Saba Bazargan-Forward (2022) Authority, Cooperation, and Accountability. Oxford University Press.
At its most basic level practical agency can be divided broadly into deliberative [심의하는] and executory [실행상의] functions. The former is the process by which candidate options are evaluated and selected, and the latter the process by which the selected candidate options are implemented.
| deliberative functions | executory functions |
| the process by which candidate options are evaluated and selected | the process by which the selected candidate options are implemented |
When an agent makes a practical decision, the agent transitions from the deliberative process to the executory process, in that the function of a decision is to enact via conduct (which might consist of an action or an omission) the practical reasons the agent takes there to be in favor of acting in a particular way. A well-functioning agent will thereby implement the decision she reaches. I make these points in section 1.1.
What does it mean to decide to do something? Decisions are types of intentions. An intention to do something is, in turn, a commitment to doing it.
For Michael Bratman, intention is characterized by its role in planning for the future, in that it functions as a defeasible [해제할 수 있는] commitment, made in advance, to act in a particular way in the future.
Our ability to self-commit in this way yields several advantages. It enables us to act rationally in circumstances where there is not enough time to deliberate or where our deliberative capacities are compromised. And it enables us to manage complex projects requiring coordination with our future selves—or with others—over time.
This facilitates, on Bratman’s view, a form of self governance characteristic of practical agency.
Normally, a single agent embodies both the deliberative and executory functions of agency. That is, normally, you deliberate by evaluating and selecting among candidate options, and you consequently enact the option that you have selected.
It is possible, though, for you to “outsource” the executory functions to me. In such a case, you attribute to me the role of enacting the practical reasons you take there to be; should I accept that role, you thereby change the object at which your practical reasoning is teleologically directed. Its object is no longer your conduct, but rather mine. That is to say, the practical reasons you take there to be, have the function of guiding my conduct; likewise, my conduct has the function of enacting the practical reasons you take there to be. (To enact a reason is just to act in the way that the reason prescribes.)
Put differently, your ends determine the purpose of my conduct. (In the next chapter, I will focus on the role that this purpose plays in grounding the deliberator’s accountability for what the executor does.) In this way, we establish an interpersonal division of agential labor in that you count as the “deliberator” and I count as the “executor”. The point of establishing an interpersonal division of agential labor, then, is to separate out and assign to multiple agents the deliberative and executory functions of rational agency, so that it is the role of one agent to evaluate and select among candidate options, and the role of another agent to implement that option via conduct. I develop this account in sections 1.1.1 and 1.1.2.