Special Powers: How Agents Determine the Bounds of Action (original) (raw)
Related papers
In this paper, we consider the case in which actions change metaphysical and normative status because of the agent’s acquisition of special powers. This case is ordinary and pervasive, but problematic. Our aim is to develop its philosophical implications and our claim is that special powers shed light about the relation of agential authority, that is, the authority that agents claim on their actions. Carla Bagnoli & Andrea Borghini
Power and Moral Responsibility
Our moral responsibility for our actions seems to depend on our possession of a power to determine for ourselves what actions we perform - a power of self-determination. What kind of power is this? The paper discusses what power in general might involve, what differing kinds of power there might be, and the nature of self-determination in particular. A central question is whether this power on which our moral responsibility depends is by its nature a two-way power, involving a power over alternatives or a freedom to do otherwise. Criticism is made of various attempts to understand self-determination in one-way terms, whether as a capacity for rationality (McDowell) or as a form of voluntariness (Frankfurt). It is argued in particular that Frankfurt's arguments to show that moral responsibility does not depend on a freedom to do otherwise beg the question against his opponents.
A broad definition of agential power
Can we develop a definition of power that is satisfactorily determinate but also enables rather than foreclose important substantive debates about how power relations proceed and should proceed in social and political life? I present a broad definition of agential power that meets these desiderata. On this account, agents have power with respect to a certain outcome (including, inter alia, the shaping of certain social relations) to the extent that they can voluntarily determine whether that outcome occurs. This simple definition generates a surprisingly complex agenda for substantive research. It is quite fruitful for both descriptive and normative purposes-or so this paper argues. The broad account of agential power offered here is partly developed through a critical engagement with Rainer Forst's important recent account of "noumenal power."
2010
Abstract A power describes the ability of an agent to act in some way. While this notion of power is critical in the context of organisational dynamics, and has been studied by others in this light, it must be constrained so as to be useful in any practical application. In particular, we are concerned with how power may be used by agents to govern the imposition and management of norms, and how agents may dynamically assign norms to other agents within a multi-agent system.
The New Centennial Review, 2012
Authority is or presupposes some specific type of power. The mark of this particularity, the one that everyone will spontaneously agree to identify as such, is the index of recognition that accompanies authority, and makes of its power a legitimate one. 1 It is commonly understood that with this is linked the genesis, the status, and the regime of authority with the liberty of the subjects who attribute authority to a certain bearer. Th is way, the power of the authority is distinguished from every other form or type that involves violent coercion, which gravely restricts or suppresses the liberty of those who are subject to it. Otherwise said, authority is not only constituted as such on the basis of sheer imposition: there must be reasons to lend this quality to a person; the liberty of those who lend it reveals itself eventually if these reasons-which may be of very diverse nature (needs, aptitudes, competences, responsibilities, delegations, traditions, and so on)-are no more available, by virtue of which the recognition may be withdrawn, with the consequent collapse of the corresponding legitimacy index.
International Journal of Philosophical Studies, 2015
This paper attempts a conceptualisation of authority intended to be useful across all areas where the concept is relevant. It begins by setting off authority against power, on the one hand, and respect, on the other, and then spells out S1’s authority as consisting in S2’s voluntary action performed in the belief that S1 would approve of it. While this definition should hold for authority generally, a distinction is made between three different kinds of authority according to what grounds them: personal, acquired and bestowed authority. Authority thus defined is then used as an example to argue that there is a kind of property that is response-dependent (R-D), but, consisting in all and only a response, is ontologically different from both secondary qualities and value judgments. While secondary qualities are interactive in that they depend on both the object and the perceiver and on what they are like, genuinely R-D qualities depend ontologically and metaphysically only on the responder. And while value judgments require a concept, R-D qualities require an action as a response. It is hoped that this metaphysical underpinning might be helpful in the discussion of authority in other areas of philosophy and beyond. Copyright information: This paper was apparently meant to be free to access (see http://explore.tandfonline.com/cfp/ah/international-journal-of-philosophical-studies: "On the recommendation of the referees, three runners up papers have also be published, and are also free to access online."). Since it is - again - behind a paywall on the journal's website, I am now posting it here, trusting that this doesn't constitute copyright infringement.
The Varieties of Agential Powers
European Journal of Philosophy, 2019
The domain of agential powers is marked by a contrast that does not arise in the case of dispositions of inanimate objects: the contrast between propensities or tendencies on the one hand, and capacities or abilities on the other. According to Ryle (1949), this contrast plays an important role in the 'logical geography' of the dispositional concepts used in the explanation and assessment of action. However, most subsequent philosophers use the terms of art 'power' or 'disposition' indiscriminately in formulating central metaphysical claims about human agency, assuming that an adequate account of inanimate dispositions can safely be used for such purposes. As a result, the distinctive features of propensities and capacities drop out of view. This is bound to obscure distinctions of crucial importance to the understanding of human agency. In order to show this, I undertake to articulate some central differences between propensities and capacities. Propensities and capacities have a different relation to value, as well as a concomitant difference in their metaphysical structure. The argument points to an explanation of why the distinction between propensities and capacities does not arise in the case of non-agential powers. This explanation takes us back to questions about the nature of human agency.