Failure and Success in Agency

Abstract

Agency often consists in performing actions and engaging in activities that are successful. We pour glasses, catch objects, carry things, recite poems, and play instruments. It has therefore seemed tempting in recent philosophical thinking to conceptualise the relationship between our agentive abilities and our successes as follows: (Success) S is exercising their ability to ϕ only if S successfully ϕ-s. This paper argues that (Success) is false based on the observation that agency also often consists in making mistakes. We bungle things. We spill water, we miss objects thrown at us, we drop things, misremember lines, and mess up songs. I argue that these mistakes, doings that fall short of being a φ-ing, can only be understood as subpar exercises of the ability to φ. Since this understanding is incompatible with (Success), the thesis should be given up.