Page 1

Autonomy, Enactivism, and Mental

Disorder

This book brings together insights from the enactivist approach in philosophy

of mind and existing work on autonomous agency from both philosophy of

action and feminist philosophy. It then utilizes this proposed account of

autonomous agency to make sense of the impairments in agency that

commonly occur in cases of dissociative identity disorder, mood disorders,

and psychopathy.

While much of the existing philosophical work on autonomy focuses on

threats that come from outside the agent, this book addresses how inner con-

flict, instability of character, or motivational issues can disrupt agency. In the

first half of the book, the author conceptualizes what it means to be self-gov-

erning and to exercise autonomous agency. In the second half, she investigates

the extent to which agents with various forms of mental disorder are capable of

exercising autonomy. In her view, many forms of mental disorder involve dis-

ruptions to self-governance, so that agents lack sufficient control over their

intentional behavior or are unable to formulate and execute coherent action

plans. However, this does not mean that they are utterly incapable of autono-

mous agency; rather, their ability to exercise this capacity is compromised in

important respects. Understanding these agential impairments can help to

deepen our understanding of what it means to exercise autonomy, and also

devise more effective treatments that restore subjects’ agency.

Autonomy, Enactivism, and Mental Disorder will be of interest to

researchers and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, philoso-

phy of action, philosophy of psychiatry, and feminist philosophy.

Michelle Maiese is Professor of Philosophy at Emmanuel College, USA. Her

research addresses issues in philosophy of mind and philosophy of psy-

chiatry. She has authored or co-authored four books: Embodied Minds in

Action (2009), Embodiment, Emotion, and Cognition (2011), Embodied

Selves and Divided Minds (2015), and The Mind–Body Politic (2019).

Routledge Studies in Contemporary Philosophy

Time in Action

The Temporal Structure of Rational Agency and Practical Thought

Edited by Carla Bagnoli

Perspectives on Taste

Aesthetics, Language, Metaphysics, and Experimental Philosophy

Edited by Jeremy Wyatt, Julia Zakkou, and Dan Zeman

A Referential Theory of Truth and Falsity

Ilhan Inan

Existentialism and the Desirability of Immortality

Adam Buben

Recognition and the Human Life-Form: Beyond Identity and Difference

Heikki Ikäheimo

Autonomy, Enactivism, and Mental Disorder

A Philosophical Account

Michelle Maiese

The Philosophy of Fanaticism

Epistemic, Affective, and Political Dimensions

Edited by Leo Townsend, Ruth Rebecca Tietjen, Hans Bernhard Schmid,

and Michael Staudigl

Mental Action and the Conscious Mind

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For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.

com/Routledge-Studies-in-Contemporary-Philosophy/book-series/SE0720

Autonomy, Enactivism, and

Mental Disorder

A Philosophical Account

Michelle Maiese

First published 2022

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa

business

© 2022 Michelle Maiese

The right of Michelle Maiese to be identified as the author of this work

has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced

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explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Maiese, Michelle, author.

Title: Autonomy, enactivism, and mental disorder : a philosophical

account / Michelle Maiese.

Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2022. |

Series: Routledge studies in contemporary philosophy |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022000892 (print) | LCCN 2022000893 (ebook) |

ISBN 9781032003160 (hbk) | ISBN 9781032004235 (pbk) |

ISBN 9781003174103 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Autonomy (Philosophy) | Agent (Philosophy) |

Mental illness. | Philosophy of mind. | Cognitive science. |

Act (Philosophy)

Classification: LCC B105.A84 M35 2022 (print) | LCC B105.A84 (ebook) |

DDC 128–dc23/eng/20220225

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000892

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000893

ISBN: 978-1-032-00316-0 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-00423-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-17410-3 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9781003174103

Typeset in Sabon

by Taylor & Francis Books

Contents

Acknowledgments

viii

1

Autonomous Agency: Conditions for an Adequate Account

1

1.1 Introduction 1

1.2 Frankfurt’s Identification Account 4

1.2.1 Second-Order Volitions and Identification 5

1.2.2 Intelligibility and the Problem of External

Manipulation 7

1.2.3 The Regress Problem 9

1.3 Pre-reflective Agency and Reasons-Responsiveness 12

1.4 Autonomy as Relational 18

1.5 Summary of Conditions, and a Way Forward 21

2

An Enactivist Conception of Autonomous Agency

27

2.1 Introduction 27

2.2 Agency, Biological Autonomy, and Sensorimotor

Autonomy 29

2.2.1 Basic Agency, Trying, and Habits 30

2.2.2 Affective Framing, Regional Identities, and the Self 34

2.3 The Stability and Plasticity of Habit 40

2.4 The Role of Social Influences 46

2.4.1 Relational Autonomy and the Socially Embedded

Self 50

2.4.2 The Mindshaping Thesis 54

2.5 Concluding Remarks 59

3

Enactivism Meets Frankfurt: Embracing, Resisting, and

Reconfiguring Habits

65

3.1 Introduction 65

3.2 The Need for Self-Modification 66

3.3 From Sensorimotor Equilibration to Self-Equilibration 70

3.4 Changing What We Care About 75

3.4.1 Virtual Actions and Agentic Skills 83

3.4.2 Equilibration and the Contribution of the

Environment 86

3.5 Authenticity, Regress, and Manipulation: Making Sense of

Autonomy Deficits 88

3.6 Concluding Remarks 94

4

Ambivalence and Agency in Dissociative Identity Disorder

98

4.1 Introduction: Disruptions to Autonomous Agency in Mental

Disorder 98

4.2 Dissociative Identity Disorder and the Single Self Thesis 103

4.3 Extreme Ambivalence in DID 106

4.4 Disruptions to Agency and Instability of the Self 112

4.4.1 Disjointed Affective Framings 114

4.4.2 Is Ambivalence Always a Threat to Autonomy? 117

4.5 Self-Equilibration in Cases of DID 121

4.6 Concluding Remarks 124

5

“Getting Stuck” in Mood Disorders

129

5.1 Introduction 129

5.2 Disruptions to Motivation in Depression 130

5.3 A Depressive Comportment: Inflexible Habits and

Constriction of the Affordance Field 135

5.4 Self-Equilibration in Cases of Depression 142

5.5 Disruptions to Agency in Bipolar Disorder 146

5.5.1 Distortion of the Affordance Field in Mania 149

5.5.2 Unstable Agency and Fluctuating Moods 151

5.5.3 Self-Equilibration in Bipolar Disorder 154

5.6 Concluding Remarks 156

6

One-Dimensional Selfhood in Psychopathy

160

6.1 Introduction 160

6.2 Reasons-Responsivity and Ethical Know-How 163

6.3 Inflexible Agency and Affordance Engagement 168

6.4 Instability and Lack of Character 171

6.5 Self-Equilibration and Relational Autonomy 176

vi Contents

6.6 Concluding Remarks 184

7

Further Implications: Responsibility and Treatment

190

7.1 Introduction 190

7.2 Agency and Moral Responsibility 191

7.2.1 Responsibility in Cases of DID 195

7.2.2 Responsible Agency Among Agents with Mood

Disorders 197

7.2.3 Responsible Psychopaths? 199

7.3 Legal Responsibility, Relational Autonomy, and Restorative

Justice 203

7.4 Promoting Autonomy Via Holistic Treatment 209

7.4.1 Moving Beyond Medication 210

7.4.2 Recovery and Patients as Experts 213

7.5 Concluding Remarks 221

Index

225

Contents vii

Acknowledgments

This monograph expands upon ideas explored in Embodied Selves and Divided

Minds, The Mind–Body Politic (co-authored with Robert Hanna), several past

articles, and my Ph.D. dissertation. It aims to integrate enactivism, philosophy

of action, philosophy of psychiatry, and feminist theorizing about relational

autonomy. Common sense tells us that autonomy is lacking in many cases of

mental illness. Getting clear about what this entails sheds light on the nature of

agency and self-determination as well the disruptions to agency that occur due

to mental illness. This, in turn, puts us in a better position to develop legal and

treatment practices that cultivate and restore autonomy. However, my discus-

sion of real-world implications in the concluding chapter only briefly touches

upon important topics that need to be explored much more fully. My hope is

that this discussion sets the stage for future research. Thanks to Sam Dayson

(my undergraduate research assistant) for helping me find articles to read. I also

am grateful for the feedback provided by numerous anonymous reviewers,

especially those who provided constructive criticism in a kind manner.

