Seeing Like A Dean

In _Seeing Like a State_, James C. Scott argues that governments act badly when they see the society they govern in distorted and incomplete ways. I argue that this is also a common pitfall of university management. In particular, I scrutinise a particular way of thinking and speaking and deliberating that arises when the part of the organisation over which the manager has control is too large to allow them to think and speak always of the goals, viewpoints, and values of individual members. In response, managers often begin to think and speak and deliberate in terms of groups—for instance, the philosophy department, the HR division, the student body—and ascribes beliefs, goals, and values to them as group agents. But such attitude ascriptions to group agents are badly ambiguous in ways that aren’t resolved by context. This, I argue, leads to bad decision-making.