Paper short abstract:

This paper argues for supplementing Drydyk’s concept of agency for empowerment with Pettit’s conception of agency freedom as discursive control to form a concept, termed as, “agency centric empowerment”. The paper reasons further that agency centric empowerment can be considered as a norm and this normative aspect of agency centric empowerment be located with respect to development ethics.

Paper long abstract:

Development Ethics, focuses itself on the core idea that subjects of development can exert agency, and for development to be ethical, they should. This brings into debate the concepts of agency and empowerment. This paper looks into these concepts and tries bring forth a synthesis.

The concept of agency freedom is discussed following Philip Pettit’s conceptualization of freedom as discursive control. Pettit has argued that an agent shall be considered free when she has control in a discourse. This control is constituted upon two factors, the capacity to take part in the discourse and the capacity to enjoy relationships that are discourse friendly. Pettit reaches this conceptualization of freedom by countering the dimensions of freedom as rational control and freedom as volitional control. The dimension of freedom as rational control, which focuses on the agent’s ability to function according to their intentional states, such as beliefs and desires, brings forth the bystander problem, where an agent does not own her actions; further freedom seems possible even in in hostile coercion. The dimension of freedom as volitional control, where an agent is considered free if she can form second-order desires with regard to first-order desires, does take care of the bystander issue, but issues with regard to fixing responsibility and hostile coercion still remain. The dimension of freedom as discursive control is inconsistent with hostile coercion, which is not discourse friendly.

The concept of empowerment is centered around Jay Drydyk’s conceptualization which traverses through the concepts well-being and agency freedom of Sen’s Capability Approach. Drydyk is opposed to the idea of conceptualizing empowerment exclusively on the basis of well-being, since there can be many instances where the expansion of capabilities and thus well-being can take place in passive and dependent circumstances. This defeats the very idea of empowerment, that forms the “instrumental value”, which is greater authority and control over resources and choices that have an impact on an individual or group. Drydyk further delves into the concept of Sen’s agency freedom and is of the opinion that the aspect of active decision making is ignored at certain times. Drydyk here takes into account Crocker’s presentation of agency as a scalar property dependent on four factors, namely an agent’s role, it’s impact in the world, self-choice, choice based on reasons of their own. Drydryk’s approach to empowerment is that it is concerned with agency but not reducible to it. Power is another dimension that Drydyk ropes into the discussion of empowerment, as he explores the fact that gain in power does not always directly transform into gain in empowerment. Drydyk reasons for empowerment that considers the relational dimensions of agency that define power relations. The concept of agency that Drydyk conceptualizes with regard to empowerment is active agency, that an agent can exercise. Drydyk has not restricted empowerment to agency only, but is in favor of including certain aspects of well-being into the empowerment question.

This paper argues for supplementing Drydyk’s concept of agency for empowerment with Pettit’s conception of agency freedom as discursive control to form a concept, termed as, “agency centric empowerment”. Bringing Pettit’s approach to the forefront, agency centric empowerment can address concerns with regard to coordination between Sen’s well-being and agency freedom. Since freedom as discursive control always vouches for a consistency among the past actions of the agent, acts that are done beyond well-being can be explained for if they are consistent with the legacy that an agent with discursive control possesses.

The paper reasons further that agency centric empowerment can be considered as a norm following Pettit’s conceptualization of norm as an attitude-based derivative, which depends upon the assumptions of interaction, publicity, perception, sanction and motivation. In this context, to conclude, this paper raises a question: Can this normative aspect of agency centric empowerment be located with respect to development ethics? the answer is in affirmation.

Keywords: Development Ethics, Capability Approach, Agency, Empowerment, Norm