Much of this project was completed during the Covid-19 pandemic, at a

time when many of us were struggling with mental health issues. For me,

research and writing provided a much-needed break from doom-scrolling on

social media, television binging, and alcohol consumption. I am grateful for

my friends and family who spent time with me on zoom during the early

days of the pandemic, as well as those who were willing to hang out in the

chilly outdoors in the winter of 2021. I especially want to thank my partner,

Nathan, for being my quarantine buddy and building me a patio. There’s

nobody else I’d prefer to be safe at home with.

1 Autonomous Agency: Conditions for

an Adequate Account

1.1 Introduction

While the term “autonomy” generally connotes self-determination, it has

taken on many different meanings in the philosophical literature. One

approach, which stems from liberal political philosophy, characterizes

autonomy as freedom of the individual to carry on with their affairs pro-

vided that this does not interfere with the freedom of others. Such freedom

of action requires that individuals be free from coercive interference and

have a range of reasonable options from which to choose. This notion of

choice autonomy signifies a political, pragmatic approach; within the realm

of health care provision, for example, it raises questions about whether it is

ever justifiable to subject someone to medical treatment without their con-

sent (Lillehammer, 2012, p. 197). A second approach, obviously related to

the first, focuses on what it means to be a self-governing agent, one who can

reflect on their beliefs, motivations, and actions, formulate goals, and exe-

cute action plans. A self-governing individual who is capable of agent

autonomy is a paradigm example of someone who can enter into legally

binding contracts, participate in market exchanges, engage in democratic

processes, and be held responsible for their actions.

However, the focus of the present project is largely theoretical. In the first

half of the book, I aim to conceptualize what it means to be self-governing

and exercise autonomous agency. I begin, in the present chapter, by dis-

cussing some of the central questions and puzzles widely discussed in the

literature on autonomy, and then presenting some conditions for an ade-

quate account. Then, in the latter half of the book, I investigate the extent

to which agents suffering from various forms of mental disorder are capable

of exercising autonomy. In my view, many forms of mental disorder involve

disruptions to self-governance, so that agents lack sufficient control over

their intentional behavior or are unable to formulate and execute coherent

action plans. However, this does not mean that they are utterly incapable of

autonomous agency; rather, their ability to exercise this capacity is disrupted

or compromised in distinctive respects. Understanding these disruptions can

both help to deepen our understanding of what it means to exercise

DOI: 10.4324/9781003174103-1

autonomy, and also pave the way toward more effective, autonomy-restoring

treatment methods. To unpack these ideas, I draw upon insights from existing

philosophical literature on philosophy of action and autonomy, as well as the

enactivist approach in philosophy of mind. Throughout, I operate with the

assumption that autonomous agency is diachronic and that it comes in

degrees. That is, rather than questioning whether agents are autonomous

(where the focus is on personal autonomy) and attempting to provide a clear

“yes” or “no” answer, I aim to investigate to extent to which their agency

over time is autonomous. During different periods of their lives, all indivi-

duals exhibit autonomous agency to greater or lesser degrees. What is notable

about mental disorder is that individuals encounter distinctive and recurrent

disruptions to agency that make it difficult for them to engage effectively with

their surroundings.

Many existing accounts of autonomous agency point to the centrality of

self-control and the ability to suppress or modify one’s mental states on the

basis of higher order reflection. What Paul Benson (2005) calls “identifica-

tion accounts” hold that agents act autonomously when they act upon a will

that is their own, upon desires that they somehow have endorsed. Such

accounts emphasize that what makes a desire or intention truly one’s own is

that one identifies with it. According to Harry Frankfurt’s (1988) well-

known account, for example, such identification consists in the formation of

higher-order desires to the effect that specific first-order desires be effective

in action. This emphasis on authenticity, and the notion that autonomous

agency flows from the desires of the agent themself, ones that they have

embraced, is intuitively very compelling. On the face of it, such accounts do

a good job of explaining why instances of addiction or mere impulsive

behavior do not qualify as autonomous. However, three central objections

that face identification accounts such as Frankfurt’s are the “arbitrariness

problem,” the “regress problem,” and the “manipulation problem.” All these

worries center around questions concerning what makes acts of identifica-

tion the agent’s own, rather than being a random whim or an action

imposed from the outside. After all, one might identify with certain desires

not because they reflect one’s deepest wants, but merely as an expression of

adaptive preferences. However, given the extent to which human psychology

and action are influenced by social and relational factors, there is a sense in

which all preferences are adaptive. Because a human agent is deeply

embedded in the surrounding social world, their mental states and actions

are very much products of their environment. However, surely this does not

mean that all human agency fails to be autonomous. Both from a theoretical

and practical standpoint, it is important to clarify just what it means to

exhibit authenticity and exercise autonomous agency. Rather than treating

autonomous agency as the achievement of individuals, an adequate account

needs to acknowledge the important sense in which autonomous agency is

fundamentally relational; and it must distinguish between coercive and non-

coercive external influences.

2 Autonomous Agency

In addition, an adequate account of autonomy requires that we exam-

ine the sorts of agentic skills that are involved. Traditionally, self-reflec-

tion and deliberation have been deemed integral or even necessary for

autonomy, and some theorists have failed to acknowledge the important

role of other sorts of skills, such as imagination and perspective-taking.

While I do not deny the importance of reflection and the endorsement of

actions plans, some accounts tend to over-intellectualize autonomous

agency and overlook or downplay the important role of bodily experi-

ence and emotion. We need an account which emphasizes that for an

action to be one’s own, it should be expressive of one’s desires, feelings,

or what one cares about, broadly speaking. An adequate account also

needs to recognize the way in which autonomous agency involves a

responsiveness to changing circumstances, and to acknowledge that this

ability to shift course and modify behavior involves a wide range of

agentic skills, including but not limited to self-reflection and deliberation.

Moreover, an adequate account should acknowledge that autonomous

agency is diachronic and unfolds over time, and that it comes in degrees.

Because autonomy is not an all-or-nothing affair, determining whether

someone’s actions are autonomous requires that we examine the way

they unfold and how they relate to other aspects of their psychology and

circumstances.

Lastly, and perhaps more controversially, I maintain that an adequate

account of autonomous agency should be grounded in naturalistic con-

siderations and engage directly with literature from philosophy of mind.

Specifically, I argue that theorizing about autonomy can be enriched by

insights from the enactivist approach in philosophy of mind. After all,

assumptions about the mind-body relation and the nature of desire, emo-

tion, and cognition shape the way that we think about agency and the

nature of human action. In chapter 2, I will argue that the enactivist

approach developed by theorists such as Thompson (2007) and Weber and

Varela (2002) can provide us with an ontological backdrop and conceptual

tools that not only help us to gain an understanding of the workings of

autonomous agency and its social-relational dimension, but also allow us to

naturalize the concept of autonomy. Enactivist notions of autonomy and

adaptive sense-making, in particular, can help us to conceptualize the way in

which autonomous agency centrally involves the formation and ongoing

modification of habits. Over the course of learning and socialization, human

agents become selectively attuned to particular aspects of their surroundings,

develop a concerned point of view, and begin to exhibit recurring patterns

of engagement and response. Such habits reflect what we care about and

allow for us to engage fluidly and meaningfully with our surroundings, often

without the need for high-level deliberation or reflection. They develop not

in isolation, but rather overlap and become integrated with other habits, so

that they form a bundle; and different “bundles of habits” are called upon

depending on the specific circumstances and situation.

Autonomous Agency 3

These organized patterns of behavior and attention can be understood as

regional identities that simultaneously allow for both stability and coherence

of character, as well as flexibility of response. That is, this dual stability and

flexibility enable agents to both (a) form coherent, enduring patterns of

behavior and attention, and thereby form an identity or character, and (b)

modify the way they engage with their surroundings and other people in

response to reasons and evidence. As a result, agents are able to exercise

autonomous agency and engage with relevant action-possibilities in their

surroundings. In chapter 3, I will propose that these insights from the

enactivist approach can be integrated with some of the key insights from the

Frankfurt-style, identity-based theory of autonomy, and that the resulting

account of autonomous agency meets the conditions of adequacy highlighted

in the present chapter.

