Margaret Gilbert
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Margaret Gilbert (born 1942) is a British philosopher best known for her founding contributions to the analytic philosophy of social phenomena. She has also made substantial contributions to other philosophical fields including political philosophy, the philosophy of law, and ethics. She is currently a Distinguished Professor and the Abraham I. Melden Chair in Moral Philosophy at the
University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...
.


Life

Gilbert was born in the United Kingdom, Focusing on Rights: An Interview with Margaret Gilbert
Retrieved 27 April 2018
the second and youngest child of Peter Gilbert, a north London jeweler, and his wife Miriam. The original family name ''Goldberg'' was Anglicised to ''Gilbert''. All four of her grandparents had been born in the
Pale of Settlement The Pale of Settlement (russian: Черта́ осе́длости, '; yi, דער תּחום-המושבֿ, '; he, תְּחוּם הַמּוֹשָב, ') was a western region of the Russian Empire with varying borders that existed from 1791 to 19 ...
in Tsarist Russia (today's Poland and Lithuania). She obtained a "double first" B.A. degree in Classics and Philosophy from
Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
and a B.Phil. and D.Phil. degree in Philosophy from
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
.Focusing on Rights: An Interview with Margaret Gilbert
Retrieved 27 April 2018
From 1983 until 2006, she taught at the University of Connecticut, Storrs, where she was Professor of Philosophy, and is now Professor Emerita. As of Fall 2006, she holds the Abraham I. Melden Chair in Moral Philosophy at the
University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and p ...
. She has been a visiting teacher and researcher at many academic institutions including
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
, the
Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...
, the
University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...
,
Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universi ...
,
Wolfson College, Oxford Wolfson College () is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Located in north Oxford along the River Cherwell, Wolfson is an all-graduate college with around sixty governing body fellows, in addition to both research a ...
,
Technische Universität Dresden TU Dresden (for german: Technische Universität Dresden, abbreviated as TUD and often wrongly translated as "Dresden University of Technology") is a public research university, the largest institute of higher education in the city of Dresden, th ...
,
King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...
, and the
Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS) is an institute for advanced study in Uppsala, Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is ...
, and regularly gives invited lectures in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Gilbert was married to noted philosopher
Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and e ...
and is the sister of famed British historian Sir Martin Gilbert. In 2016, Margaret Gilbert was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2019 she was awarded the Lebowitz Prize for Philosophical Achievement and Contribution by Phi Beta Kappa in conjunction with the American Philosophical Association.


