The Value of Rational Agency

In this post, I will argue for the value of rational agency. We have already touched on the value of agency in discussing embodiment, so the emphasis here will be on why we should seek to act rationally and what it is to act rationally.

We are stuck acting. We are agents, and thus we must act. Even failing to act is, so long as we are conscious and able to do something, an action in the relevant sense. Actions are behaviors which we permit or cause in ourselves for reasons. In other words, all action is action for some reason. Actions are done in response to perceived goods, in order to preserve or attain those goods. To value oneself as living requires one to value oneself as an agent, and to value oneself as an agent requires one to value oneself as one who acts for the sake of what is valuable.

We must be careful here. It is easy to think of actions and the values for the sake of which one performs the actions as distinct and separable. However, since an action is not an action apart from an end, and since one cannot have an end except as an end for potential actions, the two concepts cannot come apart. The actions we perform express our values. Actions are symptomatic of values, but values can likewise be altered via actions. By acting, we put in concrete form what we value. We thus specify our values to a greater extent. Moreover, in acting, we discover what it is like to so act. We acclimate ourselves to acting in this manner, for these reasons, in this role. Thus, if we seek a particular end, the proper action to take is not merely the most efficient way to achieve that end, but involves us in seeking actions which will express our values as we would have them be, actions which do not speak contrary to the end they are to attain. We cannot murder in order to save lives, we cannot lie in order to preserve the truth, and, in sum, we cannot make exceptions to values we would strengthen our grasp on.

This presume that our bodily actions have meanings which cannot be reduced to the agent's own intentions. This requires that the body have a kind of value-expressive structure independent of what we might value. The body must, then, have some kind of authority over us to direct us to stand with dignity and treat others with respect and care. Because we are embodied, and because we ought to value that embodiment, we ought to regard with respect the restrictions which the body places on how we can act. We should not seek to treat the sense of bodily actions as merely cultural. Even culturally defined actions are not merely cultural--culture is strong and produces real meanings for our actions. What is culturally conditioned has a meaning which permits the bodily behaviors to speak to and alter our values.

Rational agency, then, is not merely a matter of efficient action, but also of accurately connecting the meanings of actions to each other and to our values. To put it another way: the ends to which we must coordinate our means are not merely external, but internal to ourselves: virtue is an end, and we must seek it, along with whatever else we value.

Further, virtue is not an end we may escape. Because we are agents, we seek what seems good to us, and we implicitly presume that there is a right answer to questions of what to do. Merely be acting, we are bound up in wondering what to do, how to live. By acting, we express answers to this question. By deliberating, we presuppose that it is possible to go wrong, as well as right, in answering this question. The question we are seeking an answer to can be put many ways: What is valuable? What kind of life is worth living? What is it I must value to be consistent with valuing my life and seeking, therefore, to make it a good life?