# Mental Agency  ## Metadata - Author: [[Matthew Soteriou]] - Full Title: Mental Agency - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/145672553 - Source File: MENTAL AGENCY by Matthew Soteriou .pdf ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > So is there any good reason to think that there is a distinction between mental and bodily agency that tracks, or gives rise to, deeper philosophical concerns?1 In what follows I shall explain why some have thought there is. I will consider the follow- ing questions: What is distinctive of our capacity for mental agency? How does it compare with our capacity for bodily agency? What is the relation between mental agency and bodily agency? How might answers to such questions add to our understanding of issues in the metaphysics and epistemology of mind, and the philosophy of action? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hqjfgcyzsmnr8crsgj2gycbf)) > It is often suggested that when one knows what one is doing when performing an ac- > tion, one has a form of practical self-awareness that isn’t perceptual. Some hold that this > practical self-awareness is embodied in an intention-in-action.6 Given the above points, > one might think that in the case of an exercise of overt bodily agency, the obtaining > of any such intention-in-action cannot be constitutively dependent on the exercise of > agency over one’s body. Either there is dependence in the other direction, so the bodily > movements that are required for an exercise of bodily agency depend causally on that > intention-in-action, or the intention-in-action and the bodily movements are joint effects > of a common cause.7 > If one adds to this the idea that any such bodily movements can in > principle occur without being an exercise of agency, one might then be led to suppose that > what makes a bodily movement a bodily action is something ultimately determined by > the causal pedigree of that bodily movement—for example, whether it is caused by a prior > intention or an intention-in action.8 ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hqjfxcqeat8327kcr8azjt4k))