Abstract

Many philosophers maintain that an adequate metaphysical theory of social groups (e.g., baseball teams, rock bands, committees, and courts) will be one that is capable of accommodating social groups that may exist despite having no members. In this paper, I examine cases that motivate this position, cases where a social group seems to persist at some time despite having no members at that time. My aim here is twofold. First, I aim to show that we may accept that these motivating cases are indeed possible without accepting that some social groups may exist despite having no members; second, I aim to show that the acceptance of the possibility of memberless social groups comes at a steep, theoretical cost. In particular, I will argue that the acceptance of memberless social groups comes at the cost of effectively preventing them from being the kinds of things that may interact with the material world.