The background to my hasty intervention (which I am already beginning to   
regret) is, of course, Margaret Thatcher's famous aphorism: 'There's no such   
thing as society'; one of those self-evident propositions like Milton   
Friedman's (was it he?) 'There's no free lunch'.  
Further back in the intellectual tradition to which Lady Thatcher belongs,   
is a passage with which historians of economic thought will be familiar:  
  
'although we speak of communities as of sentient beings; although we ascribe   
to them happiness and misery, desires, interests and passions; nothing   
really exists or feels but individuals. The happiness of a people is made up   
of the happiness of single persons. . .' (William Paley, Moral and Political   
Philosophy (1785), chap XI.).  
  
Individual football players 'really exist', and they have 'desires,   
interests and passions' that may be gratified by the victory of their team   
over another. The team does not 'really exist', which is why I called it an   
abstraction. Useful, but dangerous when used anthropomorphically.  
  
If, in order to make my (Paley's) point I have to concede 'rationality' to   
dogs, so be it. What I do not want to do is to ascribe it to the pack.  
  
Anthony Waterman