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Agency
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Stanford Encyclopedia In very general terms, an agent is a being with the capacity to act, and
‘agency’ denotes the exercise or manifestation of this capacity. The
of Philosophy philosophy of action provides us with a standard conception and a
standard theory of action. The former construes action in terms of
intentionality, the latter explains the intentionality of action in terms of
causation by the agent’s mental states and events. From this, we obtain a
standard conception and a standard theory of agency. There are alternative
conceptions of agency, and it has been argued that the standard theory fails
Edward N. Zalta Uri Nodelman Colin Allen R. Lanier Anderson
to capture agency (or distinctively human agency). Further, it seems that
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genuine agency can be exhibited by beings that are not capable of
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https://plato.stanford.edu/board.html intentional action, and it has been argued that agency can and should be
explained without reference to causally efficacious mental states and
Library of Congress Catalog Data
ISSN: 1095-5054
events.

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1. Introduction
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 Agency
2. Conceptions, theories, and kinds of agency
2.1 Agency as intentional action
2.2 Agency as initiation by the agent
2.3 Agency and distinctively human action
2.4 Agency without mental representations
2.5 Other kinds of agency: mental, epistemic, shared, collective,
relational, artificial
3. The metaphysics of agency
3.1 Three metaphysical frameworks
3.2 Deviant causal chains
3.3 Disappearing agents, naturalism, and dual standpoint theory
3.4 Actions, events, processes, and omissions
4. Empirical challenges and the role of consciousness
4.1 Reasons and causes
4.2 Situationism
4.3 The Libet experiment and Wegner’s challenge
4.4 Automaticity and dual-system theory
4.5 The sense of agency
4.6 Perception and attention
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1. Introduction
In a very broad sense, agency is virtually everywhere. Whenever entities
enter into causal relationships, they can be said to act on each other and
interact with each other, bringing about changes in each other. In this very
broad sense, it is possible to identify agents and agency, and patients and
patiency, virtually everywhere.[1] Usually, though, the term ‘agency’ is
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used in a much narrower sense to denote the performance of intentional
actions. This way of thinking about agency has a long history in
philosophy and it can be traced back to Hume and Aristotle, among other
historical figures. In contemporary analytic philosophy, it is most
commonly associated with the influential work of Anscombe (1957) and
Davidson (1963). Anscombe’s and Davidson’s views differ significantly in
many respects, but they share the central doctrine that action is to be
explained in terms of the intentionality of intentional action. In the debates
that followed, the philosophy of action revolved largely around the notion
of intentional action. For some time, the term ‘agency’ was rarely used,
and if it was, it was usually taken to refer to the exercise of the capacity to
perform intentional actions.[2] This has changed in the more recent debate,
where talk about agency has become more and more common in many
areas of philosophy (and in other areas of research).[3] To some extent,
this focus on the notion of agency has been fuelled by a resistance to the
assimilation of agency to intentional action. As we will see in the
following section, this resistance amounts in some cases to the rejection of
the standard conception of action, in some cases it amounts to the rejection
of the standard theory of action, and in some it amounts to the more
modest claim that there are different kinds of agency.
2. Conceptions, theories, and kinds of agency
The contributions of Anscombe and Davidson have established a standard
conception of action, and Davidson’s work has provided the groundwork
for a standard theory of action. At the core of the standard conception are
the following two claims. First, the notion of intentional action is more
fundamental than the notion of action. In particular, action is to be
explained in terms of the intentionality of intentional action. Second, there
is a close connection between intentional action and acting for a reason.
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There are two ways of spelling out the first claim (which correspond to
two different views on the individuation of actions; see section 3.4).
According to the first, one and the same event can be more than one action
under different descriptions, and an event is an action just in case it is an
intentional action under some description. An action, that is, may be
intentional under some description and unintentional under others
(Anscombe 1957; Davidson 1963). Suppose that you alert the burglar by
turning on the light, and suppose that this is one event that is intentional
under the description ‘turning on the light’, but not under ‘alerting the
burglar’. On this view, alerting the burglar is nevertheless something that
you do, given that the event is an intentional action under some
description. According to a second way of spelling out the first claim,
something is an action either if it is identical with or “generated by” an
intentional action (Goldman 1970; see also Ginet 1990).[4] On this view,
alerting the burglar is an action of yours either if it is an intentional action
or if it is generated by an intentional action (your turning on the light, in
this case). If it is merely generated by an intentional action, it is an
unintentional action of yours. On both views, intentional action is more
fundamental than action itself: action derives from and is dependent on
intentional action.[5]
According to the second claim of the standard conception, there is a close
connection between acting intentionally and acting for a reason.
According to Anscombe and Davidson’s early view, this close connection
is identity. Following Aristotle, they both held the view that to act
intentionally is to act for a reason, and that to act for a reason is to act in a
way that can be rationalized by the premises of a sound practical
syllogism, which consists, typically, of a major premise that corresponds
to the agent’s goal and a minor premise that corresponds to the agent’s
take on how to attain the goal. Furthermore, Davidson held the view that
having an intention consists in having a desire and a belief that correspond
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to the major and the minor premise of the relevant syllogism (Davidson
1963, 1970; see also Goldman 1970; Audi 1986).[6]
One can still find a fairly widespread commitment to this desire-belief
version of the standard conception (in the philosophy of mind, the
philosophy of psychology, ethics, meta-ethics, and in other areas of
research). In the philosophy of action, however, it is now widely thought
that intentions cannot be reduced to desires and beliefs (and combinations
thereof). On this view, intentions play a crucial and irreducible role in
practical reasoning, long-term planning, and in the initiation and guidance
of action (see, especially, Bratman 1987; see also Harman 1976; Brand
1984; Bishop 1989; Mele 1992, 2003; Enç 2003). It is nevertheless still
widely accepted that there is a close connection between intentional action
and acting for reasons and that intentional actions are typically performed
for reasons (Mele and Moser 1994; Mele 2003; Enç 2003; Clarke 2010b,
for instance).
The standard conception is not committed to a particular account of what
it is to act intentionally and for reasons, and it is not committed to a
particular account of the nature of reason explanations. It is important to
distinguish the standard conception from the standard theory, which
provides a causal account of intentional action and reason explanation.
This theory says, very roughly, that something is an intentional action and
done for reasons just in case it is caused by the right mental states and
events in the right way. The right mental states and events are states and
events that rationalize the action from the agent’s point of view (such as
desires, beliefs, and intentions). The right way of causation is non-deviant
causation (see section 3.2). On this view, a reason explanation is an
explanation in terms of mental states and events that cause the action and
that rationalize it from the agent’s point of view (typically by providing a
means-end rationale). This theory is often called “the causal theory of
action”. Strictly speaking, it is an event-causal theory and it consists of an
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event-causal theory of reason explanation and an event-causal theory of
intentional action. In conjunction with the standard conception, this causal
theory provides us with a theory of action, which has been the standard
theory in the contemporary philosophy of mind and action (see also the
entry on action).
As indicated, the standard conception is compatible with non-causal
theories of intentional action and reason explanation. It is generally agreed
that a reason explanation of an action usually renders the action
intelligible by revealing the agent’s goal or intention. According to non-
causal theories, having the relevant goals or intentions does not consist in
the possession of causally efficacious mental states or events (Melden
1961; Ginet 1990; O’Connor 2000; Sehon 2005). Non-causal theories are,
however, widely rejected (the most influential critique is due to Davidson
1963; see also Goldman 1970: 76–85; Mele 2003: 38–51; Clarke 2003:
21–24). The standard conception is compatible, furthermore, with dual
standpoint theories. We will turn to this view in section 3.3.
2.1 Agency as intentional action
The standard conception of action provides us with a conception of
agency. According to this view, a being has the capacity to exercise
agency just in case it has the capacity to act intentionally, and the exercise
of agency consists in the performance of intentional actions and, in many
cases, in the performance of unintentional actions (that derive from the
performance of intentional actions; see section 2). Call this the standard
conception of agency. The standard theory of action provides us with a
theory of agency, according to which a being has the capacity to act
intentionally just in case it has the right functional organization: just in
case the instantiation of certain mental states and events (such as desires,
beliefs, and intentions) would cause the right events (such as certain
movements) in the right way. According to this standard theory of agency,
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the exercise of agency consists in the instantiation of the right causal
relations between agent-involving states and events. (Proponents include
Davidson 1963, 1971; Goldman 1970; Brand 1984; Bratman 1987;
Dretske 1988; Bishop 1989; Mele 1992, 2003; Enç 2003.)
