 While the notion of ownership or claim rights is meant to be suggestive of the sort of mutual obligations/contralateral commitments she has in mind, the central explanatory concept deployed by Gilbert is that of joint commitment, which she takes to be  primitive.[37]  A concern here is whether joint commitment provides anything like a philosophical account or explanation of mutual obligations, or whether it merely re-describes them. We get some idea of what Gilbert has in mind by contrasting it with personal commitment associated with individual intention or decision (2009, 180). Whereas one can on one’s own take on and rescind the sort of commitment associated with individual intention and decision, joint commitment can only be formed through a process whereby everyone expresses their readiness, and it can only be rescinded when all parties concur. This raises the issue of the previous section, of how exactly the joint commitment comes into force. Even if everyone expresses a readiness to A together, it doesn’t follow that we all take the plunge and actually undertake it. A further worry Gilbert herself has voiced is whether any condition requiring expression might limit the applicability of her view in giving a more general account of political obligation, something she aims to do (e.g., in her 2006). Gilbert’s view has also been charged with circularity; it would seem that the expression of readiness needed to establish joint commitment would itself be an instance of shared activity and thus presuppose joint commitment. For discussion, see Tuomela 1992, Tollefsen 2002, and Schmid 2014.