Abstract
Theories of social behavior include some notion of cooperation. In light of large social institutions such as government, a paradox ensues in cases where the institution in question is oppressive and not enjoyed by the collective of individuals inhabiting such an institution: How is it possible to cooperate unwillingly yet intentionally? Are such individuals complicity reinforcing the regimes that oppress them? This chapter addresses despotic regimes in general and totalitarian regimes in particular by examining the notion of cooperation within these regimes. An analysis of cooperation is offered in which individual behavior in collectives is logically preceded by perception of the social group as either a set with which the individual identifies or does not. In each case, social identification operates over an individual’s social behavior as a reinforcement of the group with which he identifies, or an erosive element of the institution that he finds alien and oppressive.
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Notes
- 1.
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Indeed there are many other types of cognitive accounts, e.g., motor cognition which serves as the foundation of joint attention and cooperative behavior. e.g. Jennerod (2006).
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It is not entirely clear that animals do not have comparable capacities. This is an epistemic question that remains unanswered.
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Because of this impersonal role of being the mouthpiece for the collective, the sincerity conditions are not flouted if the speaker himself personally does not believe nor desire the state of affairs the declaration brings about. For example, it is entirely plausible for a military commander upon following higher orders to announce that the time of attack will be at sunset, yet not desire that the time of attack take place, nor even believe that it will take place at that time.
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I used this example in another paper, Can Status Functions Be Discovered?
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E.g. Nadia Suleyman is an unmarried mother of 14 children in the U.S., eight of whom are octoplets and a product of artificial insemination. The case of Nadia Suleyman has brought her national attention in the United States, but is not the kind of scandal it would have been in the 1950s.
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Stay-at-home-moms form their own societies. Self-imposition of the status is collectively recognized once the person who bears it accepts and embraces the status. The deonticity thereby received would be rights such as joining the clubs, exchange of day care, etc.
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C. Milosz (1990 [1951]) expands the notion of what I call “unhappy” and unwilling cooperation in a totalitarian regime by dividing up such participation into various types. As he points out, the participants in such regimes are for the most part not willing cooperators, but engaging in the upkeep of the institution for a variety of reasons.
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Hudin, J. (2014). The Logical Form of Totalitarianism. In: Konzelmann Ziv, A., Schmid, H. (eds) Institutions, Emotions, and Group Agents. Studies in the Philosophy of Sociality, vol 2. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6934-2_5
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