The most serious problem for this standard theory has been the problem of
deviant causal chains. Further, some have argued that this view altogether
fails to capture agency, because it reduces actions to mere happenings. We
will turn to those issues in section 3. Recently, it has been argued that
reasons for actions cannot be the causes of actions, because reasons are
facts or states of affairs, not mental states or events (Dancy 2000; Alvarez
2010). But the standard theory is not committed to the claim that reasons
are identical with mental entities. It is, in particular, compatible with the
view that reasons are the things that are represented by the contents of the
relevant mental states and events (see Scanlon 1998: 56–64; Mele 2003:
82–84; Setiya 2007: 28–31).
2.2 Agency as initiation by the agent
It has often been claimed, and it is widely agreed, that agency involves the
initiation of action by the agent.[7] But it has been controversial what this
consists in. The standard conception is compatible with the claim that
intentional actions are initiated by the agent, and proponents of the
standard theory have argued that initiation can be explained in terms of
causation by the agent’s mental states and events. According to desire-
belief versions of the view, initiation by the agent consists in causation by
the relevant desire-belief pairs (Goldman 1970; Davidson 1971; Dretske
1988). According to more recent versions, initiation consists in causation
by the relevant intentions (Brand 1984; Bratman 1987; Bishop 1989; Mele
1992, 2003; Enç 2003). Opponents of the standard conception argue,
however, that an agent’s power to initiate action cannot be reduced to the
capacity to act intentionally and for reasons. They argue that the exercise
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of agency may be entirely spontaneous, in the sense that an agent may
initiate an action for no reason and without prior intent. On this view,
reasons and intentions may have a strong and even a decisive influence on
how an agent acts. But agency has its source in the power to initiate, and
the exercise of this power cannot be reduced to the agent’s being moved
by reasons or intentions. This is an alternative conception of agency (Ginet
1990; O’Connor 2000; Lowe 2008; see also McCann 1998; for critical
discussion see Mele 2003: 38–51, 71–76; Clarke 2003: 17–24).
Proponents of this alternative conception reject the standard theory and
they reject, more generally, any account of agency in terms of causal
relations between agent-involving states and events. According to some,
the initiation of action consists in irreducible agent-causation, others
appeal to uncaused mental acts of the will. The main positions on this
issue correspond to the main positions in the metaphysics of agency, to
which we turn in section 3.1.
2.3 Agency and distinctively human action
In an influential article, Frankfurt (1971) argued that the difference
between persons and other agents consists in the structure of their will.
Only persons reflect on and care about their motivations. According to
Frankfurt, this reflective evaluation of our motives usually results in the
formation of second-order desires: desires that are directed at first-order
desires (which are directed at goals and actions). When a person wants to
have a certain desire and wants to be moved by it, then he or she is said to
“identify” with the desire and its motivational efficacy. On this
hierarchical account of agency, the role of higher-order attitudes is
essential to the kind of agency that distinguishes persons from other
agents. Taylor (1977) took this as a starting point for an account of
distinctively human agency, under the assumption that the distinction
between persons and non-persons is, essentially, the distinction between
human and non-human agents. It is not entirely clear whether Frankfurt
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and Taylor meant to provide an alternative to the standard theory of
agency or an extension of it.[8] On one reading, they accepted the account
of intentional agency provided by the standard theory, and they proposed a
hierarchical extension of the standard theory that captures the kind of
agency that is distinctive of persons or human agents. (For an influential
critique of such hierarchical accounts see Watson 1975.)
According to Velleman (1992), Frankfurt’s observation that an agent may
fail to identify with a particular motive points to a fundamental flaw in the
standard theory. As it seems always possible that an agent “disowns” the
mental attitudes that cause an action, those attitudes do not “add up to the
agent’s being involved” (1992: 463). This shows, according to Velleman,
that the standard theory captures, at best, actions that are defective. It fails,
in particular, to capture “human action par excellence”, because it fails to
account for the agent’s participation. Velleman rejects the appeal to
irreducible agent-causation (see section 3.1), and he argues that this leaves
only one strategy for solving the problem: we must find a mental attitude
that the agent cannot disown and that is, therefore, fit to play the role of
the agent. We must, that is, find a mental attitude that is the agent,
functionally speaking. According to Velleman, the desire to act in
accordance with reasons is fit to play this role.
Bratman (2000, 2001) agrees with Velleman that the standard theory does
not explain genuine self-governance. On his view, though, an account of
“full-blown agency”, as he calls it, does not require reference to a mental
attitude that the agent cannot disown. Building on his work on temporally
extended planning agency (Bratman 1987), he argues that an agent’s “self-
governing policies” have the “authority to speak for the agent”, because
they help to establish and support the agent’s identity across time, and
because they specify which desires are to be treated as providing justifying
reasons in practical deliberation. According to Bratman, these self-
governing policies explain what it is for an agent “to take a stand in favor
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of or against certain motivations, a stand that can itself be subject to
reexamination and revision” (2000: 50–51). (For a critical discussion of
Bratman’s account see Hornsby 2004 and Franklin 2017.)
In defense of the standard theory, Mele (2003: Ch. 10) has argued that the
search for a mental attitude that plays the role of the agent is misguided
and that Velleman’s critique of the view is off target. As Mele points out, it
seems clear that a desire cannot possibly be the agent, because agents
deliberate, decide, and act. Desires do none of these things. He suggests
that any talk of a mental attitude as playing the role of the agent can at best
be metaphorical. Further, there is no obvious reason why an agent’s failure
to identify with a motive should be diagnosed in terms of the agent’s
failure to participate. It seems more plausible to suggest that the agent
does participate in such cases, but in a defective manner. Once defective
participation is distinguished from a failure to participate, it is easy to
avoid Velleman’s conclusion that the standard theory “leaves out the
agent”. Moreover, one can then separate the question of whether the
standard theory accounts for the agent’s participation from the question of
whether it captures human action par excellence. According to Mele, the
human agent is simply a human being who acts. On this view, the agent
does play some role in all instances of agency, no matter how deficient.
The standard theory provides, first and foremost, an account of what it is
for an agent to perform intentional actions. It does not claim that the
capacity to perform intentional actions is the capacity that separates
human from non-human agency, and it does not claim to give an account
of more refined or excellent kinds of human agency, such as self-
controlled, autonomous, wholehearted, or free agency. It is an interesting
and important task to investigate whether or not the standard theory can be
extended so as to account for the more refined or excellent kinds of human
agency (Mele 1995; Bratman 2007, for instance). But to reject the view
because it fails to do so is to misconstrue its aim and scope (see also
section 3.3).
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2.4 Agency without mental representations
Arguments for the claim that the standard theory does not account for
important aspects of agency are usually driven by a focus on distinctively
human agency. Once we shift our focus to non-human agents, and simpler
organisms, a very different challenge emerges. When we turn to such
agents, it seems that the standard theory is clearly too demanding. The
view explains agency in terms of the agent’s desires, beliefs, and
intentions. Usually, it is assumed that this is an explanation in terms of
mental representations: in terms of intentional mental states and events
that have representational contents (typically, propositional contents). It
seems, however, that there are beings that are capable of genuine agency
and that do not possess representational mental states. We can distinguish
here between three claims (and three challenges). According to the first,
there are non-human beings that are capable of agency and that do not
possess representational mental states. Second, there are many instances of
human agency that can and should be explained without the ascription of
representational mental states. Third, all instances of agency can and
should be explained without the ascription of representational mental
states. We turn to each claim in turn.
We have a pervasive tendency to interpret and explain behavior in terms of
intentional mental states. We tend, even, to interpret the interaction
between animated objects in terms of desires, beliefs, and intentions
(Heider and Simmel 1944). This raises the question of when it is
appropriate to attribute mental states in the explanation of behavior.
According to an instrumentalist stance (Dennett 1987: Ch. 2), the question
of when it is appropriate to ascribe mental states cannot be separated from
the question of when it is appropriate to ascribe agency, and both
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 Agency
questions are to be answered in terms of predictive success: it is
appropriate to attribute mental states in the explanation of agency when
doing so supports successful predictions of behavior. However, most
proponents of the standard theory presume some form of realism,
according to which the ascription of mental states is appropriate only if the
agent in question possesses the right internal states with the right
representational contents. The question of what the possession of
representational mental states consists in is one of the most controversial
questions in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, and it is clearly
beyond the scope of this entry (see the entries on mental representation
and cognitive science). Consider, though, the following remarks. Davidson
(1982) held the view that only human agents have the relevant mental
attitudes, because he thought that having such attitudes requires linguistic
competence. Others have argued that we are justified in ascribing
representational mental states to non-human agents if doing so provides
the best explanation of their behavior (Allen and Bekoff 1997, for
instance). Sometimes it is rather difficult to decide whether or not the best
explanation of an agent’s behavior requires the ascription of
representational mental states. Sterelny (2001: Ch. 11, 12), for instance,
has argued that plausible explanations in terms of desires can sometimes
be replaced by equally good explanations in terms of drives. The
ascription of a desire is usually construed as the ascription of a
representational mental state, whereas a drive can be construed in terms of
more basic mechanisms (and without the ascription of representational
content). What is important to bear in mind, here, is that the issue concerns
not only the possession of the relevant mental states and events. It
concerns, moreover, the capacity to combine or process the contents of
such attitudes in rational inferences: the capacity to treat the relevant
contents as premises in practical reasoning (as emphasized by Anscombe
1957 and Davidson 1970).