Then, in chapters 4–6, I examine cases of mental disorder; these are cases

in which agents encounter disruptions to autonomous agency, and the sta-

bility or flexibility of habit is diminished. Agents with dissociative identity

disorder (DID), for example, encounter conflicting regional identities and

are unable to form a coherent and stable sense of self. This lack of coher-

ence and stability might be understood as a form of extreme ambivalence

that makes it difficult for them to exercise autonomous agency (Maiese,

2016). In depression, agents exhibit diminished plasticity: because they get

stuck in particular habits of attention and response, many available action-

possibilities seem closed off (Maiese, 2018) and there is a mismatch between

what they care about and what they actually do. Lastly, agents with psy-

chopathy exhibit an extremely narrow range of cares or concerns. While

ordinary adults have a wide range of regional identities that they fluidly

move between over the course of their daily lives, psychopaths are one-

dimensional and lack a well-developed character. This one-dimensionality is

directly connected to their lack of concern for others and their exclusive

focus on their own immediate desires. As a result, agents with psychopathy

display impulsivity and are deficient in many of the agentic skills (e.g.,

imagination and empathy) that are required to exercise autonomy.

In the concluding chapter, I consider some practical implications of my

proposed account. My general claim is that while the exercise of autonomous

agency is compromised in cases of mental disorder, the general capacity for

autonomy does not disappear altogether, and our real-life practices should

reflect this. I present some proposals regarding legal accountability and mental

health treatment and maintain that one of the central aims of these practices

is to cultivate and restore agents’ ability to exercise autonomy.

1.2 Frankfurt’s Identification Account

What it means to exercise autonomous agency has received considerable

attention in the philosophical literature. However, my central aim is not to

provide a comprehensive review of existing work, but rather to highlight

4 Autonomous Agency

some of the issues that seem to be central to debate, and then develop a new

way of approaching them. Autonomy is widely understood in terms of a

capacity to guide one’s life from one’s own perspective, and to act in ways

that genuinely express one’s point of view. A natural starting point for an

account of autonomy is individual self-governance: “self-rule free of con-

trolling interferences by others, and without limitations in the individual

that prevent free and informed choice and action” (Beauchamp & Wobber,

2014, p. 118). This general formulation points to two key conditions of

autonomy: (1) liberty, or the absence of controlling influences; and (2)

agency, or self-initiated intentional action. However, some theorists have

emphasized that the satisfaction of these conditions is not yet sufficient for

autonomy. Mere causation of bodily movement by a belief or desire that

someone repudiates or rejects, for example, does not yield autonomous

agency. A person acts autonomously only if they genuinely participate in the

operation of their will, as opposed to being estranged from themself or behav-

ing as a passive bystander. Along these lines, identification accounts hold that

someone’s actions are their own when they arise from, or are incorporated

within, the sphere of what they really care about (Benson, 2005, p. 102).

Michael Bratman (1987), for example, holds that persons take ownership of

what they do when they identify with associated action-plans; Gerald Dworkin

(1988) maintains that autonomy consists in “a second-order capacity of persons

to reflect critically upon their first-order preferences, desires, wishes, and so

forth and the capacity to accept or attempt to change these in light of higher-

order preferences and values” (p. 20); and Frankfurt (1988) famously char-

acterizes autonomous agency in terms of being motivated by psychological

attitudes that are somehow authoritatively expressive of one’s psyche.

Here, I focus on the work of Frankfurt to frame the discussion, though

many of the concerns I discuss apply to other identification accounts as well.

My aim is to examine some of the key objections that have been raised in

order to develop some conditions of adequacy for an account of autono-

mous agency. In my view, the limitations of Frankfurt’s account help to

shed light on the central issues that an adequate account of autonomous

agency ought to address. The main goal of this chapter is to formulate these

conditions of adequacy.

1.2.1 Second-Order Volitions and Identification

To make sense of how an agent takes ownership of their action and will,

Frankfurt introduces the notion of second-order volitions and distinguishes

between mere desires and effective desires. Some desires, such as idle wishes or

preferences, may not be at all likely to play a role in what an agent actually

does or tries to do. These are distinct from effective desires, ones that will or

would move an agent all the way to action, which Frankfurt characterizes as a

person’s will. For example, suppose that I have an effective first-order desire to

work on a paper that leads me to go to my computer and begin writing.

Autonomous Agency 5

Frankfurt would say that this is what I have willed, or is my will, on that

occasion.

However, this is not the only sort of desire that influences how our lives

unfold. Due to our unique capacity for self-reflection, persons like us also

are able to form second-order desires with respect to our first-order desires.

That is, we are capable not only of wanting (not) to x, but also of wanting

to (not) want to x. However, this wanting to have the first-order desire need

not entail wanting that the first-order desire actually be satisfied. For

example, I might want to scold a co-worker, and want to want to scold

them (because I have deemed that they deserve it), and yet not want this

desire to be effective in action because it would involve more grief than it is

worth. A second-order desire becomes a second-order volition when an

individual not only wants to want to x, but also wants the desire to x to

move them all the way to action, to “provide the motive in what [they]

actually [do]” (Frankfurt, 1988, p. 14). Suppose, for example, that Avery not

only wants to get good grades in school, but also embraces this first-order

desire and approves of it as a motivating factor. According to Frankfurt,

when Avery embraces her desire to get good grades, she wills that this desire

guide her conduct and thereby makes it “more truly [her] own” (Frankfurt,

1988, p. 18), so that the first-order desire to get good grades has become part

of her self-conception. Central to autonomous agency, in Frankfurt’s view,

is the ability to structure one’s will through the formation of these volitions.

Frankfurt further suggests that the formation of a person’s will is “a matter

of his coming to care about certain things” (1988, p. 91). Because what a person

cares about will often bear a strong connection to what they think it best for

themself to do under various circumstances, a person often will guide their

conduct in accordance with what they care about. In addition, as Frankfurt

points out, caring can act as a means of integrating the various moments of

one’s life into a continuing history. This is because caring “implies a certain

consistency or steadiness of behavior” and affects the way a person guides or

directs themself (Frankfurt, 1988, p. 84). Various desires will arise and compete

for priority; while some desires are granted preference, others are rejected as

unworthy of satisfaction. When we speak of a person with integrity, we speak

of a person with a “coherence and unity of purpose over time” (Frankfurt,

1988, p. 175). Likewise, when we speak of someone who has made a decision,

we say that they have “made up [their] mind” and organized their desires into

an integrated whole (Frankfurt, 1988, p. 172). This is possible because some of

a person’s second-order desires, namely second-order volitions, are directed to

the determination of precisely which first-order desires are to be effective in

action and thereby constitute their will. According to Frankfurt, when the first-

order desires that actually motivate behavior are ones that the agent has

endorsed by way of forming second-order volitions, the person is self-govern-

ing. The behavior of the unwilling addict, in contrast, is directly caused by their

desires, but “without any supervisory oversight from other elements of the

agent’s psyche” (Hasselberger, 2012, p. 257).

6 Autonomous Agency

1.2.2 Intelligibility and the Problem of External Manipulation

Frankfurt’s account has received much critical attention in the literature.

Can some of the key objections help to reveal the central issues that any

adequate account of autonomous agency needs to address?

Frankfurt’s hierarchical account is “psychologistic” in the sense that

“being an autonomous agent is a matter of having one’s psychological-

motivational life ordered in a formally specifiable manner” (Hasselberger,

2012, p. 256). It also is content-neutral insofar as it sets no limits on the

content of someone’s desires; any first-order desire can result in autonomous

action so long as it is endorsed or embraced by a second-order volition, even

if this desire harms, marginalizes or oppresses the subject. In one important

sense, this is to be regarded as a strength of the account. Denying that peo-

ple’s “most sincerely endorsed convictions could be accurate guides to their

own good” fails to respect them as persons and also is in danger of legit-

imizing coercive paternalistic intervention (Terlazzo, 2016, p. 214). One

merit of Frankfurt’s account is that it does not dictate the substance or

content of someone’s desires, but rather claims that an agent’s psychologi-

cal-motivational life needs to be structured in a particular way in order for

their action to qualify as autonomous. However, this emphasis on structure

generates a potential problem: because an agent need not be motivated by

attitudes that are genuinely good or worthwhile, Frankfurt’s account leaves

open the possibility that even behavior we intuitively would regard as

unintelligible or dysfunctional might qualify as autonomous.

