What Are Collective Goals?

We distinguish between a collective’s goal and a collective goal, concentrating on the latter. Its relations to collective intention and action are spelled out. It is shown how a given goal, when additional predicates are ascribed to it, yields collective goals of increasing complexity. Our main task is to answer the question, “What makes a goal collective?” To this end, we will deal with the notion of collective acceptance, and on various conditions of the collectivity of goal contents in terms of the conditions of satisfaction of collective goals. Examples and proofs will be presented to argue for the following theses: We-mode collective acceptance of goals for the group 1) necessarily results in shared collective goals, 2) implies mutual awareness that the goals are accepted, 3) accounts for the collectivity of goal contents, and 4) involves collective commitment to what has been accepted.