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Suppose, for the sake of argument, that it is appropriate to ascribe
representational mental states to non-human beings of various kinds. It
may still be the case that there are other kinds of non-human beings that
are capable of agency and that do not possess representational mental
states. Would this show that the standard theory is too demanding? Only if
the standard theory is construed as providing an account of agency as
such. According to a less demanding view, the standard theory provides an
account of one particularly interesting and central kind of agency:
intentional agency (and the kind of unintentional agency that derives from
it; see section 2).[9] On this construal, the standard theory is perfectly
compatible with the claim that there are more basic kinds of agency,
including kinds of agency that do not require the possession of
representational mental states. It is, for instance, compatible with what
Barandiaran et al. (2009) call “minimal agency”. On their view, an agent is
a unified entity that is distinguishable from its environment and that is
doing something by itself in accord with a certain goal (or norm). This
view departs from the standard conception and theory in its
characterization of action (“doing something”) in terms of the “adaptive
regulation” of the agent’s “coupling with the environment” and in terms of
metabolic self-maintenance (inspired by Varela et al. 1974). They suggest
that organisms as simple as bacteria exhibit this minimal kind of agency.
The crucial point is that this provides an account of goal-directed behavior
that does not appeal to the mental representation of goals. Barandiaran et
al. suggest, rather, that even very simple organisms can be said to have the
intrinsic goal to be: to bring about the continuation of their existence.
We turn now to the second claim, which says that many instances of
human agency can and should be explained without the ascription of
representational mental states. This view is usually based on and
motivated by embodied and enactive approaches in the philosophy of
mind and cognitive science. Some versions of this approach are inspired
by the works Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty (Dreyfus 1991,
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 Agency
2002), others are based on more recent developments in robotics and
dynamical systems theory (Brooks 1991; Beer 1995). Common to such
views is the focus on skillful and “online” engagement with the world: the
ability to engage with others and with one’s circumstances by responding
to the demands of the situation in a skillful and often effortless manner,
without conscious deliberation, reasoning, or planning (often called
“skilled coping”). Examples of human agency include instances of
habitual action, such as the actions that one performs while driving a car,
and cases where the agent is engaged in a responsive flow of interaction,
such as in jazz improvisation or in verbal exchanges. Examples from
robotics include skills like the coordination of limb movements and the
ability to navigate through novel environments. The challenge to the
standard theory often involves the following three points. First, it is argued
that the explanation of such skills and abilities in terms of mental
representations is both costly and clumsy: it imposes very high demands
on the agent’s information-processing resources and it leads to an
inelegant and implausible overpopulation of highly specific mental
representations. Second, it is pointed out that current accounts of mental
representation are untenable or, at least, controversial and that there is no
obvious reason to think that there will ever be a generally accepted
account of mental representation. Third, it is argued that the explanation of
skilled coping does not require the ascription of representational mental
states, because it can be explained in terms of behavioral dispositions and
direct guidance by the relevant features of the situation. The proposed
conclusion is that we should, therefore, explain instances of skilled coping
without reference to representational mental states and events.
In response, proponents of the standard theory (and of representational
theories of mind) usually argue as follows. First, it is pointed out that the
standard theory does not require that the agent considers the relevant
mental contents in conscious deliberation or reasoning. This reduces the
information-processing demands to a significant degree. Second, it is
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argued that the standard theory is compatible with explanations of habitual
actions in terms of motor schemata (or motor intentions). Motor schemata
are not represented in the contents of personal-level mental states, and
they are usually recruited automatically in the service of personal-level
goals and intentions. The utilization of motor schemata further reduces the
required processing load. Third, it is pointed out that most instances of
skilled coping do not occur in an intentional vacuum, as it were. They are,
rather, usually constrained by and often integrated with the agent’s long-
term goals and intentions. Given this, it seems that a full explanation of
skilled coping must, at some point or level, make reference to
representational mental states after all. (For more on this see Clark and
Toribio 1994; Antony 2002; Rey 2002; Adams 2010; Clarke 2010b;
Schlosser 2018.)
According to the third claim, all instances of agency, including all
instances of human agency, can and should be explained without the
ascription of representational mental states. This position is usually
motivated by radical versions of the embodied and enactive approach to
the mind (Chemero 2009; Silberstein and Chemero 2011; Hutto and Myin
2014). The main strategy here is usually to generalize the argument
outlined above: explanations in terms of representational mental states are
costly and clumsy; there is no generally accepted account of mental
representation; and there is reason to think that we will, eventually, be able
to explain all kinds of agency without the ascription of representational
mental states. This radical view raises some obvious and difficult
questions. How can one explain our ability to deliberate about the future
without assuming mental representations? How can one explain reasoning
about abstract concepts, counterfactuals, and theoretical generalizations?
And how can one explain that our agency is to a significant extent
motivated, guided, and constrained by our long-terms plans and
commitments? Temporally extended planning agency (Bratman 1987,
2000) is clearly a “representation-hungry” phenomenon: it is difficult to
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 Agency
see how it can be explained without the ascription of representational
mental states (Clark and Toribio 1994; Schlosser 2018; see also the entry
on embodied cognition).
2.5 Other kinds of agency: mental, epistemic, shared, collective,
relational, artificial
There is, as we have seen, good reason to distinguish between different
kinds of agency. The standard theory offers an account of what is,
arguably, the most central kind of agency: intentional agency (and the kind
of unintentional agency that derives from it; see section 2). This can be
distinguished from higher or more refined kinds of agency, such as self-
controlled, autonomous, and free agency, and it can be distinguished from
more basic kinds of agency that do not require the ascription of
representational mental states. Apart from that, there are several
candidates for further kinds of agency. They include mental agency, shared
agency, collective agency, relational agency, and artificial agency. In each
case, we can ask whether the agency in question can be explained in terms
of the standard conception and theory, or whether it is indeed a different
kind of agency. The main focus in this section will be on mental agency,
and we will address the other candidates only very briefly.
It may seem obvious that our mental lives are filled with mental action.
We attend, consider, judge, reason, deliberate, accept, endorse, decide, try,
and so on. It may seem that these are all things that we do. If we consider
such cases through the standard theory of agency, we encounter
immediately two difficulties. First, it seems that such mental occurrences
are hardly ever, if ever, intentional actions. According to the standard
theory, an event is an intentional action of the type A only if the agent has
an intention that includes A in its content. In the basic case, this would be
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an intention to A. In an instrumental case, this would be an intention to
perform some other action B in order to A. Now, thoughts are individuated
in part by their contents. Take the thought that p. According to the
standard theory, thinking that p is an intentional action only if the agent
has an intention that includes “think that p” in its content. This is rather
odd and problematic, because we would have to have the intention to think
a certain thought before we think it. Second, there are problems with the
central case of decision-making. According to the standard theory,
deciding to A would be an intentional action only if one already had the
intention to make a decision that includes “deciding to A” in its content.
This seems, again, rather odd and problematic. Further, our reasons for
making a decision to A are usually our reasons to A—they are reasons for
performing the action. According to the standard theory, something is an
action only if it has a reason explanation (in terms of the agent’s desires,
beliefs, and intentions). As reasons are usually reasons for action, it is
again difficult to see how making a decision can ever be an action.
Considerations of this kind may lead one to conclude that thoughts are
hardly ever, if ever, mental actions (see Strawson 2003).
It is not difficult to avoid this conclusion, as Mele (1997, 2003: Ch. 9,
2009b) has shown. Consider again the central case of decision-making,
and assume that making a decision consists in the formation of an
intention. According to the standard theory, the formation of an intention
is an action if it is an intentional action under some description (or if it is
either identical with or generated by an intentional action; see section 2).
What could plausibly be the agent’s intention in making a decision? Mele
suggests that processes of decision-making are usually motivated by the
intention to settle the practical question at hand. This proposal avoids the
problem outlined above. Suppose the agent decides to A. For this to be an
action, it is not required that the agent has the intention to decide to A. For
if the agent has the intention to settle the question by making a decision,
making the decision is intentional under a description. In particular,
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 Agency
making a decision is then an intentional action and making the decision to
A is then an unintentional action (that is either identical with or generated
by the intentional action of making a decision).[10] Similar considerations
apply to the mentioned issue concerning reason explanation and to other
cases, such as remembering. Mele (2009b) argues that remembering
something is never an intentional action, because no one has ever the
intention to remember the particular content in question. But there is
nevertheless a closely associated intentional mental action that one might
perform: intentionally trying to bring it about that one remembers the
particular content in question. See Shepherd (2015) for a defense of the
view that decisions are intentional actions by construing them as
extensions and conclusions of deliberative activity.