Hasselberger (2012) presents the example of an agent (Wafflemaker) who

has a powerful first-order desire to make as many square-shaped breakfast

waffles as possible and to put them in piles, and also identifies with this

desire: he embraces this first-order desire and wants it to be effective in

action. Such identification provides structural unity and wholeness to his

psychological life. Because making waffles is something that he cares about,

Wafflemaker qualifies as autonomous on Frankfurt’s account. However,

according to Hasselberger, because Wafflemaker doesn’t have recognizable

ends, his behavior seems dysfunctional and we would not be inclined to

recognize him as autonomous, despite his well-ordered psyche. This suggests

that there is something wrong with “psychologistic” accounts of autonomy

that center on the ordering of the agent’s psychological-motivational life.

While I agree that most of us would find Wafflemaker’s devotion to

waffle-making incomprehensible, it is problematic to treat intelligibility as a

requirement for autonomous agency. After all, there are other instances in

which it is difficult for many of us to imagine that anybody would endorse

their desire to pursue particular goals, e.g., training for an ultramarathon or

collecting buttons. That is, while Wafflemaker’s efforts do seem rather

pointless and not choice-worthy, the same might be said of running incred-

ibly long distances or collecting various objects. And just as someone might

attempt to render long-distance running or collecting intelligible by pointing

Autonomous Agency 7

to their benefits or derived enjoyment, the same explanatory strategy might

be employed in the case of Wafflemaker: perhaps he really enjoys making

waffles and putting them into piles; perhaps it calms and distracts him from

life’s stresses. If so, then perhaps it simply is not true that “we cannot

recover any intelligible perspective from which it makes sense to choose”

what he is doing (Hasselberger, 2012, p. 264). As long as the activity is

intelligible and worthwhile from the perspective of the agent in question,

then how can we deny that they act autonomously? As Hasselberger

acknowledges, even highly idiosyncratic and unconventional pursuits can be

made intelligible in terms of their place within a background context of

socially recognized practices. He notes that if Wafflemaker is trying to get

into the Guinness Book of World Records, this turns his waffle-making into

socioculturally recognizable and intelligible behavior that qualifies as

autonomous (p. 269). But why should it matter so much whether a practice

is recognized by others as having some socioculturally comprehensible goal?

In fact, it is problematic to assess whether someone’s action is autono-

mous based on whether it is comprehensible or intelligible simply from the

standpoint of sociocultural expectations and norms. To deny autonomy to

agents who pursue goals that don’t align with the status quo would auto-

matically render various “experiments in living” non-autonomous. Still,

these worries about intelligibility point to a larger problem with Frankfurt’s

account, namely what Ekstrom (2005) calls the “problem of arbitrariness”:

second-order volitions need not have been formed carefully or by way of

sober judgment, and do not necessarily represent the agent’s highest ideals,

values, or standards. It is unclear why second-order volitions, if formed

arbitrarily and without the guidance of careful judgment or common sense,

should confer autonomy on first-level desires. This is especially problematic,

Ekstrom notes (following Gary Watson), given that the second-level desires

could have been imposed by a neurosurgeon or hypnotist. If so, they would

not represent “self-imposed standards of the free person” (Christman,

2004, p. 158), but instead reflect the desires and values of someone else.

Thus, Frankfurt’s hierarchical account seems to require an added condition

that the agent’s second-order volitions not be the result of external manip-

ulation. A purely structural account of autonomy, one with no historical

requirement on the relevant mental states, is counterintuitive (Ekstrom, 2005,

p. 51). It is worth noting that while interventions of neurosurgeons and hyp-

notists are rather rare, more subtle forms of external manipulation or

“brainwashing” are far more common. Terlazzo (2016) rightly maintains that

“the paradigm case of an adaptive preference is one in which a person

endorses a marginalizing norm so wholeheartedly that he endorses it at the

second-order as well as the first” (p. 214). For example, consider the depressed

man who refuses treatment, and also endorses the norm of masculinity that

encourages him to do so; or consider the young woman who seeks breast

augmentation, and also endorses the beauty ideals that encourage her to do

so. Frankfurt’s content-neutral account will say that acting on the basis of

8 Autonomous Agency

such desires qualifies as autonomous, even if associated second-order volitions

have been formed as a result of social manipulation.

Indeed, there are all sorts of cases in which “circumstances can effectively

socialize us to prefer conditions or options that are bad for us” (Terlazzo, 2016,

p. 206), and it is doubtful whether action on the basis of such preferences qua-

lifies as autonomous. One striking, pervasive, and powerful example of such

external manipulation or “brainwashing” is the influence of overdetermining or

oppressive sociocultural expectations and norms (Maiese, 2021). For example,

shared norms and practices within the workplace may lead people to believe

that they should constantly be online and available for work-related commu-

nication via email or instant messaging. Indeed, for those operating within a

workplace culture where important email communication and decision-making

procedures routinely occur beyond regular working hours, any failure to

adhere to this norm will stand out and agents may face increasing pressure to

adapt—at the expense of their home life (Slaby, 2016). These social norms and

expectations can establish top-down constraints that selectively nudge indivi-

duals toward certain patterns of behavior; and they may very well come to

endorse these desires because they want to be “successful” at their job. Such

behavior in the workplace certainly will be viewed as comprehensible and

intelligible by others (in the way Hasselberger thinks is required for autono-

mous agency), and may very well be endorsed and embraced by the agent (in

the way that Frankfurt thinks is required for autonomous agency); and yet,

even though being accessible via email at all times clearly is something the agent

cares about in Frankfurt’s sense, we may well be inclined to think that they care

about it for the wrong reasons. Namely, they care about it only because they

have been pressured by others to have such concerns.

It is not at all clear, then, that intelligibility is a reliable mark of autonomy,

nor is it clear that all instances of self-monitoring or self-policing allow for

autonomous agency. Foucault famously describes “subjectivation” and “tech-

nologies of the self” as “processes through which the self is constructed or

modified by himself” (Foucault, 1993, pp. 203–204) in accordance with coercive

social controls. Consider, for example, the oppressive beauty ideal of “being

skinny” and how many women (and also men) derive rewards from their

efforts to live up to this ideal, despite the fact that it also harms them in

important ways. Obsessive dieting emerges as a “technology of self” whereby

agents “gear” their freedom to an oppressive situation: they not only want to

modify their food intake, but also want for this first-order desire to be effective

in action. And yet, precisely by way of forming this second-order volition and

having it guide their behavior, agents may become “the principle of [their] own

subjection” (Hamann, 2009, p. 51).

1.2.3 The Regress Problem

In order to assess whether an action is autonomous, we need to be able to

gauge whether it results from desires and intentions that are truly an agent’s

Autonomous Agency 9

own. According to Ekstrom (2005), we need an account of what is internal

to the self, and what is external to it (p. 51). However, Frankfurt’s account

faces a “regress problem” that makes it difficult to account for what makes a

desire, intention, or belief internal to the self. Ekstrom notes that on

Frankfurt’s hierarchical account, a second-level attitude can confer intern-

ality only if it is internal to the self (i.e., if it is one’s own). Applying the

account of internality to this state requires a third-level endorsing state; and

what makes this desire one’s own is that one has a fourth-level desire for it,

and so on. Thus, without a separate account of the internality of second-

order volitions, there is a looming regress (Watson, 1975). What we need to

avoid this difficulty, Ekstrom argues, is a “conception of the self which

incorporates our higher-order reflective abilities, yet which is more expan-

sive than Frankfurt’s view of the self as delimited by desire” (p. 53). What

Ekstrom terms a “preference” is a desire formed by a process of critical

evaluation and actively generated in light of the agent’s beliefs, especially as

part of their pursuit of the good. What she calls an “acceptance” is the

endorsement of a proposition formed by critical reflection with the aim of

assenting to what is right, true, and good. Thus, Ekstrom’s account

emphasizes that our character is structured not solely by our desires, but

also by our convictions concerning the truth. Autonomous action is that

which stems from uncoercively formed preferences, and any behavior that is

not preceded by reflective endorsement with reference to a person’s under-

standing of the good should be viewed as animalistic (Ekstrom, 2005, p. 57).

