In several recent papers I have sketched a general approach to phenomena of shared agency that do not involve relations of authority (Bratman, 1992; 1993). I focused, in particular, on what I called shared intention, shared intentional activity, and shared cooperative activity. The basic idea was that at the heart of these phenomena is shared intention – a shared intention, for example, to paint the house together. Shared intentional activity, in the basic case, is activity suitably explainable by a shared intention and associated forms of mutual responsiveness. Shared cooperative activity requires, further, the absence of certain kinds of coercion, and commitments to mutual support in the pursuit of the joint activity.

What are shared intentions? My strategy here was two-pronged. I tried to specify roles distinctive of shared intention: roles such that it would be plausible to identify shared intention with what plays those roles. I argued, in particular, that our shared intention to J plays three interrelated roles: It supports coordination of our intentional activities in the pursuit of J, it supports associated coordination of our planning, and it structures relevant bargaining (Bratman, 1993, p. 99 [this volume, p. 112]). I then argued that a certain kind of public, interlocking web of intentions of each of us would play those roles. This supported my conjecture that shared intention could be identified with that web of intentions of the individuals.

Shared intentions are intentions of the group. But I argued that what they consist in is a public, interlocking web of the intentions of the individuals.