Plural Action Sentences

This chapter provides an analysis of plural attributions of action. It distinguishes the distributive and collective readings of plural action sentences and uses the event analysis of singular action sentences to argue for the multiple agents account of collective action according to which for a plural group to do something is just for each of (and only) its members to contribute (in a certain way) to bringing about one and the same event. It distinguishes different theories of the reference of plural terms and adopts the view that they refer to groups. In light of multiple agents analysis, it argues that strictly speaking there are no collective actions in the sense in which there are individual actions.