Also central to Ekstrom’s solution to the regress problem is the notion of

“authorization” (p. 58). She maintains that an agent’s true or most central

self involves the capacity for forming and reforming their character. One’s

preferences are “personally authorized—or sanctioned as one’s own—when

they cohere with one’s other preferences and acceptances” (that is, their

critically endorsed beliefs). Since cohering aspects of the psyche are con-

sistent and mutually supporting, they are particularly long-lasting, and also

well-supported by reasons in their favor. It is only these cohering elements

of character for which the agent can mount a wholehearted defense. Thus, if

someone acts on the basis of an incoherent preference, they are internally

divided in performing it and suffer an internal conflict over what they do.

Ekstrom believes that this notion of mental states fitting together, clinging

to, or supporting each other can help us to make sense of what it means to

act wholeheartedly and be free of ambivalence.

Note that unlike Frankfurt’s hierarchical account, Ekstrom’s account is

not purely structural. This is because it poses requirements on the causal

history of autonomous actions and stipulates that the preferences preceding

autonomous action must not be coercively formed (Ekstrom, 2005, p. 64).

Thus, Ekstrom’s approach combines structural and procedural elements.

Because it does not require an agent to form only certain types of pre-

ferences in order to be autonomous, it leaves room for the subservient

housewife to act autonomously. However, as the previous examples of

10 Autonomous Agency

coercive social controls illustrate, it will be difficult to distinguish between

preferences that are coercively formed and those which are truly the agent’s

own. This is connected to a broader worry about Ekstrom’s account: it does

not acknowledge the extent to which preference-formation is a relational

process, and not simply a matter of critical evaluation on the part of the

individual. No doubt it is correct that over time, each of us refines our

understanding of the world, adopts new convictions, rejects others, and

comes to prefer certain activities and ways of life. We do sometimes subject

our motivations to scrutiny, and thereby come to view certain attitudes as

genuine reasons for acting, while rejecting others. However, we also revise

our motivations and change our patterns of thought and behavior as a result

of social influences.

As proponents of relational autonomy have noted, we are not “self-made or

self-sufficient beings who exist in complete isolation from others,” nor should

we aspire to this sort of independence (Baumann, 2008, p. 445). Because human

existence and character formation are fundamentally social, it is difficult to

discern which of a subject’s attitudes are internal to the self, and which are

external to it. If, “for every value, plan, or project endorsed by the self, there is

a set of social influences that can account for why one makes the ‘choices’ one

does” (Barclay, 2000, p. 54), then is autonomous agency illusory? Insofar as it is

situated in particular sociocultural context, “autonomy is inherently hetero-

nomous” (Käll & Zeiler, 2014, p. 118) in some sense. However, this does not

mean that we should give up on the concept of autonomous agency or view it

as meaningless, but rather that we need to recognize the power of social influ-

ences. Moreover, if we wish to make sense of autonomous agency, we need to

account for the way in which some social influences are coercive, while others

are supportive of autonomous agency. The worry is that Ekstrom’s account

does not offer a way to distinguish between modes of social influence that are

(a) constructive and enabling, and (b) more limiting or oppressive.

As I will explore further in chapter 3, social influences are coercive not

because they are external; many external influences are internalized in the form

of bodily habits of action and response that enable skillful and effective action.

This is simply to say that our patterns of behavior and attention are shaped in

powerful ways by the social environment, and that such influence often aug-

ments our agential capacities. Thus, the operation of such influence surely does

not entail that we are incapable of exercising autonomous agency. In chapter 3,

I will argue that social influences are coercive to the extent that they generate

internal instability, operate covertly, and undermine plasticity. As a result of

such influences, agents become “stuck” in particular patterns of engagement

and their reasons-responsivity, attunement to relevant action-possibilities, and

capacity for flexible adaptation all diminish. Agents are unable to revise or

reject habits that they repudiate, or from which they feel alienated. However,

an “intelligent” and autonomous agent is not one who acts independently of

social and material factors that shape, scaffold, and support their cognitive

abilities; instead, it is an agent who

Autonomous Agency 11

critically engages the cognitive tools around them, one who selects,

endorses, and uses effective cognitive tools… and who selectively

incorporates these social, relational, technological, environmental, and

bodily resources into their sense of who they are, what they know, what

they want, and what they can do.

(Cash, 2010, p. 661)

The accounts presented by Frankfurt and Ekstrom are not yet sufficient

to acknowledge the important role of social influences or distinguish

between those that scaffold and support autonomy and those that

undermine it.

1.3 Pre-reflective Agency and Reasons-Responsiveness

Another concern surrounding identification accounts, including Ekstrom’s

(2005) theory of authorization, is that even desires or beliefs that an agent

has not embraced or endorsed may be reflective of their overall psyche and

character. Actions driven by emotions, moods, and bodily feelings, for

example, do often exhibit a notable degree of authenticity. Even if the agent

does not engage in self-reflection or stop to consider whether associated

desires are worth having, resulting action may very well qualify as authentic

and autonomous. But because many leading accounts of autonomy require

elevated cognitive capacities and thereby set the bar quite high, they are in

danger of classifying many obvious instances of self-governance as non-

autonomous. Ekstrom, for example, maintains that evaluative reasoning and

critical reflection are crucial for autonomous agency. In her view, the pro-

cess whereby we identify with and embrace first-order desires must be

driven by critical reflection. Thus, it is unclear whether action that is driven

by emotions or carried out habitually, unreflectively, or on “auto-pilot” can

ever qualify as autonomous according to Ekstrom’s account. And yet, argu-

ably, this sort of action often is highly expressive of our character and very

much “our own.” In fact, one might think that the way we spontaneously

react to a situation shows more about our characters, and thus is “more” an

action of our own, than an unimportant but consciously controlled action

(Weichold, 2018). A person’s spontaneous and impulsive jump into a river in

response to a drowning child’s cry for help, for example, may very well be

more character-revealing than a deliberate and carefully controlled purchase

of a particular kind of cereal. While Ekstrom characterizes behavior that is

not preceded by reflective endorsement as “animalistic,” some of our habi-

tual behaviors are highly skillful and express our deepest desires.

Likewise, although Frankfurt emphasizes the importance of what we care

about, his account seems to be too cognitively demanding. He maintains

that autonomous agency requires that someone identify with first-order

desires by way of second-order volitions and that desires which are not

endorsed by way of second-order volitions yield merely animal behavior.

12 Autonomous Agency

This account may rule out the possibility that young children and non-

human animals (who are incapable of forming higher-order desires) can

exhibit autonomous agency. Indeed, Frankfurt (1988) maintains that because

no animal other than humans appears to have this capacity for reflective

self-evaluation (as manifested in the formation of second-order desires), only

humans qualify as autonomous. However, he provides no empirical support

for this claim. In fact, the available evidence indicates that chimpanzees are

capable of executing intentional action over lengthy time scales (Beauchamp

& Wobber, 2014): they choose where to move in space, select efficient tools

over inefficient ones to manipulate their environment, distinguish between

intentional and accidental actions when observing others’ behavior, and

modulate their behavior based on knowledge of what other individuals can

see and hear. They utilize knowledge to successfully steal food from an

experimenter, for example, by choosing a “quiet” door over a “squeaky

door” in order to remain undetected (Beauchamp & Wobber, 2014, p. 121).

And they are keenly aware of their social relationships, including both their

bonds with allies and their potential conflicts with rivals. Even if chimpanzees

are not capable of forming second-order volitions, it is difficult to deny that

they engage in some degree of self-initiated intentional action. The same

might be said of young children. Thus, the assumption that autonomous

agency necessarily requires the operation of sophisticated cognitive capacities

associated with reflective endorsement deserves to be questioned.

