The Other Side of Agency

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5813628
AutoresSoran Reader (Durham University, autor de correspondencia)
Año2007
Volumen82
Número4
Páginas579-604
Fecha de publicación2007-10-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaPhilosophy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0031-8191 • E-ISSN: 1469-817X
EditorialCambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1017/s0031819107000162
OpenAlexW2132173688
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas40
Referencias citadas25

In our philosophical tradition and our wider culture, we tend to think of persons as agents. This agential conception is flattering, but in this paper I will argue that it conceals a more complex truth about what persons are. In 1. I set the issues in context. In 2. I critically explore four features commonly presented as fundamental to personhood in versions of the agential conception: action, capability, choice and independence. In 3. I argue that each of these agential features presupposes a non-agential feature: agency presupposes patiency, capability presupposes incapability, choice presupposes necessity and independence presupposes dependency. In 4. I argue that such non-agential features, as well as being implicit within the agential conception, are as apt to be constitutive of personhood as agential features, and in 5. I conclude

Independence · Personhood · Free Will and Agency · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Political Philosophy and Ethics