““these points can be made clearer by calling attention to the deontic status of institutional phenomena. Animals running in a pack can have all the consciousness and collective intentionality they need. They can even have hierarchies and a dominant male; they can cooperate in the hunt, share their food, and even have pair bonding. But they cannot have marriages, property, or money. Why not? Because all these create institutional forms of powers, rights, obligations, duties, etc., and it is characteristic of such phenomena that they create reasons for action that are independent of what you or I or anyone else is otherwise inclined to do. Suppose I train my dog to chase dollar bills and bring them back to me in return for food. He still is not buying the food and the bills are not money to him. Why not? Because he cannot represent to himself the relevant deontic phenomena. He might be able to think “If I give him this he will give me that food.” But he cannot think, for example, now I have the right to buy things and when someone else has this, he will also have the right to buy things.””
