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Directions (Qs. 25-29): Read the following passage and provide appropriate answers for the questions.
There is an essential and irreducible 'duality' in the normative conceptualization of an individual person. We can see the person in terms of his or her 'agency', recognizing and respecting his or her ability to form goals, commitments, values, etc., and we can also see the person in terms of his or her 'well- being'. This dichotomy is lost in a model of exclusively self- interested motivation, in which a person's agency must be entirely geared to his or her own well-being. But once that strait jacket of self-interested motivation is removed. It becomes possible to recognize the indisputable fact that the person's agency can well be geared to considerations not covered or at least not fully covered by his or her own well-being. Agency may be seen as important (not just instrumentally for the pursuit of well-being, but also intrinsically), but that still leaves open the question as to how that agency is to be evaluated and appraised. Even though the use of one's agency is a matter for oneself to judge, the need for careful assessment of aims, objective, allegiances, etc. and the conception of the good, may be important and exacting.
To recognize the distinction between the 'agency aspect'and the 'well-being aspect' of a person does not require us totake the view that the person's success as an agent must beindependent, or completely separable from, his or her successin terms of well-being. A person may well feel happier and betteroff as a result of achieving what he or she wanted to achieve– perhaps for his or her family, or community, or class, or party,or some other cause. Also it is quite possible that a person'swell-being will go down as a result of frustration if there is somefailure to achieve what he or she wanted to achieve as an agent,even though those achievements are not directly concernedwith his or her well-being. There is really no sound basis fordemanding that the agency aspect and the well-being aspect ofa person should be independent of each other, and it is, Isuppose, even possible that every change in one will affect theother as well. However, the point at issue is not the plausibilityof their independence, but the sustainability and relevance ofthe distinction. The fact that two variables may be so relatedthat one cannot change without the other, does not imply thatthey are the same variable, or that they will have the samevalues, or that the value of one can be obtained from the otheron basis of some simple transformation.
The importance of an agency achievement does not restentirely on the enhancement of well-being that it may indirectlycause. The agency achievement and well-being achievement,both of which have some distinct importance, may be casuallylinked with each other, but this fact does not compromise thespecific importance of either. In so far as utility-based welfarecalculations concentrate only on the well-being of the person,ignoring the agency aspect, or actually fails to distinguishbetween the agency aspect and well-being aspect altogether,something of real importance is lost.
There is an essential and irreducible 'duality' in the normative conceptualization of an individual person. We can see the person in terms of his or her 'agency', recognizing and respecting his or her ability to form goals, commitments, values, etc., and we can also see the person in terms of his or her 'well- being'. This dichotomy is lost in a model of exclusively self- interested motivation, in which a person's agency must be entirely geared to his or her own well-being. But once that strait jacket of self-interested motivation is removed. It becomes possible to recognize the indisputable fact that the person's agency can well be geared to considerations not covered or at least not fully covered by his or her own well-being. Agency may be seen as important (not just instrumentally for the pursuit of well-being, but also intrinsically), but that still leaves open the question as to how that agency is to be evaluated and appraised. Even though the use of one's agency is a matter for oneself to judge, the need for careful assessment of aims, objective, allegiances, etc. and the conception of the good, may be important and exacting.
To recognize the distinction between the 'agency aspect'and the 'well-being aspect' of a person does not require us totake the view that the person's success as an agent must beindependent, or completely separable from, his or her successin terms of well-being. A person may well feel happier and betteroff as a result of achieving what he or she wanted to achieve– perhaps for his or her family, or community, or class, or party,or some other cause. Also it is quite possible that a person'swell-being will go down as a result of frustration if there is somefailure to achieve what he or she wanted to achieve as an agent,even though those achievements are not directly concernedwith his or her well-being. There is really no sound basis fordemanding that the agency aspect and the well-being aspect ofa person should be independent of each other, and it is, Isuppose, even possible that every change in one will affect theother as well. However, the point at issue is not the plausibilityof their independence, but the sustainability and relevance ofthe distinction. The fact that two variables may be so relatedthat one cannot change without the other, does not imply thatthey are the same variable, or that they will have the samevalues, or that the value of one can be obtained from the otheron basis of some simple transformation.
The importance of an agency achievement does not restentirely on the enhancement of well-being that it may indirectlycause. The agency achievement and well-being achievement,both of which have some distinct importance, may be casuallylinked with each other, but this fact does not compromise thespecific importance of either. In so far as utility-based welfarecalculations concentrate only on the well-being of the person,ignoring the agency aspect, or actually fails to distinguishbetween the agency aspect and well-being aspect altogether,something of real importance is lost.
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