From individual agency to co-agency

Abstract

Despite a long tradition in philosophy and theology, later on in sociology, and nowadays visible in (social) psychology and neuroscience, we are still far from operating with a unitary framework for what agency is. This chapter will open with a discussion of four classic yet largely fruitless debates on this topic: (a) agency between complete freedom and the absence of freedom; (b) individual agency versus the agency of supra-individual agents; (c) agency as expressive versus agency as responsive; and (d) agency as originating in the brain versus the agency of the whole person. What comes out of these different, yet interrelated, dichotomies is a strong sense that agency is considered in unidirectional terms. A bidirectional type of thinking leads us to theorise co-agency as a more suitable concept defining the co-participation of person and world in all types of actions we define as ‘agentic’. The second part of this chapter will develop and exemplify a theoretical model in which co-agency is defined as the cyclical coordination between intentionality, (re)action and reflexivity, all situated within a world of social and material constraints. In the end, I will argue why we should reformulate the fundamental question of ‘do humans have agency?’ into a more urgent and pragmatic ‘how do we foster human co-agency?’. This reframing of the debate raises important concerns related to empowerment and the delicate issue of individual and collective responsibility.