A few weeks ago I wrote about omnipotence, partly because I think it’s an important topic and partly in preparation for my planned review/critique of Tom Oord’s (2023) The Death of Omnipotence book. While working on the first installment of my review it became clear to me that I need to do some careful thinking about the concepts of power, control, influence, and agency to tease out how they relate to each other.
Oord uses the terms “power,” “control,” and “influence” very frequently. “Agency” not so much. But he often uses these terms (esp. “control”) in idiosyncratic ways and without carefully distinguishing the concepts involved. Thus, he moves rather freely between talk of “having power,” “exerting power,” “controlling,” “being in control,” etc., as though these are all roughly the same thing. As an analytic philosopher trying to evaluate Oord’s arguments fairly and objectively, his free-wheeling use of these terms feeds my worries that many of his key arguments and inferences depend on equivocations, conflations, and rhetorical tricks.
Be that as it may, the question of how power, control, influence, and agency relate to each other is an interesting topic in its own right. In what follows I will consider each of these concepts in turn and wrap up with some summary observations.
1. Power
When we speak of “power” or “powers” we do so, I believe, in four main ways. First, there is what I will call resource-power, or power as an enabling resource that one can use or spend. In English we normally convey this by using the word “power” as a singular mass noun and without any articles. Thus, we speak of “solar power,” “electrical power,” “political power,” “financial power,” etc. Second, there is what I will call ability-power. We normally convey this when speaking of “power” as a count noun. Thus, we speak of “the power to (do this or that)” or of “powers” (plural), as in “Superman has many powers.” Third, we also sometimes use “power” to refer to a powered entity, i.e., one that has a great deal of resource- and/or ability power. Thus, we speak of “the powers that be” and call world-dominant countries like the U.S. “superpowers.” Fourth and finally, in physics “power” has the technical meaning of the time rate of doing work, where “work” is also technically defined to mean the magnitude of the physical difference something makes. There are other uses of “power” as well (e.g., in math one can raise a number to the “third power”), but these four are enough for my purposes.
There are several things to be said about power. First, ability-power seems to be the most basic sense of the term. Resource-power is called “power” to the extent that it enables or abilifies. For example, electrical power in the outlet makes it possible—affords me the ability to—turn the lights on, run the dishwasher, etc. Without that resource at my disposal, my abilities would be more limited. If there were a resource that didn’t make possible any useful abilities (e.g., imagine being gifted the deed to a large tract of land next to Chernobyl), then we wouldn’t think of it as a kind of resource-power. (What are you going to with that? Forget about selling it. Nobody wants it at any price.) Likewise, powered entities are called “powers” because they have the ability to do things. The more abilities an entity has, the more of a power it is. Likewise, the physics sense of power is all about the ability to do stuff, namely, work. The more work an engine can do in a set amount of time, the more “horsepower” it has.
Second, doing stuff, like work, is difference making. To be utterly powerless is to be unable to make any difference in reality, or at least, to be unable to make a difference that matters, i.e., that has positive utility. Putting this point together with the first, I would say that power is a causal resource or ability by which something can bring about a difference in reality. By a difference in reality, I mean a difference in whether something exists, how something behaves, or what intrinsic properties something has. For example, I have the power to see a rainbow by opening my eyes in a suitably luminated environment. Doing so makes a difference in my perceptual experience (i.e., a difference in my intrinsic properties), which may also make a difference in how I behave. The rainbow in turn is caused by water droplets having surfaces with the power to absorb and emit photons in the humanly visible spectrum. If they didn’t have that power, then I wouldn’t be able to see the rainbow. In general, then, anything capable of affecting anything in any way has power of some sort.
Third, while in some instances resource-power may be a fixed and unsharable quantity that we must compete over, in the central ability sense power is not zero sum. That I have a power of some sort (e.g., the power to read English) doesn’t imply that you don’t also have that power or that you have less power of that sort. Indeed, some of the most powerful people and organizations in history have gotten that way by finding ways to help other people become more powerful. In doing so they create win–win scenarios. Think, for example, of Steve Jobs’ / Apple’s invention of the smart phone. Once people realized what these phones could do and how much of an empowering ability-upgrade they provided over earlier cell phones, they willingly forked over lots of money to Apple and accorded lots of prestige to Jobs. Jobs and Apple thus became more powerful by providing something that helped others become more powerful. What’s more, several things can share the same power. If a king sends an ambassador to negotiate a treaty, the ambassador carries the king’s delegated power, which power he then exercises in lieu of the king. A singular source of power can empower others.
Finally, we need to distinguish having power from exercising power. Power in its base sense is a capacity or potency for making a difference. To have power is to have such a capacity. To exercise power is to activate such a capacity so as actually to make a difference. This brings us to our next concept, control.
