Topic
Agency (philosophy)
About: Agency (philosophy) is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 10461 publications have been published within this topic receiving 350831 citations. The topic is also known as: Thought & Human agency.
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors model endogenous social norms by assuming that each agent's cost of implementing an action depends on the social norm for that action, defined to be the average level of that action chosen by the agent's peer group.
Abstract: Research in sociology and ethics suggests that individuals adhere to social norms of behavior established by their peers. Within an agency framework, we model endogenous social norms by assuming that each agent's cost of implementing an action depends on the social norm for that action, defined to be the average level of that action chosen by the agent's peer group. We show how endogenous social norms alter the effectiveness of monetary incentives, determine whether it is optimal to group agents in a single or two separate organizations, and may give rise to a costly adverse selection problem when agents' sensitivities to social norms are unobservable.
129 citations
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TL;DR: In this article, a contextual action theory of career is proposed as an approach that reflects a constructionist stance and at the same time addresses fundamental issues raised by social constructionism, such as issues of meaning, interpretation, and agency.
129 citations
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TL;DR: Several ways that it could be used in future research are discussed, some as yet unanswered questions that are ripe for interdisciplinary investigation are highlighted, and researchers are encouraged to join the efforts to answer these questions.
129 citations
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TL;DR: It is demonstrated that everyday judgments ofmoral status are influenced by perceptions of humanness, and it is shown that distinct human characteristics are linked to specific judgments of moral status.
Abstract: Being human implies a particular moral status: having moral value, agency, and responsibility. However, people are not seen as equally human. Across two studies, we examine the consequences that subtle variations in the perceived humanness of actors or groups have for their perceived moral status. Drawing on Haslam's two-dimensional model of humanness and focusing on three ways people may be considered to have moral status - moral patiency (value), agency, or responsibility - we demonstrate that subtly denying humanness to others has implications for whether they are blamed, praised, or considered worthy of moral concern and rehabilitation. Moreover, we show that distinct human characteristics are linked to specific judgments of moral status. This work demonstrates that everyday judgments of moral status are influenced by perceptions of humanness.
129 citations
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TL;DR: The authors examines microhistories and the histories of the everyday both in the context of developments in social and cultural history since the 1960s, and in the light of political and social change in post-war European society.
Abstract: This article examines microhistories and the histories of the everyday both in the context of developments in social and cultural history since the 1960s, and in the light of political and social change in post-war European society. Moving beyond debates about historical narrative, it emphasizes issues of perspective, space, size and historical distance in shaping historical interpretation. This historiographical trend, it argues, emanates from two major debates within the social sciences and politics. One concerns the nature of everyday life under modern capitalism and ‘consumer society’, the other the vexed issue of human agency. Focusing particularly on Italian microstoria, it argues that such writing is best understood as the commitment to a humanist agenda which places agency and historical meaning in the realm of day-to-day transactions, and which sees their recuperation as the proper task of the historian.
129 citations