A Philosophical Account of Animal Behavioural Control: the Foundation on Which the Capacity for Human Agency is Exercised

Objetivo

Human agency is exercised on the foundation of basic behavioural control mechanisms: systems that coordinate independently-moveable body parts into useful movement patterns, i.e. behaviours (grasping, walking, etc.). These mechanisms control when and how movement patterns run. They lie mid-way between full-fledged human agency and the pervasive ‘biological agency’ of even single-celled organisms. This project asks: how has evolution designed these mechanisms to function and what does that reveal about the nature of agency?

A dramatic transition occurred when animals evolved to manipulate appendages in fine-grained ways using muscles, neurons and brains (fins, claws, wings, digits, etc.). We will gain insight into this form of behavioural control by analysing its evolved functions. For instance, instead of being a kind of agency exercised at discrete choice points, functional considerations imply that an unfolding pattern of movement will be continuously modified by changing motivational states.

Philosophers disagree about how to deal with various cases that some argue to be sub-agentive. Contested cases include habitual actions, spontaneous actions, and arational actions like drumming one’s fingers. A functional understanding will clarify: (i) respects in which these mechanisms already display precursors of agency; (ii) respects in which human agency remains distinctive; and (iii) ways that the capacity for human agency relies on and interfaces with basic behavioural control. The project goes on to compare this biological foundation with the new AI, arguing that current systems lack the behaviour-control substrate on which human agency operates.

Methodologically, the work lies broadly in philosophy of science. Empirical findings serve as data for conceptual refinement, interrogation of agency criteria, and appraisal of competing accounts. The work-streams span: philosophy of biology(WS1), philosophy of mind and cognitive science(WS2), and philosophy of AI(WS3).

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