THE SIX COMMITMENTS IN RATIONAL AGENCY: A STEP-BY-STEP ONTOLOGY
THE SIX COMMITMENTS IN RATIONAL AGENCY: A STEP-BY-STEP ONTOLOGY
STEP 1 — AN IMPRESSION OCCURS
Correspondence Theory operates: An appearance presents itself as about something. The impression has intentional content - it purports to represent reality (correctly or incorrectly). The very structure of impression already assumes a reality beyond the appearance to which it may or may not correspond.
Moral Realism operates: When the impression carries normative content ("this is dangerous," "that would be shameful," "I ought to help"), it presents as making a claim about objective value structure, not merely reporting subjective preference. The impression arrives already claiming to track moral facts.
What's happening: Reality manifests to consciousness as appearance. The ontological gap between appearance and reality is the space where agency will occur.
STEP 2 — THE PAUSE OPENS
Libertarian Freedom operates: The pause is only possible if assent is not mechanistically determined by the impression's force or psychological pressure. A determined system admits no genuine pause - reaction follows impression with causal necessity. The pause's existence proves indeterminism at the level of prohairesis.
Substance Dualism operates: The pause occurs in a domain separate from physical causation. The body/brain may react automatically (heartbeat accelerates, adrenaline releases), but prohairesis suspends - inhabiting a different ontological register where stimulus doesn't necessitate response.
What's happening: Causal automaticity is interrupted. A space opens where necessity gives way to freedom - the distinctively human moment.
STEP 3 — OWNERSHIP OF JUDGMENT
Substance Dualism made explicit: The recognition "this depends on me" identifies prohairesis as the locus of agency. Not "me" as biological organism or social role, but "me" as rational faculty - the non-physical center of personhood. "Up to me" means "up to prohairesis specifically," which exists in the domain where freedom operates.
Libertarian Freedom made explicit: Ownership requires origination. If judgment were the inevitable result of prior causes (heredity, conditioning, neurochemistry), it wouldn't truly be "mine" in the robust sense Epictetus requires. Ownership means being the ultimate source, not merely the proximate cause.
What's happening: The agent recognizes itself as agent - not as passive receiver of impressions but as active origin of judgment. This is metaphysical self-awareness.
STEP 4 — OPEN ALTERNATIVES
Libertarian Freedom's essential structure: The alternatives aren't merely epistemic ("I don't know which I'll choose") but metaphysical ("multiple futures are genuinely possible"). At this moment, the universe has not yet settled which alternative will be actualized. This is incompatibilist freedom - the ability to do otherwise isn't hypothetical ("I could if circumstances were different") but categorical ("I genuinely can, period").
Foundationalism beginning: The alternatives aren't infinite. They're structured by rational principles: assent to what's clearly true, refuse what's clearly false, suspend when insufficient. These principles serve as boundaries delimiting the rational possibility space.
What's happening: Pure possibility - the ontological indeterminacy that constitutes freedom. The future is genuinely open because prohairesis has not yet chosen.
STEP 5 — DIRECT RECOGNITION
Ethical Intuitionism in operation: The agent apprehends truth/falsity, right/wrong immediately - without inference, without derivation from other premises. This isn't unreflective reaction but direct rational insight. Like seeing that a triangle has three sides - no argument needed, the truth is self-evident to rational inspection.
Moral Realism presupposed: What's recognized presents as discovered, not constructed. The agent doesn't decide what's true/false, good/bad - they discern it. The normative facts are already there, waiting to be apprehended by properly functioning reason.
Correspondence Theory activated: Recognition means seeing what is the case. The mind conforms to reality, not reality to mind. True recognition corresponds to actual moral structure; false recognition fails to correspond.
What's happening: Rational insight occurs. The agent's noetic faculty makes contact with moral reality. This is cognitive achievement - knowledge, not opinion.
STEP 6 — REALITY BINDS
Moral Realism's constraining force: What has been recognized exerts normative pressure from outside the agent's will. "This is wrong" means "this is wrong regardless of whether I want it to be, regardless of whether I agree, regardless of consequences." The agent confronts objective moral structure that doesn't yield to preference.
Correspondence Theory's authority: Reality, not the agent, determines truth. The agent's task is alignment, not creation. If judgment fails to correspond to moral facts, it's objectively mistaken - not just "suboptimal for my goals" but actually false.