Hieronymi (2009) takes a very different line. She thinks that we engage in
mental agency whenever we settle the question of whether to do or
whether to believe something, and she argues that this kind of mental
agency differs from ordinary intentional agency, primarily due to a
difference in control. According to Hieronymi, we have “evaluative
control” over our mental attitudes. This consists in the ability to form and
revise “our take on things”, and it is to be distinguished from the kind of
voluntary control that we have over our overt bodily actions. According to
volitionist theories of agency, mental acts of willing (choosing or trying)
are also different in kind from overt bodily actions. On such views, mental
acts of willing are furthermore fundamental, in the sense that they are the
source of overt agency (Ginet 1990; McCann 1998; Lowe 2008; more on
this in section 3.1).
Epistemic agency concerns the control that agents may exercise over their
beliefs (and other doxastic states). It is common to distinguish between
two main positions: indirect doxastic voluntarism and direct doxastic
voluntarism. The former concerns the ways in which we may acquire or
revise beliefs by doing research, evaluating the evidence, considering
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opposing opinions, and so on. It is fairly uncontroversial that we can
exercise control over our beliefs in such indirect ways. In contrast, direct
doxastic voluntarism is very controversial. It says that we have direct
voluntary control over some of our beliefs, where voluntary control is
usually understood as the kind of control that agents exercise in the
performance of intentional actions. A main issue here is that direct
doxastic voluntarism appears to be incompatible with the nature of beliefs.
Beliefs are supposed to represent the world (or “aim at truth”). One may
argue that there is no fundamental difference in the control over action and
belief-formation, because in both cases the control consists basically in
reason-responsiveness. But this proposal overlooks the central role of
intentions. According to the standard theory, actions must be initiated and
guided by intentions, in addition to being responsive to reasons. The
challenge is to find beliefs-formations that are initiated and guided by
intentions in the same or similar way as intentional actions. (For a more
extensive overview and references see Vitz 2019.)
Shared agency occurs when two or more individuals do something
together (such as carry a piece of furniture or sing a song). Collective
agency occurs when two or more individuals act as a group (in accordance
with certain principles or procedures that constitute and organize the
group). Research on shared and collective agency has flourished over the
past two decades or so. One central question has been whether shared and
collective agency can be reduced to the agency of the individuals
involved, or whether they are constitutive of different kinds of agency—
whether they are, in some sense, something over and above individual
agency. An account of collective agency in terms of the standard theory
raises the question of whether it makes sense to attribute mental states and
events (such as desires, beliefs, and intentions) to groups of individuals.
(For references and discussion see the entries on shared agency and
collective intentionality.)
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 Agency
The notion of relational agency derives from relational accounts of
autonomy. According to feminist critiques, traditional accounts of
autonomy are overly individualistic, insofar as they overlook or neglect
the importance of interpersonal relationships in the development and
sustenance of an autonomous individual. As Westlund (2009) points out,
however, most traditional accounts are compatible with the feminist
emphasis on interpersonal relationships as long as relationships and
dependence on others are construed as being causally necessary for the
development and sustenance of an individual agent. Autonomy is
genuinely relational only if interpersonal relationships and dependence are
constitutive of autonomy. On Westlund’s own view, autonomous agency
requires an “irreducibly dialogical form of reflectiveness and
responsiveness to others” (2009: 28). On this account, autonomy is an
irreducibly relational kind of agency. (For more on this see the entry on
feminist perspectives on autonomy.)
Finally, we turn briefly to the question of whether robots and other
systems of artificial intelligence are capable of agency. If one presumes the
standard theory, one faces the question of whether it is appropriate to
attribute mental states to artificial systems (see section 2.4). If one takes an
instrumentalist stance (Dennett 1987: Ch. 2), there is no obvious obstacle
to the attribution of mental states and intentional agency to artificial
systems. According to realist positions, however, it is far from obvious
whether or not this is justified, because it is far from obvious whether or
not artificial systems have internal states that ground the ascription of
representational mental states. If artificial systems are not capable of
intentional agency, as construed by the standard theory, they may still be
capable of some more basic kind of agency. According to Barandiaran et
al. (2009), minimal agency does not require the possession of mental
states. It requires, rather, the adaptive regulation of the agent’s coupling
with the environment and metabolic self-maintenance. This means,
though, that on this view artificial systems are not even capable of
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minimal agency: “being specific about the requirements for agency has
told us a lot about how much is still needed for the development of
artificial forms of agency” (Barandiaran et al. 2009: 382).
3. The metaphysics of agency
What is the nature of agency? How should we construe the relation
between agents and actions? How can agency be part of the event-causal
order? In this section, we will first turn to the three main approaches in the
metaphysics of agency that provide three different frameworks for how to
think about such metaphysical questions (the event-causal, the agent-
causal, and the volitionist framework). After considering some problems
and objections, we turn to an alternative approach that rejects the project
of providing a metaphysics of agency (dual standpoint theory). Finally, we
briefly consider the individuation of actions and some further issues in the
metaphysics of agency.
3.1 Three metaphysical frameworks
According to an event-causal approach, agency is to be explained in terms
of event-causal relations between agent-involving states and events.[11]
On this view, actions are events, and an event is an action just in case it
has the right event-causal history.[12] We may call this a reductive
approach to agency, as it reduces the agent’s role in the exercise of agency
to the causal roles of agent-involving states and events. Obviously, the
standard theory belongs to this reductive event-causal framework, because
it explains agency in terms of causation by the agent’s mental states and
events.[13] (Proponents include Davidson 1963, 1971; Goldman 1970;
Brand 1984; Bratman 1987; Dretske 1988; Bishop 1989; Mele 1992,
2003; Enç 2003.)
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According to an agent-causal approach, agency is to be explained in terms
of a kind of substance-causation: causation by the agent, construed as a
persisting substance. On this view, actions are events, and an event is an
action just in case it has the right agent-causal history.[14] This framework
provides a non-reductive account of agency insofar as it holds that an
agent’s role in the exercise of agency is to be construed in terms of the
exercise of an irreducible agent-causal power (Chisholm 1964; Taylor
1966; O’Connor 2000; see also Clarke 2003; Lowe 2008).
According to a volitionist approach, agency is to be explained in terms of
acts of the will, usually called “volitions”. On this view, volitions are the
source of agency: an overt movement is an action just in case it is caused,
in the right way, by a volition. Volitions themselves are entirely uncaused
and they are sui generis acts: they are acts in virtue of their intrinsic
properties, not in virtue of some extrinsic or relational property (such as
having the right causal history). This is also a non-reductive approach to
agency, but it differs sharply from both the event-causal and the agent-
causal framework in the important respect that it rejects the suggestion
that all actions are events with a certain causal history (Ginet 1990;
McCann 1998; see also Lowe 2008).[15]
The event-causal framework is by far the most widely accepted view in
the contemporary philosophy of mind and action. One reason for this is
that the commitment to the event-causal framework is tantamount to a
commitment to a very minimal and widely endorsed kind of naturalism,
according to which any appeal to irreducible substance-causation or
teleology is to be avoided. Further, this commitment to the event-causal
framework is sustained by a widespread dissatisfaction with alternative
agent-causal and volitionist theories of agency. Some objections to agent-
causal theories derive from more general objections to the notion of
substance-causation, others address more directly the agent-causal account
of agency. It has been argued, for instance, that appeal to substances leaves
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both the timing and the manner of causation mysterious (Broad 1952).
Further, it has been argued that substance-causation collapses into event-
causation, once it is acknowledged that a substance has its causal powers
in virtue of its properties (Clarke 2003: Ch. 10). Others have argued that
an appeal to the agent as a cause is vacuous, because it has no explanatory
import (Davidson 1971), and because it cannot explain what an agent’s
exercise of control consists in (Schlosser 2010). A common objection to
volitionist accounts is that they generate a regress of mental acts (Ryle
1949). Arguably, though, this objection begs the question. The view holds
that overt actions are to be explained in terms of volitions. There is no
need to appeal to further mental acts of the will in order to explain why
volitions are actions, because volitions are actions sui generis (see Enç
2003 for discussion). This, however, points also to the reason why the
view is widely rejected. Volitionist theories stipulate as primitive what
appears to be in need of explanation. In particular, they do not explain
what an agent’s exercise of control consists in, as the agent is merely the
subject or the bearer of volitions (O’Connor 2000: 25–26; Clarke 2003:
17–24). Moreover, if, as most contemporary philosophers would assume,
volitions are realized by events in the brain, the view appears to be in
tension with the fact that there are no events in the brain that are entirely
uncaused.
