Worldviews & Identities: How Not to Explain Collective Human Behaviour

Abstract

Worldviews and social identities of agents are attributed with causal powers critical to acts of group violence. But problems emerge when we consider the theoretical details of attributing one worldview and identity to each individual, or a shared worldview to a whole community. Where does one worldview, or type of identity, leave off and another begin? Comparable fuzziness surfaces when we inspect the notion of distinct worldviews as inherently incommensurable, or distinct social identities as inherently antagonistic. Three proposed explanations of sectarian conflict or ethnic violence are analysed, as proposed by Alex Honneth, Walker Connor, and Donald H. Horowitz. As will be shown, it is not facts about worldviews and identities as such, but historically specific facts and contingent circumstances that impinge upon agents’ welfare (as well as their beliefs and values) which need to be examined in order to explain group-motivated behaviour—be it violent, conciliatory, or otherwise.