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dc.contributor.authorWeissman, David
dc.date.accessioned2021-02-10T14:26:08Z
dc.date.available2021-02-10T14:26:08Z
dc.date.issued2020
dc.identifierhttps://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/41258
dc.identifier.urihttps://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/35402
dc.description.abstract"There is agency in all we do: thinking, doing, or making. We invent a tune, play, or use it to celebrate an occasion. Or we make a conceptual leap and ask more abstract questions about the conditions for agency. They include autonomy and self-appraisal, each contested by arguments immersing us in circumstances we don’t control. But can it be true we that have no personal responsibility for all we think and do? Agency: Moral Identity and Free Will proposes that deliberation, choice, and free will emerged within the evolutionary history of animals with a physical advantage: organisms having cell walls or exoskeletons had an internal space within which to protect themselves from external threats or encounters. This defense was both structural and active: such organisms could ignore intrusions or inhibit risky behavior. Their capacities evolved with time: inhibition became the power to deliberate and choose the manner of one’s responses. Hence the ability of humans and some other animals to determine their reactions to problematic situations or to information that alters values and choices. This is free will as a material power, not as the conclusion to a conceptual argument. Having it makes us morally responsible for much we do. It prefigures moral identity. Closely argued but plainly written, Agency: Moral Identity and Free Will speaks for autonomy and responsibility when both are eclipsed by ideas that embed us in history or tradition. Our sense of moral choice and freedom is accurate. We are not altogether the creatures of our circumstances. "
dc.languageEnglish
dc.rightsopen access
dc.subject.classificationbic Book Industry Communication::H Humanities::HP Philosophy
dc.subject.classificationbic Book Industry Communication::H Humanities::HP Philosophy::HPQ Ethics & moral philosophy
dc.subject.classificationbic Book Industry Communication::H Humanities::HP Philosophy::HPS Social & political philosophy
dc.subject.otheragency
dc.subject.othermoral identity
dc.subject.otherfree will
dc.subject.otherphilosophy
dc.subject.othermoral philosophy
dc.titleAgency
dc.title.alternativeMoral Identity and Free Will
dc.typebook
oapen.identifier.doi10.11647/OBP.0197
oapen.relation.isPublishedByb014b543-78bd-4c3b-bc71-b68e2ac855b9
oapen.relation.isbn9781783748754
oapen.relation.isbn9781783748761
oapen.relation.isbn9781783748785
oapen.relation.isbn9781783748792
oapen.relation.isbn9781783748808
oapen.collectionScholarLed
oapen.pages210
dc.dateSubmitted2020-08-12T10:04:03Z


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open access
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