same in kind and with treating them as different in kind (§11.5).