3.2 Deviant causal chains
In the 1950s and 60s, several philosophers argued that the event-causal
framework is incoherent. Their main argument was the so called “logical
connection argument”, which says, very roughly, that the relation between
mental attitudes and actions cannot be causal, because the connection
between them is logical, conceptual, or in some sense non-contingent
(Hampshire 1959; Melden 1961; Kenny 1963, for instance). It is widely
agreed now that this attack was unsuccessful (the most influential reply is
due to Davidson 1963; see also Goldman 1970: 109–116).[16] Shortly after
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that another challenge emerged, which turned out to be the most serious
and most persistent problem for the standard theory and the event-causal
framework: the problem of deviant causal chains.
In general, the problem is that it seems always possible that the relevant
mental states and events cause the relevant event (a certain movement, for
instance) in a deviant way: so that this event is clearly not an intentional
action or not an action at all. It is common to distinguish between cases of
basic deviance and consequential deviance (also called primary and
secondary deviance). A murderous nephew intends to kill his uncle in
order to inherit his fortune. He drives to his uncle’s house and on the way
he kills a pedestrian by accident. As it turns out, this pedestrian is his
uncle. This is a case of consequential deviance (Chisholm 1966). In a
standard case of basic deviance (Davidson 1973), a climber intends to rid
himself of the weight and danger of holding another man on a rope by
loosening his grip. This intention unnerves him so that it causes him to
loosen his hold on the rope. The difference between the cases is best
explained in terms of the distinction between basic and non-basic actions.
Very roughly, basic actions are the things that one can do without doing
something else (such as raising one’s hand), whereas the performance of
non-basic actions requires that one does something else (such as giving
someone a signal by raising one’s hand).[17] In the consequential case, the
nephew has an intention to perform a non-basic action (to kill his uncle).
He successfully performs several basic actions, but it is a sheer
coincidence that he brings about the intended end. The climber, in
contrast, does not perform any action at all. The mental antecedent causes
a movement that would have been a basic action, had the causal chain not
been deviant.
Any event-causal theory of agency must require that the relevant mental
attitudes cause the action in the right way. The right way of causation is
non-deviant causation. The challenge is to spell out what non-deviant
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causation consists in within the event-causal framework; without, in
particular, any appeal to some unanalyzed notion of agent-causation or
control. Davidson (1974) was pessimistic about the prospects for finding
an event-causal account of non-deviant causation, and he suggested that
the standard theory is best understood as providing only necessary
conditions for agency. Goldman (1970) suggested that giving an account
of non-deviant causation is an empirical rather than a philosophical task.
Since then, however, most proponents of the event-causal approach have
acknowledged that the problem of deviant causal chains is a serious
philosophical problem, and various solutions have been proposed (see
Peacocke 1979; Brand 1984; Bishop 1989; Mele 2003; Schlosser 2007,
2011; Wu 2016).[18]
3.3 Disappearing agents, naturalism, and dual standpoint theory
Sometimes it is suggested that the problem of deviant causal chains is
merely a symptom of the deeper problem that event-causal theories
altogether fail to capture agency, because they reduce actions to things that
merely happen to us (Lowe 2008: 9, for instance). Put differently, this
challenge says that the event-causal framework is deficient because it
leaves out agents: all there is, on this view, is a nexus of causal pushes and
pulls in which no one does anything (Melden 1961; Nagel 1986; see also
Velleman 1992). This has been called the problem of the “disappearing
agent” (Mele 2003: Ch. 10; Lowe 2008: 159–161; Steward 2013).
According to Mele (2003: Ch. 10), some formulations of this disappearing
agent objection are easily dismissed. Some proponents of this challenge
use the terms ‘event-causal order’ and ‘natural order’ interchangeably.
This would seem to suggest that, on their view, agency is a supernatural
phenomenon​—a view that most contemporary philosophers find hard to
take seriously. However, sometimes the challenge is raised in order to
motivate alternative agent-causal or volitionist theories of agency, and the
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main proponents of agent-causal and volitionist theories maintain that
their views are compatible with naturalism. They would argue that it is a
mistake to presume that the event-causal order exhausts the natural order
of things.
Further, the disappearing agent objection is not always put forward as a
general objection to the event-causal framework. As we have seen (section
2.3), Velleman (1992) argued that the standard theory leaves out the agent,
or the agent’s participation, and he proposed a solution to this problem
within the event-causal framework. In his reply, Mele (2003: Ch. 10)
suggested that it would be more appropriate to call this the problem of the
“shrinking agent”. According to Velleman, the standard theory captures
only deficient instances of agency, in which the agent’s participation is
“unwitting” or “halfhearted”. Instances of deficient agency can be
explained in terms of various capacities or properties that the agent does
not possess, exercise, or instantiate; capacities and properties such as
conscious awareness, reflective awareness, reason-responsiveness, self-
control, self-governance, and so on. Given this, there is no need to
conceptualize instances of deficient agency in terms of the agent’s
absence. Further, doing so creates a rather implausible dichotomy between
a kind of agency in which the agent does participate and a kind of agency
in which the agent does not participate (Schlosser 2010).
Others, yet, press the disappearing agent objection in order to motivate a
dual standpoint theory. According to dual standpoint theories, agency
cannot be explained from any theoretical standpoint or metaphysical
framework. Agency can only be understood from a practical and
normative standpoint (Nagel 1986; Korsgaard 1996; Bilgrami 2006, for
instance). Arguably, this view has its roots in Kant’s account of practical
reason (see the entry on Kant and Hume on morality). Usually, dual
standpoint theories do not reject metaphysics as such, and they often
provide a metaphysical framework of their own. But they reject both
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reductive and non-reductive theories of agency, and they reject, in general,
the notion that we can have a metaphysical account of what the exercise of
agency consists in. They align themselves naturally with non-causal
theories of reason explanation (see section 2). Both views tend to
emphasize the normative and irreducibly teleological nature of reason
explanation and, hence, agency. Dual standpoint theories have received
relatively little attention in the philosophy of action. To many, it seems
that such views are deeply unsatisfactory precisely because they refuse to
face a central question in the metaphysics of agency: how can agents
exercise control over their actions in a world in which all movements can
be explained in terms of event-causation? It seems that this is in need of
explanation, and it seems that this requires a metaphysics of agency (see
Bishop 1989; Schlosser 2010). Nelkin (2000) has questioned the
coherence of dual standpoint theories on the basis of an argument for the
claim that they entail commitments to contradictory beliefs about free will.
3.4 Actions, events, processes, and omissions
We now turn, in brief, to some further issues in the metaphysics of agency.
The first concerns the individuation of actions. You flick the switch, turn
on the light, illuminate the room, and you thereby also alert the burglar.
How many actions do you perform? According to coarse-grained (or
minimizing) views on the individuation of actions, you perform one action
under different descriptions (Anscombe 1957; Davidson 1963). According
to fine-grained (or maximizing) views, how many actions you perform
depends on how many act-properties are instantiated. If you instantiate
four act-properties, then you perform four distinct actions (Goldman 1970;
see also Ginet 1990). According to a third alternative, actions can have
other actions as their components or parts (Thalberg 1977; Ginet 1990).
According to all three views, actions are events, and the individuation of
actions derives from different views on the individuation of events (see the
entry on events). Not much work has been done on this recently (see,
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however, Enç 2003: Ch. 3). This is partly because it is now widely agreed
that the individuation of actions has little or no bearing on other issues. To
illustrate, the question of whether agency is to be explained within an
event-causal or an agent-causal framework bears directly on various issues
in the debate on free will and moral responsibility (see the entry on free
will). But event-causal and agent-causal theories are both compatible with
coarse-grained and fine-grained views on the individuation of actions.
Similarly, it seems that the views on the individuation of actions have no
substantial bearing on the question of whether or not reason explanations
are causal explanations.