Instead, autonomous agency in a basic bodily sense might be understood

in terms of free movement in the world and in relation to others, i.e., “a

bodily know-how that allows us to perform in everyday activities and

engage with others in meaningful ways” (Käll & Zeiler, 2014, p. 108). In

Embodied Minds in Action (2009), Robert Hanna and I cash this out in

terms of trying and the active guidance of bodily movement. We characterize

trying as a conscious, intentional process, grounded in desire, which occurs

throughout the duration of overt bodily movement and guides it to com-

pletion. Frankfurt rightly notes that a characteristic feature of guided body

movements is that they “cohere in creating a pattern which strikes us as

meaningful” (1988, p. 72). While a pianist’s hands moving over a keyboard

create a meaningful pattern, the thrashing around of an epileptic does not.

Intentional movement is purposive and occurs “under the guidance of an

independent causal mechanism, whose readiness to bring about compensa-

tory adjustments tends to ensure that the behavior is accomplished”

(Frankfurt, 1988, p. 72). This self-adjusting guidance occurs throughout the

duration of action, such as when an agent swims across a lake or climbs a

steep staircase. Most of the time, trying is seemingly effortless; that is, we

often are not explicitly aware of making any great effort, but rather move

our bodies simply because we want to, as it were. Seemingly effortless trying

is particularly evident in spontaneous or pre-reflective action, such as when

we walk or eat. In such cases the special phenomenological character of

effortless trying manifests itself as the subjective experience of flowing

Autonomous Agency 13

forward right into intentional body movement, as in Yeats’s dancer becom-

ing her dance. This kind of “operative intentionality” constitutes an agent’s

directedness to their world and their capacity for free movement, which is

integral to autonomous agency. As I will discuss further in chapter 2, repe-

ated trying yields built-up patterns of intentional action, which ultimately

amounts to the formation of habits, a character, and a specific style of

being-in-the-world.

Along similar lines, Railton (2009) denies that identification or endorsement

is required for autonomy. This is because fluent actions that do not involve

any sort of deliberation nonetheless can qualify as autonomous. He points to

the jazz saxophonist’s solo riff and the basketball player’s well-timed jump

shot as examples of “complex, structured, purposeful activities done mind-

fully but fluently, without deliberation” (pp. 97–98). In fact, deliberating and

reflecting are likely to interfere with the performance of these activities. Such

actions clearly are self-expressive, done for reasons, and not simply enacted

robotically, but instead draw upon the agent’s cognitive and creative skills.

This suggests that “deliberation and decision are a small part of our whole

intelligent, sensitive, goal-directed psyche” (Railton, 2009, p. 108). Moreover,

according to Railton, the kind of deliberative agency typically thought to be

central to autonomy depends upon these non-deliberative, reasons-responsive

processes. He points to “unpremeditated, affect- or trust-guided processes

underwriting deliberation and choice, shaping its course, moving it along,

giving it force” (2009, p. 107). The agent does not decide which considerations

are relevant and how they will strike them; rather, this is determined by an

unreflective process guided by affectivity and trust. In the event that their

actions “fit,” “express,” or “non-accidentally reflect” their feelings, values, and

priorities, it is difficult to deny that they exercise some degree of autonomous

agency (Railton, 2009, pp. 104–105). Railton further notes that if a deliberated

decision is to qualify as autonomous, these non-deliberative elements must be

compatible and work together with deliberation.

The practical competencies that Railton maintains are integral to auton-

omous agency include the ability to act intentionally without intending to do

so, the ability to detect (non-deliberatively) conditions calling for reflection

and deliberation, and the ability to channel emotions into effective behavior.

In chapter 3, I will say more about how reflection, deliberation, and Frank-

furt-style volitional reconfiguration play an integral role in plasticity. I also

will point to other crucial agentic skills, including a responsiveness to dis-

concerting feelings and an ability to “negotiate the conflicts among [one’s]

affective and visceral responses” (Meyers, 2005, p. 47); an aptitude for

registering convergences and clashes with cultural norms, accounting for

one’s convictions and conduct when appropriate, and revising them when

necessary; and an ability to elicit and interpret input and counsel from

others while keeping in mind one’s goals. Meyers (2005) notes that profi-

ciency with respect to such skills is a matter of degree, and that personal

autonomy is a function of how competently one uses these skills on any

14 Autonomous Agency

given occasion. Faced with a wide range of action-possibilities, autonomous

agents have the capacity to transition from one activity to another, and to

begin something new. Generally speaking, the plasticity of autonomous

agency requires that the individual reaffirm, renew, revamp, or repair

themself as they act and interact (Meyers, 2005, p. 48). An autonomous

agent is one who is “able to adapt to changing environments, to imagine

alternative possibilities, to take necessary steps to change (unlucky) situa-

tions, to distinguish those expectations or ascriptions that are legitimate

from those that are not,” and to embrace some of these social expectations

while rejecting others (Baumann, 2008, p. 460).

It seems clear, then, that autonomous agency centers on selective

engagement: rather than being a mere triggered response to stimuli,

autonomous action is somehow guided and selectively targeted. In chapters

2 and 3, I will argue that this capacity for selective engagement is central

to plasticity and depends on what I call “affective framing.” An indivi-

dual’s selective responsiveness to action-possibilities is experienced as an

affective allure (Ingerslev, 2020), and without these affectively-contoured

valuations—or what I term “affective framings”—someone would not

encounter a world of meaning. This notion of affective framing is meant to

capture the idea that our behavior is never neutral, but rather always

purpose-driven and infused by values and concerns (Kyselo, 2016, p. 608).

Moreover, as I will explain further in chapter 2, enactivism emphasizes

that this discerning perspective is grounded in the dynamics of living sys-

tems: an entity that is capable of staving off its own dissolution and

decomposition develops a unique perspective and point of view, from

which the world’s events can be partitioned into the favorable, the unfa-

vorable, the multi-valenced, and the neutral (Colombetti, 2014, p. 18). Bar-

andiaran and Di Paolo (2014) point out that “Spinoza’s notion of conatus, as

the striving for perseverance that defines the essence of organisms” anticipates

the naturalistic conception of teleology found in enactivism (p. 5). Such pur-

posive behavior obviously is highly sophisticated in the case of human agents,

but still is very much guided by a background structure of cares and concerns.

Along these lines, drawing on the work of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty,

Ratcliffe (2005; 2008) uses the notion of a “horizon” to capture the sense in

which the feeling body serves as a framework through which world-experience

is structured. One might understand the “horizon” as the pre-reflective, back-

ground sense of belonging to the world that offers up a space of possibilities for

acting and being acted upon. My proposed notion of affective framing builds

on Ratcliffe’s description of the horizon and also on the notion that perception

and action are structured by a background bodily orientation. According to this

account, we play an active role in the constitution of our world of experience,

and do so against a backdrop of desiderative bodily feelings. Autonomous

agency obviously centers around making choices, “but that which stands forth

as a choice is thoroughly formed by our bodily modes of acting and interacting

with others and the world” (Käll & Zeiler, 2014, p. 114). Thus, our very

Autonomous Agency 15

perception of something as a choice needs to be understood against the back-

ground of our whole situation together with our emotions, moods, and bodily

habits; this encompasses our bodily capabilities, characteristic patterns of

action and attention, goals, plans, and perceptions of ourselves and others.

Such considerations suggest that it is possible to embrace or endorse one’s

desires pre-reflectively, i.e., without having higher-order motivational states

of which one is reflectively aware. This occurs when someone feels espe-

cially attached and committed to particular first-order desires, so that these

concerns continuously guide their behavior and attention. Of course, it is

possible that this individual has a disposition such that were they to reflect

upon this desire, they would judge that it is worth having. However, such

reflection need not occur in order for someone to embrace or endorse a

desire. Along these lines, Marino (2011) maintains that to have a positive

valuation for something (to care about or value it) is to have a particular

affective stance toward it. This is not simply a matter of wanting something

(since some desires do not reflect what one cares about) or judging it to be

good (since valuation need not involve an explicit judgment). Instead, these

desires are ones that the agent approves of and feels attached to; they want

to continue wanting the thing in question, and the formation of this second-

order desire need not involve a self-reflective judgment to the effect that the

desires in question are worth having. If valuation can occur pre-reflectively

in the manner that Marino suggests, then perhaps autonomous agency does

not require reflective endorsement. In fact, the supposition that autonomous

agency necessarily involves a process of critical reflection with regard to the

agent’s conception of the good is overly intellectually demanding. Even if it is

true that idealized forms of autonomous agency are possible only for agents

who have reflective capacities, I worry that focusing so much on critical

reflection will lead us to overlook the important role that other capacities,

such as imagination, often play in autonomous agency. As Meyers (2005)

notes, “a zealous commitment to reasoned decision-making can leave the

individual inhibited, rigid, unspontaneous, and shallow” (p. 29).

