Nagel On An Agent's Autonomy

Have you ever wondered if the decision that you have just made was the best possible decision for you to make? An agent 's relationship between responsibility and his decisions in life are affected by the alternative choices that were not taken as well as the choices that were made. Thomas Nagel believes that an agent 's autonomy is always being threatened by the possibility of a viewpoint that is more objective than his own. His view on responsibility is such that in order to place responsibility on an agent, sufficient reflection about alternative choices must be considered. On the other hand, Carl Ginet claims that free will cannot be caused (free will is not determined), but rather that the will is free. He claims that responsibility is
If the will is free, responsibility can be placed on an agent, while if the will is caused, responsibility is discounted.

Autonomy and the tradeoff between the subjective and objective points of view are at the heart of an agent 's decision making, according to Nagel. He contends that there are levels of autonomy but no one can reach the highest level (perfect autonomy). Higher levels of autonomy are reached through self-actualization and reflection on oneself. An agent 's autonomy stems from the objective reflection of his viewpoint. However, Nagel believes that an agent can loose his autonomy and ultimately his free will by being overly reflective as is shown in this quote, "?so the problem of free will lies in the erosion of interpersonal attitudes and of the sense of autonomy," (Nagel 112). Nagel 's problem with free will, in making decisions, comes from the desire to possess both the objective (observer) perspective and the subjective (actor) perspective at the same instant. The problem here, is that an agent cannot be both causing the action and, at the same moment, be a passive observer. Why would we want to have both a subjective and an objective viewpoint at the same instant? To possess both would mean that the agent has the knowledge of the external perspectives affecting the decisions as well as the internal desires and the ability to act on them. Because an agent views his choice subjectively,
He is not held accountable for the lost money. When Nagel 's outlook on responsibility is applied to assess this situation, we see that there was a better decision that could have been made. If the teller had the objective knowledge about the button under the desk that the manager had, he could have prevented the robber from stealing the bank 's money. However, if he only had this objectivity and not his subjectivity, he would not be in the position to produce the volition at all. The teller did not, in this case, choose the best decision, but at the same time is not fully responsible for the loss of the bank 's money. The teller is partly held accountable for the lost money because there was an alternative choice that would have made the overall outcome better off. Unfortunately for the teller, the knowledge of the hidden button was not made aware to him. This is why the teller is only partly responsible. Ginet asserts that responsibility is to be judged by the specific event while Nagel implies that there are different degrees of responsibility that vary with the amount of information that the agent has.

Judgment on a decision can be assessed using Ginet 's 'event specific ' outlook on responsibility or Nagel 's view that there are varying degrees of responsibility. Both of these methods rely on the agent 's knowledge of the particular situation to