Is Self-Determination a Good? Agency, Virtue and Disability in the Thought of St. Thomas Aquinas
Warren Kinghorn, M.D., ThD, Associate Research Professor of Psychiatry and Pastoral and Moral Theology, Duke University
Many modern theories of human motivation and action, particularly the Self-Efficacy Theory (SET) of Albert Bandura and the Self Determination Theory (SDT) of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, portray autonomy and self-determination as primary psychological goods. Deci and Ryan, for example, state that “the fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly.” SDT, in turn, can “contribute to . . . the design of social environments that optimize people’s development, performance, and well-being.” Critics of self-determination theory, however, have charged that it reifies the values of individualist, rather than collectivist, cultures. In addition, adherents of the Abrahamic religious traditions can accept self-determination only as a qualified, limited good: when acts of self-determination run contrary to divine (and perhaps natural) law, self-determination ceases to be a good, and eventually this disobedience threatens the capacity for any genuine self-determination.
In this presentation I will argue that St. Thomas Aquinas’ theory of human motivation and action better accounts for the way that agency can be understood as a primary psychological good. Thomas understands agency as the capacity of a person to be the seat or _principium_ of his or her acts. While Thomistic agency appears on the surface to be similar to self-determination, there are a number of important differences in Aquinas’ account. First, Aquinas understands the acting self not as autonomous/self-motivating, nor only as relational, but rather as summoned, called into being for the pursuit of its creator. Second, for Aquinas properly-formed agency requires habituation in all of the intellectual, moral, and theological virtues. Having been summoned on a journey to God, a well-formed agent is one who develops wise habits of thought and action that, enabled and aided by the theological virtues, render the journey successful.
The argument that agency is a primary psychological and spiritual good, however, invites an immediate objection: what about people with intellectual disabilities and certain forms of mental illness who will never be able to exercise the capacities of choice and action that both Aquinas and self-determination theory seem to elevate? This is indeed a serious objection, to which four responses can be given. First, as Aquinas’ treatment of the _amentes_ (severely cognitively impaired) and _furiosi_ (severely mentally ill) makes clear, human dignity is granted by God and is in no way dependent on the exercise of agency. Second, as Aquinas understood and as recent discussions of the “limits” model of disability makes clear, it is important to consider this question in dimensional rather than binary terms: all humans are agentially limited, some more than others. Third, for Aquinas the goal of human life is not freedom from dependence, but rather the inhabitation of relationships of healthy dependence, on God and others. Finally, in most cases of intellectual disability and in nearly all cases of mental illness, agency can and should still be fostered and empowered as robustly as possible.
Many modern theories of human motivation and action, particularly the Self-Efficacy Theory (SET) of Albert Bandura and the Self Determination Theory (SDT) of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, portray autonomy and self-determination as primary psychological goods. Deci and Ryan, for example, state that “the fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly.” SDT, in turn, can “contribute to . . . the design of social environments that optimize people’s development, performance, and well-being.” Critics of self-determination theory, however, have charged that it reifies the values of individualist, rather than collectivist, cultures. In addition, adherents of the Abrahamic religious traditions can accept self-determination only as a qualified, limited good: when acts of self-determination run contrary to divine (and perhaps natural) law, self-determination ceases to be a good, and eventually this disobedience threatens the capacity for any genuine self-determination.
In this presentation I will argue that St. Thomas Aquinas’ theory of human motivation and action better accounts for the way that agency can be understood as a primary psychological good. Thomas understands agency as the capacity of a person to be the seat or _principium_ of his or her acts. While Thomistic agency appears on the surface to be similar to self-determination, there are a number of important differences in Aquinas’ account. First, Aquinas understands the acting self not as autonomous/self-motivating, nor only as relational, but rather as summoned, called into being for the pursuit of its creator. Second, for Aquinas properly-formed agency requires habituation in all of the intellectual, moral, and theological virtues. Having been summoned on a journey to God, a well-formed agent is one who develops wise habits of thought and action that, enabled and aided by the theological virtues, render the journey successful.
The argument that agency is a primary psychological and spiritual good, however, invites an immediate objection: what about people with intellectual disabilities and certain forms of mental illness who will never be able to exercise the capacities of choice and action that both Aquinas and self-determination theory seem to elevate? This is indeed a serious objection, to which four responses can be given. First, as Aquinas’ treatment of the _amentes_ (severely cognitively impaired) and _furiosi_ (severely mentally ill) makes clear, human dignity is granted by God and is in no way dependent on the exercise of agency. Second, as Aquinas understood and as recent discussions of the “limits” model of disability makes clear, it is important to consider this question in dimensional rather than binary terms: all humans are agentially limited, some more than others. Third, for Aquinas the goal of human life is not freedom from dependence, but rather the inhabitation of relationships of healthy dependence, on God and others. Finally, in most cases of intellectual disability and in nearly all cases of mental illness, agency can and should still be fostered and empowered as robustly as possible.