Autonomous agency, we‐agency, and social oppression

Bibliographic Data

ID21395089
AuthorsCatriona Mackenzie (0000-0002-3222-0257, Department of Philosophy Macquarie University Sydney New South Wales Australia, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume61
Issue2
Pages373-389
Publication date2023-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Southern Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0038-4283 • E-ISSN: 2041-6962
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/sjp.12521
OpenAlexW4379142109
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited39

Theories of collective intentionality and theories of relational autonomy share a common interest in analyzing the social dynamics of agency. However, whereas theories of collective intentionality conceive of social groups primarily as intentional and voluntarily willed, theories of relational autonomy claim that autonomous agency is both scaffolded and constrained by social forces and structures, including the constraints imposed by nonvoluntary group membership. The question raised by this difference in view is whether social theorizing that overlooks the effects of nonvoluntary social group membership on individual and joint agency overlooks crucial aspects of the social dynamics of agency. To explore this question, this article first evaluates Michael Bratman's planning analysis of individual agency from the perspective of relational autonomy theory and compares it with a narrative self‐constitution account of temporally extended agency. It then evaluates Bratman's analysis of shared agency and discusses Shaun Gallagher and Deborah Tollefsen's concept of we‐narratives, which extends the notion of narrative construction to shared agency. Overall, the argument aims to show that if we are interested in understanding the social dynamics of agency, it is critical to attend to the way that agents exercise their intentional agency in relation to internalized and external social constraints

Agency (philosophy) · Argument (complex analysis) · Autonomy · Epistemology · Narrative · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology · Social Psychology