Another potential difficulty facing identification accounts is the issue of

reasons-responsiveness. While Ekstrom points to coherence and stability of

character as a mark of autonomous agency, it must be acknowledged that

engrained, long-lasting attitudes that don’t answer to the available evidence or

relevant considerations can undermine a subject’s capacity for autonomous

agency. As Ekstrom notes, “since cohering elements hold together firmly, dis-

playing consistency and mutual support, they are particularly long-lasting”

(2005, p. 59). While such character stability is a potential contributor to

autonomous agency in certain respects, it also has a potential downside: long-

lasting preferences that cohere with one’s overall psychology will be extremely

difficult to change, even if circumstances urgently call for self-transformation.

Weimer (2013) asks us to consider the case of Barbara, a substance

abuse counselor whose specialty is treatment of individuals addicted to

“Pluzu,” a drug that stimulates the pleasure centers of the brain. Barbara

16 Autonomous Agency

believes that first-hand experience will enhance her ability to assist her

patients, and after careful, competent, and informed reflection, she deci-

des to develop a Pluzu habit (p. 625). Because her desire to use Pluzu is

formed via a process of critical evaluation and actively generated in light

of her beliefs, especially as part of her pursuit of the good, it qualifies as

a “preference” in Ekstrom’s sense. This desire coheres with many of

Barbara’s other beliefs and desires, in particular her belief that develop-

ing a Pluzu habit will help her perform her job and her desire to help her

patients. Weimer notes that Barbara’s use of the drug does not diminish

her capacities to make informed decisions about how best to fulfill her

desire for the drug, nor to reflect critically upon her desires for Pluzu.

She regularly asks herself whether it would be best to continue taking

Pluzu, but on the basis of careful reflection, decides to continue the

experiment. Given the compulsion-free history of her desire for the drug,

her possession of deliberative capacities, and the fact that her desire to

continue taking Pluzu coheres with her other preferences and beliefs, it

appears that Barbara qualifies as autonomous on Ekstrom’s account. But

now Weimer asks us to suppose that the reason why her self-reflective

deliberations invariably issue in the conclusion that she should continue

the experiment is that “Pluzu has effectively removed her ability and

disposition to recognize, and thus to properly respond to, important

changes in her circumstances” (p. 626). She finds Pluzu so enjoyable that

she fails to take notice of several unexpected but important develop-

ments: her husband has developed a serious Pluzu habit, and her young

children have not attended school in several weeks.

The reason why the key inputs to self-reflection remain largely unchan-

ged, according to Weimer, is that Barbara is unable to divert her attention

from Pluzu. But one could argue that part of the reason why she is unable to

recognize these developments is that she has a conviction that she is doing

the right thing; taking the drug is a preference that coheres with many of her

other desires and beliefs. The elements of her psyche display consistency and

mutual support, and this contributes to their long-lasting nature. However,

Barbara’s inability to change course in response to these new and unex-

pected developments renders her non-autonomous with respect to the Pluzu

experiment. Although her habit may once have been autonomous, it no

longer is, because she lacks evidence-responsiveness with respect to it

(Weimer, 2013, p. 628).

Less extreme examples are available: consider the graduate student who

has autonomously decided to pursue a career in philosophy, but who lacks

the ability to recognize that evidence concerning the dire state of the job

market and feedback from professors all indicate that he has good reason to

reconsider his plans. While such an agent retains the capacity to reflect on

his desires and “personally authorize” those that cohere with his other

desires and beliefs, he may lack “the ability and disposition to appropriately

update the inputs to such self-evaluations and thus to reflect on career plans

Autonomous Agency 17

in light of the new and unexpected evidence available” (Weimer, 2013, p. 628).

Reasons-responsiveness, flexibility, and openness to change seem to be

important conditions for the exercise of autonomous agency, but there is

no mention of these conditions in Ekstrom’s account (or in Frankfurt’s

hierarchical account).

1.4 Autonomy as Relational

In my view there is an important element of truth to the claim that

“identifying” with a desire (in Frankfurt’s sense), or “personally authoriz-

ing” or sanctioning a desire as one’s own (in Ekstrom’s sense) plays an

important role in the exercise of autonomous agency. In chapters 2 and 3, I

will say more about how to make sense of the notion that a self-governing

agent is authentic—they are someone who sets their own course in life and

acts according to principles of their own choosing, embracing some of

their desires while rejecting others. However, it also is important to

acknowledge that individual agency is situated in a particular sociocultural

context and has an integral relational dimension. I already have noted the

important role of social factors in shaping our patterns of attention and

behavior. This brings us to a question hotly debated in the literature:

should autonomous agency be understood as constitutively relational, or

merely causally relational (Mackenzie & Stoljar, 2000, p. 22)?

At the very least, autonomy is relational in the sense that the development

and exercise of autonomy depends on certain relationships and social environ-

ments. However, Baumann (2008) notes that even accounts that do not men-

tion the social dimension of autonomy (e.g., Frankfurt’s account) are at least in

principle compatible with a broadly relational outlook; thus, labeling an

account “relational” in this sense is no longer particularly informative. The

question is whether the relational dimension of autonomy should be under-

stood in a causal sense or a constitutive sense. According to proponents of

causally relational accounts, relationships and social environments operate as

background conditions or contributory factors to the realization of autonomy.

However, autonomy itself is understood in an individualistic fashion: “being

autonomous means that certain psychological states obtain or that a person has

and effectively exercises relevant psychological capacities or competences”

(Baumann, 2008, p. 447). According to proponents of constitutively relational

accounts, in contrast, requirements concerning the agent’s interpersonal or

social environment are among the defining conditions of autonomy. That is,

social conditions must be mentioned in the definition of autonomy, so that

what it means to be autonomous cannot be spelled out without direct reference

to a person’s social environment, position, or standing.

One clear example of a constitutively relational account is the theory

presented by Marina Oshana (2006). Oshana maintains that a person is

autonomous only if they are in control of their life and occupy a social

position of authority over matters of fundamental importance to the

18 Autonomous Agency

direction of their life. Two kinds of conditions are central to this account.

First, a control condition requires that the person be in actual control of

their choices, competent (i.e., minimally rational and self-aware), and enjoy

regulative control. That is, they must be in a social position from which

they are able to control their social environment and manage key aspects of

their life in the face of persons or institutions that might attempt to wield

coercive control over them (Oshana, 2006, p. 85). This requires that they

have power to determine how they shall live and control over their external

circumstances (Oshana, 1998, p. 82). Second, an authority condition requires

that the person acknowledges crucial aspects of their identity, even if they

experience some feelings of alienation, and also that they regard themself as

worthy of directing their life. According to Oshana, someone who lacks

access to an adequate range of options, such as a slave or a subservient

woman, fails to be autonomous. Indeed, autonomy obtains only when social

conditions surrounding an agent live up to certain standards and provide

significant options. In her view, “appropriate social relations form an

inherent part of what it means to be self-directed” (2006, p. 50).

One worry about Oshana’s account is that it seems to be overly

demanding. It is unclear whether many of us have significant control over

our social environment or are able to manage key aspects of our lives in the

face of social institutions that seek to manipulate us. It would be strange to

discover that only a tiny fraction of adult human agents is capable of

autonomous agency. Baumann (2008) wonders: does her account exclude

ways of life that are incompatible with certain socio-relational conditions,

and does this lead to an elitist understanding of autonomy and an objec-

tionable form of paternalism? Similarly, Christman (2004) worries that

principles of justice rooted in this sort of conception of autonomy “will

exclude from participation those individuals who reject those types of social

relations” (p. 156). For example, to label some women as non-autonomous

because they do not stand in the proper social relations to their alleged

“superiors” means that people who are otherwise competent will fail to be

autonomous agents. And if such women are not autonomous, this may seem

to make it permissible for other agents to intervene, relieve them of this

oppressive burden, and restore their autonomy. To claim that certain values,

desires, or ways of life automatically count as a non-autonomous is to put

substantive restrictions on the ways of life that persons might pursue, and

also to legitimize problematic forms of paternalism.

