The institutional stance is a welcome and important addition to theories of social cognition, providing a rich account of human social life insofar as it is embedded within rule-bound institutions. I argue, however, that the grammar supporting the institutional stance is not a causal one but a fundamentally normative or ought-based grammar scaffolded by deontic commitments of role-holders. This distinction is important because this normative grammar facilitates practices of holding responsible that mere predictive models would have trouble explaining (I also think that the mentalistic stance is also normative but I set this aside).

As an “intuitive theory” of social structures that “place individuals into roles and reason about their actions in light of beliefs about those roles,” Jara-Ettinger and Dunham suggest that we reason about other people through causal and predictive judgments. This is consistent with what philosophers would call an “objective stance” (Strawson, Reference Strawson1962).

By contrast, I argue that the institutional stance is continuous with reasoning in the “participant stance,” where beliefs about roles are subject to “ought-based” responsibility judgments rather than “evidence-based” predictive judgments (Holton, Reference Holton1994; Marušić, Reference Marušić2017). This is because institution-based roles, rather than merely about people prediction or social coordination, are likely more about identifying and tracking people’s duties and obligations associated with role-based statuses and commitments, and also reasoning about role-holders’ actions precisely by holding them responsible for those obligations (Searle, Reference Searle2010). The expectations created by the institutional stance on this reading are not merely one of predictive expectation enabling reliable coordination, but rather a normative trust-based expectation that role-holding agents will fulfil obligations entrusted upon them.

This distinction matters because we treat other people not as mere objects to be managed or controlled based on predictive expectations but as fellow responsible agents in a shared norm-governed community. Instead of an objective stance, we direct normative expectations and judgments on others as responsible, role-holding agents. Using Jara-Ettinger and Dunham’s example, our interaction with a barista is not merely “broadly similar” to a vending machine, which we treat in a purely functional, instrumental manner. We treat (or better, ought to treat) the barista instead as a role-holding agent whom we trust will follow through on their given duties.

The distinction can be roughly encapsulated by a predictive (or explanatory) “is” and a normative “ought.” The “ought” here is also not reducible to injunctive norms explained in terms of prudential motivations (i.e., fear of punishment), but is instead about robust duties and obligations based on role-based statuses and commitments.

For instance, a person elected to public office who violates ethical standards might suggest a failure of role prediction or a shift towards a mentalistic stance to identify their motives. But we do not merely predict what people holding public office will do nor merely identify what their motives and intentions are. We primarily hold them accountable to role-based standards expected of people holding public office. Even where their past behavior gives us reliable evidence that is highly predictive of nefarious motives and ill intentions, we still think that they should (even if this goes against the evidence) have acted based on the obligations demanded of the role. Here, the institutional stance is less about explaining people’s behavior and us adjusting to predicted expectations. Instead, it is about participating in a practice of holding one another responsible for roles we recognize and commit to.

The institutional stance can, of course, be “evidentialized” based on predictive explanations gleaned from the role. But this takes the observational or objective perspective as operative in the intuitive theory. The likely content of the intuitive theory is the participant’s perspective of taking on and tracking normative role-based commitments. A politician who takes an oath of office is subject to normative standards of honesty, integrity, etc. These normative standards and expectations usually track predictability because we hold role-holders like politicians accountable in fulfilling their duties and obligations. Our robust practices of holding responsibility as such are the main engine that drives what, from an external observational standpoint, looks like reliably predictable behavior. Deviations from role obligations and standards are not merely treated as behavioral evidence warranting further explanation. We also primarily treat them as actions that demand accountability. Prediction is thus likely only an epiphenomenon to the main engine of the intuitive theory, normative regulation driven by responsibility judgments.

Nonetheless, we might also decide to take the objective stance, perhaps in trying to manage or anticipate a situation where efforts at accountability have failed. Evidentializing can perhaps be a proper response to such circumstances. But this, I suggest, takes on a detached, non-participant view of the institutional structure. On this evidentialist view, we treat others not as responsible agents but as variables towards whom we make causal, predictive adjustments (for instance applying “nudge” strategies).

Jara-Ettinger and Dunham also point out that our social cognition is a “dynamic reactive system” which is reflexive in the sense that our conceptualizations of it affects the very dynamics of the system itself. Perhaps taking an objective stance is just one way of conceptualizing our role-based institutional structures. Perhaps this mirrors different approaches to moral reasoning, with the objective stance roughly mirroring utilitarian reasoning and the participant stance mirroring duty-based deontic reasoning. But insofar as the institutional structure gives us an “interpretive framework” that specifies roles with “rule-like normative entailments,” deontic reasoning grounded on a role’s specification of duties looks more apt.

Moreover, there are ways to conceptualize rule-governed institutional structures not as functional mechanisms for coordination but as co-regulated practices organized to scaffold and realize responsible agency (An, Reference An2026; Zabel, Reference Zabel2015). Our conceptions of institutions thus matter insofar as those who inhabit institutional roles are perceived either as responsible agents or perhaps as something lesser. So how we conceptualize institutions, as mere predictive mechanisms for behavior coordination or as normative spaces for relating with and regulating expectations between responsible agents, is also of moral importance.