https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5002400/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agency_(sociology)
The overall concept of agency has existed since the Enlightenment where there was debate over whether human freedom was expressed through instrumental rationality or moral and norm-based action. John Locke argued in favor of freedom being based on self-interest. His rejection of the binding on tradition and the concept of the social contract led to the conception of agency as the capacity of human beings to shape the circumstances in which they live.[2] Jean-Jacques Rousseau explored an alternative conception of this freedom by framing it as a moral will. There was a bifurcation between the rational-utilitarian and non-rational-normative dimensions of action that Immanuel Kant addressed. Kant saw freedom as normative grounded individual will, governed by the categorical imperative. These ideas were the point of departure for concerns regarding non-rational, norm-oriented action in classical sociological theory contrasting with the views on the rational instrumental action.[3]
These definitions of agency remained mostly unquestioned until the nineteenth century, when philosophers began arguing that the choices humans make are dictated by forces beyond their control.[3] For example, Karl Marx argued that in modern society, people were controlled by the ideologies of the bourgeoisie, Friedrich Nietzsche argued that man made choices based on his own selfish desires, or the "will to power" and, famously, Paul Ricœur added Freud – as a third member of the "school of suspicion" – who accounted for the unconscious determinants of human behavior.[4] Ludwig Wittgenstein's talk of rule-following and private language arguments in his Philosophical Investigations has also made its way into the discussion of agency, in the work of Charles Taylor for example.[5]