Another worry, though one not unique to Oshana’s account, is that it is

too static. Oshana understands autonomy as a property of persons and

maintains that a person is autonomous over time if they enjoy synchronic

“global autonomy” in the socio-relational sense throughout the course of

their life. Implicit in this synchronic understanding of autonomy is the claim

that we can fix a person’s autonomy at every single point in time, and then

construe diachronic autonomy in additive terms (Baumann, 2008, p. 459).

However, Baumann (2008) suggests that this is a mistake; we cannot

Autonomous Agency 19

determine whether a person is autonomous by looking at single points in

time, and this is because autonomy is essentially diachronic. He asks us to

consider a person who accidentally gets into a situation in which the socio-

relational properties that Oshana deems essential for autonomy are absent: a

person becomes unemployed and lacks material resources that would enable

substantive independence. However, now imagine that this person exhibits a

great deal of creativity in navigating unemployment, adapts to their dire

financial situation, and takes steps to become more self-sufficient.

Although this individual fails to be autonomous on Oshana’s account, they

exercise competencies for adaptation, imagination, and realistic evaluation

of their situation. This makes it seem as if they retain their autonomy even

though they lack the proper sort of social position. It appears that to

determine whether an individual is autonomous, we need to look at the

manner in which they lead their life over time (Baumann, 2008, p. 460). If

we understand autonomy as being constituted by specific socio-relational

properties at some point in time, we will be unable to make sense of the

important role in which dynamism, flexibility, and plasticity are central to

autonomous agency.

A related worry is that a constitutively relational account is unable to

make sense of how persons can resist and emancipate themselves from

oppressive social environments. As the example above demonstrates, if a

person’s autonomy is constituted by facts about their social environment,

then it becomes impossible to describe them as autonomous if they live in an

oppressive environment (Baumann, 2008, p. 465). But if slaves and sub-

servient wives who live in deeply racist and sexist societies automatically fail

to qualify as autonomous agents, this leads to the counterintuitive and pro-

blematic implication that they are incapable of resisting their oppressive

social environment and emancipating themselves. Their liberation becomes

something that must be achieved for them by others. While it is difficult to

deny that certain social conditions undermine, threaten, or otherwise com-

promise the exercise of autonomy, agents’ capacity for autonomy typically

does not disappear altogether. Respecting agents as persons requires that we

respect and support their capacity to challenge and resist their own social

positioning and subordination.

But is it true, as Christman (2004) maintains, that a person’s social

environment merely causally contributes to the development and exercise

of capacities relevant for autonomy? Baumann (2008) points out that in

order to exercise capacities such as self-exploration, “we must engage in

temporally extended and dynamic interpersonal relationships with other

persons that provide us, e.g., with new perspectives on ourselves” (p. 462).

That is, we should think of autonomy as a property that is applied to a

person’s way of leading their life over time, and which is constituted by

capacities and skills that are exercised over time and dependent on agents’

relationships with others. Interacting with other persons and with one’s

social environment allows one to discover new perspectives on oneself, and

20 Autonomous Agency

to change and grow. This openness to change is central to autonomous

agency. Baumann worries that if autonomy is conceptualized in a purely

internal way, and as relational in a merely causal sense, we will lose sight of

how the exercise of autonomous agency over time depends on interpersonal

relations of trust and friendship.

Along similar lines, Westlund (2009) maintains that autonomy in choice

and action relies in part on “the disposition to hold oneself answerable to

external critical perspectives on one’s action-guiding commitments” (p. 28).

The sort of responsiveness to others that Westlund has in mind involves

an irreducibly dialogical form of reflectiveness; autonomous agency

requires that one be prepared to take up and respond to the critical per-

spectives of others, even if one is unconvinced by their arguments. It is

crucial that one’s reasoning not be “psychologically insulated from con-

frontation with contrary considerations” (p. 33). Indeed, autonomous

agency requires that one be responsive to the perspectives of others, as

well as to new evidence. In my view, such intersubjective responsiveness is

central to the sort of flexible action required for autonomous agency. As

Westlund notes, we are the sorts of creatures who engage in practical

deliberation and reflection (p. 34), and these reasoning processes require

that we be open to the critical perspectives of other people. Deliberation is

rarely a lonely exercise taking place solely in the confines of an indivi-

dual’s psyche (Gallagher, 2018). Similarly, Widdershoven and Abma (2012)

characterize autonomy as a matter of self-development that occurs via

dialogical interaction; this involves a reciprocal relationship in which

people listen to one another and open themselves up to the horizon of the

other (p. 225). This allows an agent to engage in critical investigation of

another person’s point view, understand its relevance for their own situa-

tion, and broaden their perspective.

It appears, then, that autonomy is not purely an internal matter; and yet, it is

unclear that autonomous agency is constituted by social relations, at least not

in the way that theorists such as Marina Oshana have supposed. What is

needed is an account that conceptualizes autonomous agency as diachronic, as

a matter of degree, and as relational in a significant way, and also leaves open

the possibility that individual agents can resist social influences to some extent,

and sometimes play an active role in reshaping their social world.

1.5 Summary of Conditions, and a Way Forward

An adequate account of autonomy, I have argued, needs to address concerns

about brainwashing and external manipulation, avoid the regress problem,

and explain what it means for a desire, intention, or belief to be truly one’s

own. In addition to building upon important insights from the existing lit-

erature, this account should acknowledge the bodily and affective (and

sometimes unreflective) dimensions of autonomous agency, the need for

openness and flexibility, and the social-relational nature of agency.

Autonomous Agency 21

Can philosophical insights drawn from work in philosophy of mind help

us to develop such an account? The assumptions that have guided much of

the theorizing in philosophy of action center around some sort of materialist

view of the mind-body relation and a computational or cognitivist approach

to the mind. On this view, cognitive processing involves sequential chains of

events that start with raw data (input) provided by the environment, which

are then converted into representations that are manipulated (computed) in

a hierarchical way in order to create ever more complex representations.

Such processing eventually leads to behavioral responses (outputs) that cor-

respond with situations in the world “out there”; thus, within this general

scheme, intentional actions are treated as “outputs.”

Some of the seminal works in philosophy of action have operated with

these assumptions about cognition and agency. Indeed, it is not uncommon

for action theorists to speak as if the mind causes bodily movement in a

linear, mechanistic manner and to assume that intentions and desires acti-

vate the skeleton and muscles by way of efficient causation. What is more,

these accounts often treat the causal links between mind and body as if they

are one-to-one-deterministic links and assume that the causes of action are

events entirely inside the agent, or simply the agent themself, so that nothing

in the environment is necessary to influence or trigger the mental event.

According to Alfred Mele, for example, overt actions are causally initiated

by proximal intentions, or “intentions to A straightway” (2003, p. 54). For a

desire to be effective is for it be a proximate cause of the agent’s acting in a

particular way. Mele thus defends a casual, input-output theory of action

according to which all intentional movements are causally produced and

sustained by desires and proximal intentions (or their physical realizers).

Another assumption that surfaces repeatedly in philosophy of action is the

general Cartesian idea to the effect that the mind and body are entirely separate

and only contingently connected, and that the only relationship between

desires, intentions, and bodily movements is that of mechanistic causation.

Theorists often depict desires as wholly internal and treat bodily movement

and the surrounding world as wholly external. According to Donald Davidson

(1963), for example, actions should be understood as events that are caused by

pairs of beliefs and desires that are internal to the agent, which he terms the

action’s “primary reason.” He maintains that when it comes to action,

ordinary event causality is at work, whereby internal mental states (beliefs and

desires) are the efficient causes of external events (bodily movements). This

reveals not only an implicit mind-body dualism, but also a commitment to a

general input-output picture of desire and agency.

Beever and Morar (2016) rightly maintain that any notion of autonomy

should be grounded in a biologically-informed ontology; specifically, we can

look to ontology to question the strong view of individuality that has guided

Western conceptions of autonomy. On such views, the self is understood as a

free and rational agent, capable of individual self-rule. However, biological

considerations suggest that these traditional background assumptions for

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