A related issue is whether actions are to be identified with the outcomes of
causal processes or with the processes themselves. According to most
versions of event-causal and agent-causal theories, an action is an event
that is caused in the right way: the action is identical with or constituted by
the outcome of that process.[19] According to process views, the action is
either identical with or constituted by that process (Searle 1983; Dretske
1988; Wu 2011; see also Thompson 2008). This issue has also not
received much attention. Again, this is mainly because it is widely
assumed that this issue has little or no substantial bearing on more
fundamental issues in the metaphysics of agency and on debates outside
the philosophy of action.[20]
Another issue in the metaphysics of agency that has received more
attention in the recent debate is the nature of omissions (in particular,
intentional omissions). According to Sartorio (2009), an intentional
omission is the absence of an action that is caused by the absence of an
intention. She argues, on the basis of this account, that intentional
omissions cannot be accommodated easily by the standard theory. In reply,
Clarke (2010a) has argued that in cases of intentional omission the agent
usually does have an intention not to act that plays an important causal
role, and he has identified various parallels between intentional actions
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and intentional omissions. On his view, there are no major obstacles to an
account of intentional omissions that is compatible and continuous with
the standard theory of intentional action. Further, he argues that a failure to
account for intentional omissions would not obviously be a shortcoming of
a theory of intentional action. There are, after all, significant differences
between actions and omissions, and so we should not expect that a theory
of action provides all the resources that are required for an account of
omissions. (For more on this see Clarke 2014.)
4. Empirical challenges and the role of consciousness
4.1 Reasons and causes
According to our commonsense conception of agency, our reasons and
conscious intentions tend to make a real difference to how we act
(D’Andrade 1987; Malle 2004, for instance). This assumption is part and
parcel of the standard theory and of numerous psychological theories of
intentional action and motivation (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975; Locke and
Latham 1990; Heckhausen 1991; Gollwitzer 1993; Austin and Vancouver
1996, for instance). There are, however, various empirical findings from
psychology and cognitive neuroscience that have been taken to show that
this commonsense assumption is unwarranted, and that have raised
interesting and challenging questions concerning the role of consciousness
in the initiation and guidance of agency. This section provides an overview
of the most relevant research.
An early and highly influential source of the skepticism concerning the
causal relevance of our reasons is a theoretical review by Nisbett and
Wilson (1977). This article reports numerous experiments and studies in
which participants appear to construct or confabulate rationalizing
explanations by giving reasons that could not possibly have been the
reasons they acted for. Despite some rather serious methodological
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problems (White 1988), this research has achieved and retained the status
of textbook knowledge within psychology and cognitive science.
Moreover, it has been taken to show that ordinary reason explanations are
not causal explanations, even though the authors themselves rejected this
conclusion. On their view, the evidence shows, first and foremost, that
verbal reports of mental states are based on self-interpretation (theorizing
or rationalization), rather than on direct or introspective access. They
noted that this epistemic view is perfectly compatible with the assumption
that we can and often do give the actual causes of our actions when we
give an ordinary reason explanation. The upshot is that, even if the
proposed epistemic view is correct, there is nothing in the evidence which
shows that reason explanations cannot be causal explanations, and there is
nothing in the evidence which shows that reason explanations are usually
not causal explanations.
4.2 Situationism
It seems that the empirical evidence in support of situationism raises a
challenge for our commonsense conception of agency. According to
situationism, empirical research shows that commonsense explanations of
actions in terms of character traits (such as honesty, kindness, or courage)
are systematically mistaken or inaccurate, because this research shows that
the actions in question are better explained in terms of situational features
(Ross and Nisbett 1991; Harman 1999; Doris 2002). But none of the
common philosophical theories of agency say that actions are to be
explained in terms of the agent’s character traits, and so it seems that
situationism does not raise a problem for the standard theory and other
philosophical accounts of agency. Moreover, the interpretation of the
empirical evidence in question and the argument for situationism have
been controversial (Sreenivasan 2002, for instance). It has been argued,
however, that this evidence raises the further question of whether we are
genuinely reason-responsive. The evidence suggests that our actions are,
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under certain conditions, driven by situational and morally irrelevant
factors even when there are salient moral reasons to act otherwise. This
suggests that we (or most of us) are not as reason-responsive as we would
like to think. But it is controversial whether or not the evidence supports
any stronger claims than that (for more on this see Nelkin 2005; Schlosser
2013; Vargas 2013).
4.3 The Libet experiment and Wegner’s challenge
The most influential empirical challenge concerning the role of conscious
intentions stems from Libet’s seminal neuroscientific work on the
initiation of movements. In the Libet experiment (Libet 1985), participants
were instructed to initiate a simple and predefined movement when the
wish or urge to do so arises. During this, EEG measurements were taken
to record the readiness potential, a brain potential that was known to
precede intentional movements. The main finding was that the readiness
potential precedes the occurrence of the conscious wish or urge to move
by about 350ms. According to Libet, this shows that movements are not
consciously initiated and that we do not have free will in the sense we
commonly think we do (Libet 1999). The methodology of this experiment
has been scrutinized extensively and criticized on a number of points.
Some of those methodological issues have been addressed in follow-up
experiments (Soon et al. 2008; Fried et al. 2011).
Most philosophers who have addressed Libet’s work have argued that the
conclusions about the role of conscious intentions and about free will do
not follow, even if it is granted that the experimental methods and results
are sound. They have argued that there are alternative interpretations of
the evidence that preserve a causal role for conscious intentions and that
are as plausible and probable as Libet’s own interpretation of the evidence
(Flanagan 1992: 136–138; Zhu 2003; Mele 2009a; Schlosser 2012b).
Further, it has been argued that the experiment creates a very unusual and
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artificial context in which participants are instructed to decide
spontaneously. Due to this, it is questionable that the results of the
experiment can be generalized (Keller and Heckhausen 1990; Roskies
2011; Waller 2012; Schlosser 2014). Schurger et al. (2012) have proposed
and tested a model that addresses this issue. According to this model, the
timing of the movement in the Libet experiment is determined by random
threshold crossings in spontaneous fluctuations in neural activity. In
particular, the model says that a decision when to move is determined by
random threshold crossings only when it is not constrained by any
evidence or reasons for action. The fact that this model has been tested
successfully supports the claim that the results from the Libet experiment
and from similar follow-up studies do not generalize, because most of our
everyday decisions clearly are constrained by evidence and by reasons for
action.
A related challenge concerning the role of conscious intentions stems from
Wegner’s model of apparent mental causation. According to this view,
conscious intentions provide mere “previews” of our actions: they precede
our actions, but they do not cause them (Wegner and Wheatley 1999;
Wegner 2002). Wegner provided evidence of dissociations between the
sense of agency and the actual exercise of agency, and he argued that the
model of apparent mental causation provides the best explanation of the
data. This view has been strongly criticized for conceptual ambiguities and
argumentative flaws (see also section 4.5). One common objection is that
the fact that the sense of agency can come apart from the exercise of
agency is perfectly compatible with the assumption that conscious
intentions tend to cause the intended actions. (See Bayne 2006; Mele
2009a; for a reply to Wegner’s inference to the best explanation see
Schlosser 2012a.)
The work of Libet and Wegner has nevertheless raised interesting and
challenging questions concerning the role of consciousness in agency.
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Proponents of the standard theory often qualify the view with the claim
that the relevant mental attitudes need not be consciously accessed in
order to play the right role in the exercise of agency. When, for instance,
Davidson (1978: 85–86) considered the example of an agent who adds
some spice to a stew with the intention of improving the taste, he claimed
that intentional agency requires only that the agent would have reasoned
on the basis of the relevant attitudes that the action is to be performed, had
he been aware of those attitudes at the time. Few, though, would be
prepared to accept the view that all of our actions might be like this:
initiated and guided by attitudes that are not consciously accessed at the
time. This raises various questions that are rarely addressed. How often, or
in what kinds of cases, should actions be preceded by conscious intentions
or conscious reasoning? What kind of consciousness is required? In cases
where the relevant attitudes are not consciously accessed, must they be
accessible? And so forth.[21]
4.4 Automaticity and dual-system theory
One strand of empirical research that is relevant to questions concerning
the role of consciousness in agency is the work on automaticity; in
particular, the research on automatic goal pursuit. It has been shown, for
instance, that the goal to perform a certain task accurately can be primed,
so that the agent pursues the goal without any awareness of doing so
(Bargh et al. 2001). There is a large body of research on this, and it has
been suggested that this research shows that most of our actions are
executed automatically and without conscious control (Bargh and
Chartrand 1999, Custers and Aarts 2010).[22] This claim is less radical
than the claims put forward by Libet (1999) and Wegner (2002), as it
concerns only the extent or scope of conscious control. Further, this
appears to be much less challenging once it is noted that the great majority
of automatic actions are sub-routines that are in the service of higher goals
and long-term intentions. Consider, for instance, all the sub-routines that
Winter 2019 Edition 33
 Agency Markus Schlosser

one performs while driving a car. The claim that such actions are discussion of whether the dual-system framework is compatible with the
performed automatically and without conscious control can be reconciled philosophical standard theory of action see Schlosser 2019.[23]
with our commonsense conception of agency and it can be accommodated
by the standard theory, provided that conscious intentions and plans can 4.5 The sense of agency
recruit the relevant routines automatically, either by generating the
There has been some debate concerning the kind of knowledge we have of
relevant motor intentions, or by activating the relevant motor schemata.
