Research

In progress

A paper characterizing dependent action (submitted)

A paper on the role of parental scaffolding in supporting and enhancing the agency of young children (submitted)

A paper on the relationship between moral responsibility and personal identity (submitted)

Doctoral thesis

Needing another agent to support one’s action does not undermine our agency, it often facilitates it. We are not isolated entities, but agents living with and amongst other agents. This thesis spells out how it is that our reliance on others can enable agency and how supporting action can enhance rather than detract from another’s ability to act on their intentions. At its core is a characterization of a familiar and commonplace kind of action, but one that has not been the focus of sustained philosophical investigation. This is what I call dependent intentional action, action in which an agent’s ability to realize their ends relies on another agent directing their agency at those ends, in order to help them. The thesis begins with an exploration of the nature of individual and joint intentional action, offering criteria for them that are compatible with the dominant approaches in the existing literature. I then argue that our moral responsibility for actions relies on being the agent of the action, further showing the importance of bearing this particular relation to an action. Having set out this background, I identify dependent intentional action, characterizing it and arguing for the claim that this is the action of the supported agent, the one that is being helped. In the final chapters of the thesis, I consider the agency of young children. First, I argue that there are no insurmountable barriers to young children engaging in intentional action, either individually or with others. Then I argue that dependent intentional action extends the abilities of young children, allowing them to engage in intentional action even if they cannot do this alone. Taken as a whole, this thesis shows that being helped can enable human agents to do far more than they can alone.

Examined by Ulrike Heuer and Johannes Roessler, April 2024
Supervised by Rory Madden and Lucy O’Brien

Recent presentations

Neither together nor all alone – the nature of dependent intentional action

Forms of the Social: The Ethics of Living Together, Leipzig
January 2026

GAP.12, HHU Düsseldorf
September 2025

Social Ontology, Trinity College Dublin
August 2025

Dependent intentional action as enhancing agency

Agency and Disadvantage conference, University of Turku
July 2025

The development of agency

Invited guest lecture in “The Philosophy of Childhood” seminar, Early Childhood Research programme, University of Leipzig
January 2025

Scaffolded Executive Function and Childhood Intentional Action

Invited talk at “The First Person Authority of Children” seminar, University of Bayreuth
January 2025

Humankind Research Colloquium, Humboldt Research Centre for Child Development, Leipzig
November 2024