Extended cognition, personal responsibility, and relational autonomy

    Authors

    M. Cash

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    Phenomenol. Cogn. Sci.

    Keywords

    Extended cognition; Moral agent; Responsibility; Collective; responsibility; Autonomy; Relational self; MORAL RESPONSIBILITY; MIND; THESIS; BOUNDS; Philosophy

    Abstract

    The Hypothesis of Extended Cognition (HEC)-that many cognitive processes are carried out by a hybrid coalition of neural, bodily and environmental factors-entails that the intentional states that are reasons for action might best be ascribed to wider entities of which individual persons are only parts. I look at different kinds of extended cognition and agency, exploring their consequences for concerns about the moral agency and personal responsibility of such extended entities. Can extended entities be moral agents and bear responsibility for actions, in addition to or in place of the individuals typically held responsible? What does it mean to be "autonomous" when one's cognition is influenced and supported by a milieu of environmental factors? To answer these questions, I explore strong parallels between HEC's critique of individualism in cognition, and feminist critiques of individualist accounts of self, agency, and autonomy. This relational and social conception of autonomous agency, as scaffolded and supported (or undermined and impaired) by a milieu of social, relational, and normative factors, has important lessons for HEC. Drawing together these two visions of distributed and decentralized aspects of personhood highlights how cognition, action, and responsibility are inextricably linked. It also encourages a reconceptualization of all cognition and all concerns about responsibility for actions, not simply as sometimes "extended" around individuals, but as fundamentally communal, social, and normative, with individual cognition and individual moral responsibility being derivative special cases, not the paradigm examples. Individuals are merely one of many possible loci of cognition, action, and responsibility.

    Journal Title

    Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences

    Volume

    9

    Issue/Number

    4

    Publication Date

    1-1-2010

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    645

    Last Page

    671

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000284891300011

    ISSN

    1568-7759

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