our own actions. Most prominently, Anscombe (1957) argued that the
(For more on this see Pacherie 2008; Adams 2010; Clarke 2010b.)
knowledge of our actions is direct, in the sense that it is not based on
Another relevant strand of research is the work on dual-process (or dual- observation or inference (see the entry on action). This section provides an
system) theories of decision-making. According to such models, there are overview of the closely related debate on the so called “sense of agency”.
two distinct types of mental processes (or systems) that underlie decision- It seems that when we act, we have a sense of doing something: a sense of
making and agency: one is typically characterized as automatic, effortless, control and of being the agent or owner of the action. The debate about
and heuristics-based, and the other as conscious, deliberate, and rule- this has been driven largely by empirical findings from psychology and
based. Dual-process models have been deployed widely and successfully cognitive science, and it has become common to distinguish between the
in many areas of research (for overviews see Sloman 1996; Evans 2008; following three main positions.
for critical reviews see Osman 2004; Keren and Schul 2009). In
The first is largely due to Wegner’s work on the “model of apparent
philosophy, it is commonly assumed, explicitly or implicitly, that there is
mental causation” (Wegner and Wheatley 1999; Wegner 2002). According
one mechanism (or faculty) of practical reason that underlies practical
to this view, the sense of agency (or the “experience of conscious will”, as
reasoning and reason-based agency. This appears to be incompatible with
Wegner called it) arises when we interpret a conscious intention to
the dual-process framework. What complicates this issue, though, is that
perform a certain action as its cause. It says, in particular, that an agent
there is no consensus on the details of the dual-process model. There is,
interprets an intention as the cause of an action when the following
for instance, no commonly accepted view on how the two processes (or
conditions obtain: the intention proximately precedes the action, the action
systems) interact. Conscious and deliberate processes may have a top-
is consistent with the intention, and the agent is not aware of any factors
down influence on automatic processes; the two processes may interact
that could provide an alternative explanation. Wegner’s argument for the
with each other; they may interfere with each other in some cases; there
model of apparent mental causation is based on various experiments,
may be cases in which processing switches from one to the other; and so
studies, and observations concerning illusions of control and failures in the
on. Not all of those possibilities are obviously incompatible with the
ascription of agency. This work initiated the empirical study of the sense
assumption that there is one mechanism (or faculty) of practical reason.
of agency, but Wegner’s model is now widely rejected. Philosophers have
Further research is needed in order to investigate whether the two types of
criticized the view for various conceptual ambiguities and flaws in the
processes are in the relevant respects independent or whether they can be
interpretation and use of the evidence (Nahmias 2002; Bayne 2006;
construed as interacting parts of one mechanism of decision-making. For a
Dennett 2008; and Mele 2009a, for instance). Moreover, there is now

34 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Winter 2019 Edition 35

 Agency
plenty of empirical evidence to suggest that the sense of agency is not
merely a matter of self-interpretation (Haggard 2005; Bayne and Pacherie
2007; Gallagher 2007; and Synofzik et al. 2008).
The second account of the sense of agency is based on a feedback-
comparator model of motor control. According to this model, the motor
control system uses copies of motor commands in order to generate
predictions of the ensuing bodily movements. Those predictions (so called
“forward models”) are then used for comparisons between the predicted
and the intended trajectories of movements, and for comparisons between
the predicted and actual trajectories (based on information from sensory
feedback). The model holds that a sub-personal system of motor control
uses those predictions and comparisons in order to adjust and fine-tune the
execution of bodily movements (Wolpert and Kawato 1998; Frith et al.
2000; Haggard 2005). It has been suggested that this system may also play
a crucial role in the generation of the sense of agency. On this view,
positive matches in the comparator system generate a sense of agency,
whereas mismatches generate error signals that disrupt the sense of
agency. This model can explain a wide range of phenomena concerning
the sense and control of agency (Frith et al. 2000; Blakemore et al. 2002).
More recently it has been argued, however, that this comparator model
provides at best a partial explanation of the sense of agency (Haggard
2005; Bayne and Pacherie 2007; Gallagher 2007; Synofzik et al. 2008).
The third account of the sense of agency is a hybrid of the first two.
Proponents of this approach usually distinguish between a basic sense of
agency and post-act judgments concerning one’s agency. The basic sense
of agency is construed as an online and phenomenologically rather thin
experience that accompanies the performance of actions, and that does not
necessarily require the presence of a conscious intention. Judgments about
one’s agency, in contrast, are offline and usually post-act, and they are,
thereby, subject to various biases that may distort the interpretation of
36 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Markus Schlosser
one’s own agency. The feedback-comparator model is well suited to
explain the basic sense of agency, whereas a self-interpretation theory,
akin to Wegner’s, can explain why judgments about one’s own agency
tend to be distorted or illusory under certain conditions (Bayne and
Pacherie 2007; Gallagher 2007; Synofzik et al. 2008).
Pacherie (2008) develops the feedback-comparator model into an account
of the phenomenology of agency that postulates three integrated feedback
loops at three different levels of intention: the level of distal (or future-
directed) intention, proximal (or present-directed) intention, and motor
intention. These are levels of action specification in which progressively
more detailed representations of the action are generated, at the later
stages in response to perceptual and proprioceptive feedback. Pacherie’s
main thesis is that the component representations of the stages in the
process of action specification are strongly interconnected with the
components and contents of the phenomenology of agency. At the level of
proximal intentions, for instance, the model explains how the conceptual
information that is inherited from the distal intention is integrated with
perceptual input and situational constraints. Concerning the sense of
agency, the model distinguishes between the awareness of what (the goal),
awareness of how (the means), the sense of intentionality, the sense of
initiation, the sense of situational control, and the sense of motor control.
Shepherd (2017) argues that the components in the phenomenology of
agency are so richly integrated that they can be regarded as fused in the
total experience.
4.6 Perception and attention
The analytical philosophy of action neglected the role of perception and
attention in the guidance of agency for a long time. Concerning perception
it was common to assume, often without any elaboration, that the
reference to the guiding role of beliefs takes care of the role of perception.
Winter 2019 Edition 37
 Agency
The standard theory does not limit the causal role of beliefs to those that
the agent considers or possesses prior to the execution of the action, and so
we may assume that the beliefs that are supposed to play a causal guidance
role include perceptual beliefs that the agent acquires during the
performance of the action. More recent work (Mele 2003; Pacherie 2008;
Schlosser 2012a) has shown that the standard theory is compatible with
the feedback-comparator model of movement control outlined above (see
section 4.5). This model accounts not only for the role of perceptual and
proprioceptive input, but also for the guidance provided by internal
predictions in the fine-tuning and execution of motor control.
The role of attention, however, was almost entirely unacknowledged, as
pointed out by Wu (2011, 2016). Whenever we pursue a goal, we must not
only select appropriate means. We must also select which features of the
situation to attend to in the guidance of action. Wu conceptualizes this in
terms of a “many-many problem”: in the pursuit of a goal we face
typically too many perceptual inputs and too many possible behavioral
outputs. The formation of an intention provides only a partial solution.
The content of an intention usually includes the selection of the
appropriate means. One intends, for instance, to open the window in order
to let in some fresh air. This constrains the range of behavioral outputs and
the range of perceptual inputs that one needs to attend to. But it does not
determine a specific enough input-output mapping. Generally, the content
of intentions is not fine-grained enough in order to properly guide the
execution of movements and the direction of attention. Wu suggests that
the many-many problems at those finer-grained levels are solved by
attention. Following William James, Wu proposes that attention is the
missing selection for action: the selection of perceptual inputs for the
implementation of motor control. On this view, intention-mediated
attention is an essential component of embodied agency. This raises the
question of whether the selection of attention can itself be a genuine
38 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Markus Schlosser
exercise of agency, and whether the proposed account can be extended so
as to account for the intentional direction and control of attention.
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Related Entries
action | agency: shared | Anscombe, Gertrude Elizabeth Margaret |
autonomy: personal | Davidson, Donald | events | feminist philosophy,
topics: perspectives on autonomy | free will | incompatibilism:
(nondeterministic) theories of free will | intention | practical reason |
practical reason: and the structure of actions
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Alfred Mele and Randolph Clarke for very helpful comments
on an earlier draft of this entry.
Notes to Agency
1. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest use of ‘agent’
in English can be found in a treatise on alchemy, written in 1471, where it
was used to denote “a force capable of acting on matter”. It is noted that
the semantic development of ‘agency’ has been considerably shaped by
association with ‘agent’, which is defined, most generally, as a “person
who or thing which acts upon someone or something; one who or that
which exerts power; the doer of an action”.
