Against Agency: The Fiction of the Autonomous Self

The provided text consists of excerpts from an essay by independent scholar Bry Willis titled "Against Agency: The Fiction of the Autonomous Self," which challenges the foundational Enlightenment concept of the sovereign, autonomous human agent. The author argues that "agency" is a necessary fiction used to maintain modern institutions like courts, markets, and liberal politics by enabling systems of retribution, debt, and blame. Willis proposes replacing the binary concept of agency with a "gradient model" of "differential responsiveness," defining action as a scalar capacity for response that is continuously shaped by material and social constraints. The essay synthesises contemporary critiques from neuroscience and social theory with decolonial and non-Western traditions (such as Buddhist anattā and African Ubuntu) that already treat the self as relational and constrained. Ultimately, the work advocates for an ethic of condition-stewardship and maintenance over moral judgment, concluding with the concept of "Dis-Integrationism," which suggests that systems built on the premise of aggregating autonomous selves must necessarily collapse once the fiction of the agent is removed.Full Essay: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17276732Summary: https://philosophics.blog/2025/10/06/against-agency-the-fiction-of-the-autonomous-self/