Works

In her book ''On Social Facts'' (1989) Gilbert presented novel accounts of a number of central social phenomena in the context of critical reflections on proposals by the founders of sociology
Émile Durkheim David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...
,
Georg Simmel Georg Simmel (; ; 1 March 1858 – 26 September 1918) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic. Simmel was influential in the field of sociology. Simmel was one of the first generation of German sociologists: his neo-Kantian approac ...
, and
Max Weber Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas p ...
and others, including the philosopher David Lewis. The phenomena discussed include social conventions, social groups in a central sense of the term, group languages, collective belief, and acting together. Gilbert argued that these were all 'plural subject phenomena'. In a summary passage she writes, with allusion to
Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
, that "One is willing to be the member of a plural subject if one is willing, at least in relation to certain conditions, to put one's own will into a 'pool of wills' dedicated, as one, to a single goal (or whatever it is that the pool is dedicated to)". If two or more people have openly expressed such willingness in relation to a particular goal, in conditions of common knowledge, then the pertinent pool of wills is set up. In other words, the people concerned constitute the plural subject of the goal. As an alternative to talking of a pool of wills Gilbert refers also to joint commitment as when she writes: "the wills of the parties are jointly committed" (198). In later work she has preferred the language of joint commitment. Gilbert compares the plural subject to the singular subject and argues, with allusion to Durkheim, that "In order for individual human beings to form collectivities, they must take on a special character, a 'new' character, insofar as they need not, ''qua'' human beings, have that character. Moreover, humans must form a whole or unit of a special kind...a plural subject". In subsequent writings Gilbert has continued the development and application of her plural subject theory. Each of the essay collections ''Living Together'' (1996), ''Sociality and Responsibility'' (2000) and ''Marcher Ensemble'' (in French) (2003) is composed of relevant papers authored by Gilbert. In her book ''A Theory of Political Obligation'' (2006; 2008) Gilbert offers a new perspective on a classical problem in political philosophy, generally known as 'the' problem of political obligation. As Gilbert makes clear in her book, there are many versions of this problem. She addresses the question whether there is something about one's being the member of a particular society that means one is obligated to uphold the political institutions of that society. Unlike most contemporary writers on the subject, she does not insist that the obligation in question is a matter of moral requirement. Gilbert argues that there are obligations of a different sort, and that these that are a function of membership in a political society construed as membership in a particular kind of plural subject constituted, as are all plural subjects, by a joint commitment. Other topics Gilbert has addressed in one or more of her publications include agreements and promises, authority, collective emotions, collective responsibility, personal decisions and intentions, marital love, mutual recognition, patriotism, rights (in particular claim-rights), shared attention, shared values, social rules, and social unity. Gilbert's essay collection ''Joint Commitment'' (2014) contains eighteen recent papers that together address most of the topics in the above list along with several others that Gilbert argues can be illuminated by an appeal to joint commitment. Gilbert's book ''Rights and Demands'' (2018) is the first extended treatment of demand-rights, a class of rights that, she argues, are apt to be considered rights par excellence. To have a demand-right is to have the standing to demand an action of someone. That person is, correspondingly, obligated to the right-holder to perform the act in question. Seeking to answer the question "How are demand rights possible?" Gilbert argues for two main theses. First, joint commitment is a ground of demand-rights. Second, joint commitment may well be their only ground. In this connection Gilbert asks whether there are demand-rights whose existence can be demonstrated by moral argument without invoking a joint commitment, and finds wanting existing arguments to the effect that there are. She also argues against the possibility of accruing demand-rights through the existence of a given legal system or other institution without the involvement of a joint commitment. The final chapter of the book applies its findings to the topic of human rights. In the course of ''Rights and Demands'' Gilbert engages with the work of central figures in contemporary rights theory such as H. L. A. Hart, Joseph Raz and Judith Thomson, and with prominent human rights theorists such as Charles Beitz and Alan Buchanan. She argues that promises and agreements - both commonly understood to ground demand-rights - are constituted by joint commitments, rejecting promise theorists' standard assumption that the obligations most closely associated with promises are a matter of moral requirement. Gilbert's work has influenced a number of theorists outside philosophy including that of developmental psychologist
Michael Tomasello Michael Tomasello (born January 18, 1950) is an American developmental and comparative psychologist, as well as a linguist. He is professor of psychology at Duke University. Earning many prizes and awards from the end of the 1990s onward, he is c ...
.


Selected publications


Books

*''On Social Facts'', London, New York: Routledge, (1989, Reprinted 1992) *''Living Together: Rationality, Sociality, and Obligation'', Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD. (1996) *''Sociality and Responsibility: New Essays in Plural Subject Theory'', Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD. (2000) *''Marcher ensemble: Essais sur les fondements des phénomènes collectifs'', Presses universitaires de France: Paris, France, (2003) *''A Theory of Political Obligation: Membership, Commitment, and the Bonds of Society'', Oxford University Press: Oxford (2006)(2008) *''Joint Commitment: How We Make the Social World'', Oxford University Press: New York (2014). *''Il Noi Collettivo: Impegno Congiunto e Mondo Sociale'', Raffaelo Cortina: Milano (2015). *''Rights and Demands: A Foundational Inquiry'', Oxford University Press: Oxford (2018).


See also

*
Collective intentionality In the philosophy of mind, collective intentionality characterizes the intentionality that occurs when two or more individuals undertake a task together. Examples include two individuals carrying a heavy table up a flight of stairs or dancing a tan ...


References


External links

* http://www.faculty.uci.edu/profile.cfm?faculty_id=5365 {{DEFAULTSORT:Gilbert, Margaret 1942 births Living people 20th-century British philosophers Alumni of the University of Cambridge Alumni of the University of Oxford Academics of King's College London Analytic philosophers British ethicists British women philosophers Fellows of Wolfson College, Oxford Philosophers of law Philosophers of social science Political philosophers Women political writers 20th-century British women writers Women legal scholars