2. In her main contribution to the philosophy of action, Anscombe (1957)
did not use the term ‘agency’ at all. Davidson used it on occasion, but
always under the assumption that agency is, essentially, intentional action
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 Agency
(see, especially, Davidson 1971). Sometimes, the term ‘agency theory’ was
used to denote the view that the relation between agents and their actions
is primitive and irreducible. This usage is now outdated, as it has become
common to refer to this position as the theory of agent-causation or the
agent-causal account of agency (see section 3.1).
3. A search in the Philosopher’s Index over publication titles in peer
reviewed and scholarly journals reveals the following. In the period from
1960–1989, there are 678 entries for ‘action’ and 75 for ‘agency’. In the
period from 1990–present, there are 1230 entries for ‘action’ and 597 for
‘agency’ (retrieved on 03/12/2014). For theories and discussions of agency
in psychology, social science, and anthropology see Bandura 2006,
Emirbayer and Mische 1998, and Ahearn 2001, for instance.
4. The generation of one action by another often consists in causation, but
it need not. Goldman (1970: Ch. 2) distinguishes between four types of
act-generation: causal generation, conventional generation, simple
generation, and augmentation generation.
5. Arguably, there are actions that are neither intentional nor unintentional.
Examples include foreseen but unintended side-effects and cases in which
the achievement of a goal involves more luck than skill. The claim that
there are such middle-ground actions is compatible with the claim that
action depends on intentional action, because in all such middle-ground
cases, the action in question is either identical with or generated by
something that the agent does intentionally. For more on this see Mele and
Moser 1994; Mele 2012.
6. In later work, Davidson changed his view on this. See Davidson 1978.
7. It is unclear, though, whether all instances of agency involve initiation.
Setiya (2007: 57–58) argues that guidance without initiation can be
sufficient for intentional agency. No one denies, however, that agency can
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Markus Schlosser
and frequently does involve initiation by the agent. This notion can be
traced back to Aristotle’s characterization of behavior in terms of self-
movement: movement that has its source or origin in the agent.
8. Later on, Frankfurt argued that the standard theory is inadequate
because it fails to account for the agent’s guidance during the execution of
an action (Frankfurt 1978; see also note 19). But this objection to the
standard theory played no role in his argument for the hierarchical account
of human agency. Since then, several proponents of the standard theory
have argued that the view does have the resource to explain guidance. See
Brand 1984; Audi 1986; Bishop 1989; Mele 1992 and 2003; Pacherie
2008; Clarke 2010b, for instance.
9. Sims (2019) argues that our mature concept of ‘agent’ inherits its
referent from a “minimal mindreading mechanism” which produces an
“agential proto-concept”: a disposition to treat agents as a distinct kind of
entity. Sims concludes that the concept ‘agent’ should not be analyzed a
priori, and that the standard causal theory is false insofar as it is a theory
about the meaning of ‘agency’. As suggested in this entry, it is not
mandatory to construe the standard theory in this way. All things
considered, it is more plausible to hold that the standard theory provides a
reductive account of one central kind of agency: intentional agency.
Moreover, the standard theory need not be taken as reductive in the sense
that it is based solely on a priori analysis. It is reductive in the
metaphysical sense that it reduces the agent’s role to the role of mental
states and events (see section 3.1), and it is open to be developed and
refined in the light of empirical evidence.
10. Mele (2003: Ch. 9) shows that this account does not generate a regress
of intention formation, provided that intentions to resolve the particular
practical question can be acquired passively (at the beginning or during the
process of deliberation).
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 Agency
11. There are several ways to explain the role of states in an event-causal
framework. First, one may acknowledge that it is, strictly speaking, not
states themselves that are causally efficacious, but events that are closely
associated with them, such as the manifestation of a belief, the formation
of an intention, or the “onslaught” of a desire (Davidson 1963). Second, it
has been suggested that states can play the same causal role as events,
because states belong to the same metaphysical category. According to
Kim (1976), for instance, both events and states are instantiations of
properties (by substances at certain times). Third, it has been suggested
that states can play a role in event-causation as “structuring causes”
(Dretske 1988).
12. According to some versions of the event-causal approach, the action is
the relevant causal process, rather than the causal effect or outcome of that
process. See section 3.4.
13. One may hold that people believe, desire, and intend, but deny that
there are mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Arguably,
one can accommodate this view and preserve the core of the standard
theory by appeal to fact-causation. If there is fact-causation, then actions
can be caused by such things as the facts that the agent believes, desires,
and intends. For more on this see Mele 2013.
14. As with event-causal views, there are versions of the agent-causal
view according to which the action is the relevant causal process, rather
than the causal effect or outcome of that process. See section 3.4.
15. Volitionists also reject the claim that agency can be reduced to
processes with a certain causal structure. See notes 12, 14, and section 3.4.
16. A common strategy is to give counterexamples to the claim that a
logical connection excludes a causal connection. For instance, the
connection between sunburn and overexposure to sunlight is not merely
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Markus Schlosser
contingent: an irritation of the skin is sunburn only if it is brought about by
overexposure to sunlight. The connection is both logical and causal.
Further, it seems that the logical connection argument conflates types and
tokens. The logical connections hold between types of mental attitudes
and types of actions, whereas the purported causal connections hold
between particular tokens of those types.
17. There is no general agreement on how this distinction is to be fleshed
out in detail. But it is widely agreed that there are basic actions, which we
have to perform in order to perform non-basic actions. See Danto 1965;
Goldman 1970; Ginet 1990; Enç 2003. For a dissenting view see Lavin
2013.
18. The problem of consequential deviance is usually solved by appeal to
the agent’s act-plan (which is assumed to be part of the content of the
relevant mental attitude). In such cases, the agent brings about the
intended end, but not in the way planned. This explains why the chain is
deviant (Bishop 1989, for instance). The problem of basic deviance is
more difficult, and there is no standard solution. But there are several
proposals on offer. According to Peacocke (1979) and Bishop (1989), the
problem is, in essence, a lack of sensitivity, which can be spelt out in
terms of counterfactual conditionals. In deviant causal chains, it is not the
case that different mental antecedents would have resulted in
corresponding differences in the action. Brand (1984) and Mele (2003)
proposed solutions in terms of “proximal causation”: the relevant mental
antecedents must be the proximal causes of the relevant events. Schlosser
(2007) proposed a solution that appeals to causation in virtue of content: in
deviant cases, the effect is not caused and explained in virtue of the
antecedent’s content. This solution follows from the more general proposal
that non-deviant causation consists in the manifestation of the right kinds
of dispositions (see Schlosser 2011). According to Wu (2016), “intention-
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 Agency Markus Schlosser

mediated attention” is an essential component of agency, and in deviant 22. The research on automaticity includes the work on the automatic
causal chains the “intention-attention nexus” is disrupted. activation of stereotypes. Many of the seminal experiments in this area
have been called into question. Several attempts at replication have either
19. Such outcome views are not committed to the claim that the failed or produced only significantly smaller effects (see Harris et al. 2013,
occurrence of the mental antecedent must precede the action. An action Shanks et al. 2013, and the January 2014 issue of Perspectives on
may be the outcome of a causal process that first initiates and then guides Psychological Science). There is, however, also a very large body of
the execution of the action. (See also notes 8 and 20.) research that corroborates the findings. Even if the effects are small and
difficult to reproduce, it seems rather unlikely that there are no real effects
20. According to Steward (2013), the question of whether actions are
that underlie the results in this area of research.
events or processes does have a bearing on fundamental issues in the
metaphysics of agency. She argues that processes cannot be reduced to 23. Levy 2011 discusses the related question of whether there is room for
chains of events due to their imperfective nature, and she suggests that this the notion of weak-willed action within a dual-process framework.
poses a serious problem for event-causal theories of agency, mainly
because the execution of a process requires guidance by the agent (see Copyright © 2019 by the author
also note 8). Steward fails to mention, however, that there are several Markus Schlosser
event-causal accounts of guidance on offer (Brand 1984; Audi 1986;
Bishop 1989; Mele 1992 and 2003; Pacherie 2008; Clarke 2010b, for
instance). Wu (2011) proposes a “structural theory of action” according to
which an agent’s exercise of control is constituted by the process of an
intention’s causing an action, guided by perceptual attention (see also
section 4.6). Wu presents this view in opposition to the standard event-
causal theory. But the main proponents of the standard theory never
claimed or implied that the agent’s exercise of control resides in the causal
antecedents, rather than in the causal process. In fact, most formulations of
the standard theory make no mention of the notion of control and are fully
compatible with the suggestion that control is constituted by the causal
process. So it seems that this disagreement concerning the locus of control
is largely verbal.

21. Related questions concerning the role of consciousness in morally

responsible agency are addressed in Schlosser 2013 and Levy 2014.

56 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Winter 2019 Edition 57