Free Will, Determinism and the “Problem” of Structure and Agency in the Social Sciences

Abstract

The so-called “problem” of structure and agency is clearly related to the philosophical problem of free will and determinism, yet the central philosophical issues are not well understood by theorists of structure and agency in the social sciences. In this article I draw a map of the available stances on the metaphysics of free will and determinism. With the aid of this map the problem of structure and agency will be seen to dissolve. The problem of structure and agency is sustained by a failure to distinguish between metaphysical and empirical senses of the relation between social structure and individual agency. The ramifications of this distinction are illustrated via a case study of competing explanations of perpetrator behavior in Christopher Browning’s and Daniel Goldhagen’s studies of the German Order Police in the Holocaust.

Listening to Bedouin Women Who Were Affected by Intimate Partner Violence and Sought Help From a Doctor

“…The findings of the study reveal that seeing a doctor, as described by the interviewees based on the social norms that exist in Bedouin society, was an expression of resistance against the powerful and oppressive social structures in Bedouin society. These explanations highlight the research and clinical similarities regarding structure and agency in a way that other studies do not suggest (for a recent description of this long-standing dialectic, see Pleasants, 2019).…”

Strategy, Trust, and Freedom in an Uncertain World

“…Players in the numbers game and in the trust game might experience their own choice and agency as if it indicated a radical freedom of the will (see Pleasants, 2019, for a review of the philosophical debate). 'I could,' they might say, 'have acted differently.'…”

“…It is not for us to solve the free-will debate, and as definitive proof in its favor is lacking (Pleasants, 2019), we might either settle for a belief in free will or look elsewhere to ground human freedom. As we have seen, the former strategy does not heal our insecurities; instead, it might deepen them.…”

Excuse and justification: What’s explanation and understanding got to do with it?

“…But it is a misconception. Only metaphysical analysis of the nature and conditions of human agency and causation can claim to show (inconclusively, by the very nature of metaphysics) that people could not have acted other than they did (see Pleasants (2019) on ‘determinism’). Moreover, such analysis can only claim to show that no one can ever act other than as they did; it cannot claim to show merely that some particular group of perpetrators could not have acted other than they did.…”

“…The reason that the relation between social-structural causation and individual agency is depicted as a problem is that, unless cognitively impaired, individuals always retain their agency (their capacity to have acted other than they did). But yet they also always have to act in conditions in which their ability to do as they would prefer is shaped, influenced and impacted by social-structural and situational constraints, forces, pressures, inducements and affordances (see Pleasants, 2019). So any good social scientific explanation will contain information that is pertinent to assessing the opportunities and options available to agents and the kinds and degrees of difficulty they may have encountered in the course of acting as they did.…”