When Two People Become “We”

Imagine you’re sitting in the school cafeteria, and your friend looks at you and says, “Let’s go get pizza after school.” You nod. Now something strange has happened. You both intend to get pizza. But that’s not just two separate intentions that happen to match. Something new appeared between you: a shared intention. You’re in it together.

But what is that “together” part? That’s the puzzle at the heart of collective intentionality. Philosophers want to know: How can two or more people share an intention, a belief, a goal—without there being some weird group mind floating above everybody’s heads?

The Basic Puzzle

Here’s why this is tricky. Suppose you intend to visit the Taj Mahal tomorrow, and I also intend to visit the Taj Mahal tomorrow. That doesn’t make it the case that we intend to visit it together. Even if we both know about each other’s plans, even if we’ve talked about it, the two intentions might still be purely individual. They just happen to point at the same thing.

Something extra is needed for us to really be together in this. But what?

Most philosophers who study this agree on two things that seem to pull in opposite directions:

The Irreducibility Claim: You can’t break down “we intend” into just “I intend” plus “you intend” plus some extra bits like “and we both know it.” The “we” part is real—it’s not just a label we stick on a pile of individual intentions.
The Individual Ownership Thesis: Each person has their own mind. Your intentions live in your brain, my intentions live in my brain. There’s no Borg-like collective brain that forms when two people cooperate.

So we have a problem. If collective intentions are real and can’t be reduced to individual ones, but each person still only has their own mind, where does the “we” come from? How can an intention be shared without some spooky group mind?

Three Ways Philosophers Have Tried to Answer This

Think of an intention as having three parts: a subject (who has the intention), a mode (whether it’s an intention, a belief, a desire, etc.), and a content (what the intention is about—like “visit the Taj Mahal”). Philosophers disagree about which part carries the “collective-ness.”

1. The Content Account

Maybe the “together” part is in what you intend, not in who intends it or how they intend it.

Michael Bratman, a philosopher who’s thought deeply about this, says that when people share an intention, each person intends that we do X together, not just to do X. So when you and I intend to get pizza together, I don’t just intend to get pizza; I intend that we get pizza. My intention refers to the joint activity.

This sounds natural, but there’s a problem. Can I really intend something that isn’t fully under my control? I can’t make you go get pizza. I can only control my own actions. If I intend “that we get pizza,” part of what I intend depends on what you do—which isn’t up to me. That’s a weird kind of intention to have. (Imagine intending that it rain tomorrow. You can’t really intend things that aren’t up to you.)

Bratman has a response: when I form this intention, I’m assuming you’ll form a matching intention. And we’re both tracking each other, adjusting as we go. So my intention includes the idea that we’re in this together, and that’s enough.

But critics push back. They say this is circular: to intend “that we do X,” you already have to think of yourselves as a “we.” The “we” is sneaked in through the back door before the analysis even gets started.

2. The Mode Account

Maybe what’s collective isn’t just the content but the way you intend it.

Raimo Tuomela, another major thinker in this area, distinguishes between acting in the “I-mode” and acting in the “we-mode.” When you’re in the I-mode, you think of yourself as a private person: “I want this, I’ll do that.” When you’re in the we-mode, you think of yourself as a group member: “We want this, I’ll do my part.”

Notice that Tuomela isn’t saying we have a group mind. Each individual still has their own intention. But the form of the intention is different. It’s a “we-intention,” which includes intending to do your part, plus believing that others will do theirs, plus believing that everybody knows this.

John Searle, a famous philosopher of mind, had a simpler (and more controversial) version. He said each person literally has the thought “We are doing X” in their head—and that’s it. No extra relations between people needed. You could even have a brain in a vat having the thought “We are walking together” and that would count as collective intentionality.

This sounds odd. Can you really have a shared intention all by yourself? Most critics say no. If collective intentionality is real, it should involve actual relations between people—not just each person having a private thought about “we.” Searle’s account, critics charge, is solipsistic: it imagines people as isolated minds who happen to have matching “we” thoughts, which isn’t the same as being together.

3. The Subject Account

Maybe the most radical idea is that the “we” itself is the subject—the thing that has the intention. That is, the group becomes a kind of agent.

Margaret Gilbert argues that when two or more people form a “joint commitment,” they become what she calls a “plural subject.” This doesn’t mean there’s a new mysterious entity floating around. It means the individuals have bound themselves together in a way that creates new obligations. If you and I jointly commit to going for a walk, each of us is obligated to do our part, and each of us has the right to demand that the other do theirs.

So when people say “our team decided to…” or “our group believes that…,” this isn’t just a figure of speech. If the group has formed properly, it really is the subject of that decision or belief. The members might not even personally agree with it—they might have voted for something else—but as members of the plural subject, they’re committed to it.

