Conatus: REVISED EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

C O N A T U S

So, finally, we can ask, what is it about a sentient being that makes it different from an object? What makes a ‘something’ into a ‘someone’? Anything that has sentience, volition and agency is automatically assumed to be something more than just a series of qualities. It has an essence — even although we cannot seem to dig down far enough to discover exactly what it is that provides this essence. We need to be at least a being that is sensate, if not a fully embodied agent, in order for the free will question to have any meaning.

Agency and embodiment give persons, animals, birds — in fact all sentient life — a status above objects. I am not my body — I have a body. Just talking about ‘having a body’ rather than ‘being a body’ is part of what is involved in ascribing agency to living creatures. So owning a body seems to be an integral part of agency. The reason this embodiment is important is that the will and the body cannot be separated. To be embodied is to have intention. To have intention is to be an agent. Body and agency are one! We can return to Rousseau here and the suggestion that our choosing is built in through our genes and our upbringing. I don’t think we’re caught in the infinite regress of not being able to change ourselves. Our imagination and our communication with others, nature and the wider universe can feed back to us. We are not simply victims of our inheritance.

Helen Steward (A Metaphysics of Freedom) points out that agency is naturally ascribed to people and animals, but not to rocks and tables. Likewise, people and animals are described as

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