Foundationalism's terminus: The recognition doesn't require further justification because it's self-evidently true. Reality itself provides the stopping point - no infinite regress of "but why?" The foundation is hit: "because that's how things objectively are."
What's happening: The agent encounters resistance - the non-negotiable constraint of objective reality. Freedom meets its limit: you're free to judge as you will, but you're not free to make falsehood true.
STEP 7 — ASSENT / REFUSAL / SUSPENSION
Libertarian Freedom actualized: This is the moment of free choice - the agent exercises categorical power to determine which alternative becomes actual. Not predetermined, not probabilistically settled, but genuinely undetermined until the act of choice. The agent causes this judgment to occur, without being caused to cause it.
Correspondence Theory as criterion: The decision rule is fit with reality:
- Assent if judgment corresponds to facts
- Refuse if judgment fails to correspond
- Suspend if correspondence is unclear
The agent subordinates will to truth - choosing based on objective correctness, not subjective preference.
Substance Dualism maintaining separation: This act occurs entirely within prohairesis. The body may be constrained by physical necessity, but judgment remains free. The tyrant controls the body, not the assent. The ontological independence of prohairesis is what makes this freedom possible.
What's happening: Freedom exercises itself under the constraint of truth. The agent freely chooses to align with objective reality - this is rational self-determination, not arbitrary spontaneity.
STEP 8 — TERMINATION
Foundationalism's completion: The judgment stands on self-evident grounds without needing further justification. The agent doesn't fabricate elaborate explanations or seek infinite confirmation. The foundation has been reached - basic moral truths grasped through rational intuition require no further support.
Ethical Intuitionism's sufficiency: Direct apprehension of self-evident truth is enough. No appeal to consequences, no derivation from other principles, no endless meta-justification. The judgment rests on what reason immediately perceives.
Correspondence Theory's finality: If judgment corresponds to reality, the work is done. Truth achieved = task complete. No need for performative additions or psychological reinforcement.
What's happening: The agent allows the judgment to be what it is - a completed act of cognition that needs no embellishment. This is intellectual humility: letting reality have the final word.
STEP 9 — CONSEQUENCES FOLLOW
Substance Dualism's practical import: Consequences occur in the external domain - they affect body, reputation, property, social standing. But they cannot touch prohairesis itself. The ontological separation means virtue (located in prohairesis) remains unaffected by external outcomes. The agent remains free even in chains.
Moral Realism's independence from outcomes: The rightness of the judgment doesn't depend on what happens next. If the judgment corresponded to objective moral facts, it was correct regardless of consequences. Virtue doesn't become vice if it leads to execution; vice doesn't become virtue if it leads to wealth. Moral value is intrinsic, not instrumental.
Libertarian Freedom's retrospective validation: The agent owns the consequences of their judgment but not the external outcomes themselves. They're responsible for having judged correctly or incorrectly (that was up to them), but not for what the universe then does with that judgment (that's not up to them). This preserves desert and moral responsibility while acknowledging limits of control.
What's happening: The judgment produces effects, but these effects lie outside the moral domain. The agent has done what was theirs to do - judge correctly. Everything else is providence, fate, natural causation - the domain of necessity, not freedom.
THE SYSTEMATIC UNITY
Notice how all six commitments must be simultaneously operative for rational agency to function:
Remove Substance Dualism → no domain where freedom can operate (physical necessity rules everywhere)
Remove Libertarian Freedom → steps 2-4 collapse (no genuine pause, ownership, or alternatives)
Remove Ethical Intuitionism → step 5 becomes impossible (no direct access to moral truth)
Remove Moral Realism → step 6 loses binding force (nothing objective to constrain judgment)
Remove Foundationalism → step 8 cannot terminate (infinite regress of justification)
Remove Correspondence Theory → step 7 has no criterion (nothing to fit judgment to)
This isn't agency plus six philosophical theories. This is the six commitments constituting the very structure of rational agency itself. They aren't optional add-ons but essential features of what it means for a rational being to encounter reality, recognize truth, and freely align judgment with objective moral facts.
The nine steps don't work sequentially with the commitments added externally - rather, the commitments are what make each step ontologically possible. They're the load-bearing architecture of agency as such.
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