This account runs into problems too. Critics ask: doesn’t forming a joint commitment itself require some collective intentionality? If you need a shared intention to create a shared intention, you’re stuck in a circle. Also, can you really be obligated to stay in a group you joined on a whim? Gilbert says you can’t leave unless everyone agrees—which seems extreme.

What’s at Stake?

These debates aren’t just academic games. They matter for real-world questions.

Responsibility. Can a group be blamed for something? If a corporation pollutes a river, who’s responsible? Just the CEO? All the employees? The company itself? Your answer depends on whether you think groups can genuinely intend things. If they can, then maybe the group itself can be held accountable. If not, then responsibility always lands on individuals.

Coordination. Ever been in a situation where everyone’s waiting for someone else to start? “Team reasoning” researchers have noticed that the standard mathematical model of rational choice (game theory) can’t actually explain why people coordinate—why drivers stick to one side of the road, for example. The model says: it’s only rational to follow the rule if you expect others to. But you can only expect others to follow if they expect you to. It’s a loop. The solution, some argue, is that people shift into “we-mode” reasoning—not “what’s best for me given what you’ll do,” but “what’s best for us.”

What makes humans unique. Some researchers think the capacity for shared intentionality is what made human civilization possible. Other primates are smart, but they don’t really do things together in the same way. Human children, by about age three, naturally form joint intentions. This shared intentionality might be the foundation for language, morality, and culture.

The Open Question

Nobody has fully solved this puzzle. Philosophers still argue about where the “we” lives—in the content, in the mode, or in the subject. Maybe it’s in some combination. Maybe it’s something else entirely.

But here’s what makes the puzzle so interesting: it’s about something you experience every single day. Every time you walk to class with a friend, every time you play on a team, every time you say “we” and mean it, you’re doing something that philosophy hasn’t fully explained. The fact that you can do it—that you and another person can genuinely share an intention—is actually pretty weird, once you stop to think about it.

Appendix: Key Terms

Term	Its job in the debate
Collective intentionality	The phenomenon of two or more people sharing a mental state like an intention or belief
Irreducibility claim	The idea that “we intend” can’t be broken down into just “I intend” plus “you intend”
Individual Ownership Thesis	The obvious but tricky fact that each person’s mental states are their own, in their own brain
Content	What an intention is about (e.g., getting pizza)
Mode	The type of mental state (intention, belief, desire) and whether it’s held individually or as a group
Subject	The entity (person or group) that has the mental state
Joint commitment	Gilbert’s term for when people bind themselves together, creating mutual obligations
We-intention	An intention held in the “we-mode”—as a group member rather than as a private person
Plural subject	Gilbert’s term for a group formed by joint commitment, which can genuinely be the subject of mental states
Discursive dilemma	A problem showing that majority voting on interconnected questions can produce inconsistent results

Appendix: Key People

Michael Bratman – A philosopher who argues shared intentions are individual intentions of the form “I intend that we X,” with mutual tracking and common knowledge.
Margaret Gilbert – A philosopher who argues that shared intentions involve “joint commitments” that create genuine obligations, forming a “plural subject.”
Raimo Tuomela – A philosopher who distinguished between the “I-mode” (acting as a private person) and the “we-mode” (acting as a group member).
John Searle – A famous philosopher of mind who argued collective intentionality is primitive—each person just has the thought “we are doing X” in their head.
Michael Tomasello – A developmental psychologist who argues that the capacity for shared intentionality is what makes humans unique compared to other primates.

Appendix: Things to Think About

You’re part of a group project. You do all the work while others slack off. Whose intention is the group project really? Does the group still “intend” to complete it, even if some members aren’t really committed?
Can you have a shared intention with someone you’ve never met? Say you’re both fans of the same sports team—do you share an intention to cheer for them? What about strangers who both see someone drop their books and both reach down to help—do they share an intention?
Imagine a robot that is programmed to act as if it’s cooperating with you. It says “we” and follows the plan perfectly. Does it really share an intention with you, or is it just simulating? What if it’s a very sophisticated robot that seems to feel committed?
If a group makes a decision by voting, and you voted against it, are you still part of the group’s intention? Gilbert says yes—you’re committed through the joint commitment even if you disagreed. Does that seem right, or is it unfair?

Appendix: Where This Shows Up

Sports and games. When a basketball team runs a play, each player has their own role, but they’re all executing one shared intention. The coach might say “we’re going to run the pick and roll,” and suddenly it’s a group intention.
Group projects in school. The difference between each person doing their own part separately versus genuinely working together is exactly the difference philosophers are trying to capture.
Online communities. Do fans of a show or members of a gaming community share intentions? When thousands of people coordinate to buy something at the same time or to “raid” a website, that’s collective action—and philosophers debate whether it involves shared intentionality.
Juries and committees. When a jury reaches a verdict, 12 people must form a single decision. Is that a group intention? What if some jurors privately disagree but go along for the sake of reaching a verdict?