2. Control
Control and power are closely related. To have or maintain control over a situation or to be in control of a situation is to have enough ability-power / influence to guide, steer, or constrain how that situation develops. This sort of control is not really control, properly speaking, but rather the power to control. In the full and proper sense, control is what happens when a power is exercised. Because all powers, when exercised, make a difference to reality, this exercise implies a corresponding measure of control over reality. Because of the power’s exercise reality has become otherwise than it would have been had the power in question not been exercised. In short, control is the difference made by the exercise of a power. The greater a power, the greater the difference it can make, and thus the more control over reality its exercise accomplishes. For example, I have the power to lift 100 pounds or so without hurting myself. Someone who can lift much more than I has a wider range of potential physical control over the environment. In physical respects, he can do more. But—this is important—unexercised powers do not express control. If I use my limited strength to change the environment while my stronger friend lay sleeping, then I have at that moment more control over the environment than my friend does. One can have power to control something without actually controlling it in virtue of not exercising the relevant power.
It is worth nothing that there are many different types of control. For example, control can be voluntary (I deliberately raise my hand); involuntary (a muscle spasm causes my hand to raise, contrary to my will), or non-voluntary (a rockslide knocks over a tree). Control can also be direct (I set the thermostat by directly interacting with it) or indirect (I control the temperature by setting the thermostat) and mediate (I get your attention through the medium of speech) or immediate (I shift the focus of my own attention). Control can also be positive (my influence makes a result more likely to happen) or negative (my influence makes a result less likely to happen). Control can also be determining (i.e., causally sufficient to force a result) or non-determining (i.e., merely influencing; not enough to force things, but enough to change the probabilities); total (the sole author of a novel has total control over its contents) or partial (the contributors to an edited collection have partial control over its contents); and unilateral (one agent’s exercise of power effects a result) or multilateral (many different agents exercises of power jointly effect a result).
A particularly important distinction is that power (and thus control) can be exercised either in series or in parallel. We know this from electrical circuits (see diagram). When exercised in series, control is not zero sum. If I pick up a pool stick and use it to push the cue ball, I am directly controlling the stick and indirectly controlling the ball with the stick, but—this is important—the stick is also controlling the cue ball. It is the stick’s momentum (not mine) that directly moves the ball. When exercised in parallel, however, control is zero sum. This is because the parallel exercise of power forces a choice. If a certain difference in reality D is made by the exercise of power P1 and P1 is a total cause of D, then there’s no explanatory room left for another power P2 to contribute to D. Theoretical cases of overdetermination are not true exceptions. If exercises of P1 and P2 are each individually sufficient to produce D, then either (a) one of them brings about D first, in which case that power’s exercise is the total cause of D and the other power is preempted from making that particular difference—though it might well make a different difference—or (b) they are concurrent partial causes of D, with each contributing something to the result but neither contributing the very same thing or being the total cause of D.
3. Influence
Influence is a relatively straightforward concept. Basically, influence is degree of control. Sometimes powers when exercised are causally sufficient to force a result. For example, my arm is more than sufficiently strong to raise my beverage container to my lips. I don’t merely influence its rising. I raise it. My influence over the container is decisive. Sometimes powers when exercised are insufficient to force a result but are sufficient to make it more likely. It may not be the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back” but it makes the next straw more likely to do so.
As a type of control, influence makes a difference. More exactly, influence makes a difference to the chance or propensity of some result. A putative “influence” that made no such difference, not even a tiny one, would not be an influence. It would be irrelevant.
Like control, influence can be exercised either in series or in parallel. When exercised in series, influence is not zero sum. Rather, links in the chain of influence serve to convey or mediate influence from the source to the target. When exercised in parallel, influence is zero sum at the limit. Probability one and zero are the limits. If other factors have already raised the probability to one or lowered it to zero, then additional influencing factors are preempted from making a difference and so have no influence. They are redundant. The only way something could make a difference at that point is by undercutting one of the other influencing factors.
4. Agency
We finally come to agency. To have agency is to have a special kind of power, the power of self-control, say-so, and sourcehood. The pool stick can control what happens to the cue ball, but it can’t control itself. It has no “say” as to where the cue ball goes or whether and how it is used as an instrument of the pool player’s control. The stick functions merely as a conduit for the pool player. The pool player, in contrast, is an agent. To the extent that he has control over himself, he has “say” as to what he does with the pool stick and, by extension, what happens with the cue ball. As an agent he is not merely a conduit for control, he is a source of control.
Agency requires having at least a rudimentary mind and will. For an agent to exercise say-so, he has to be able to conceptualize two or more alternative courses of action—that’s the cognitive or “mind” aspect of agency. And then he has to be able to select from among those alternatives—that’s the volitional or “will” aspect of agency. In selecting an alternative the agent transforms an open-ended situation into a settled one. In the open-ended situation the agent conceptualizes multiple options, each perceived as causally and psychologically possible, and such that the agent is not volitionally settled on any of them. In the settled situation, the agent regards one of the options as “chosen” to the exclusion of the others.
The paradigm case of agency is what we call libertarian free will (LFW). This occurs when an agent is genuinely torn between two or more alternatives, consciously deliberates the pros and cons of each option, and then chooses from among them. It’s important to note, though, that the power of “free choice” implied by agency need not amount to full-blown LFW. Buridan’s ass, the proverbial donkey confronted with two equally yummy bales of hay, has agency. He need only bring himself to exercise it. Indeed, most sentient animals probably have some degree of agency. Their conscious behavior is not, or at least plausibly is not, a mere vector-sum of the causal influences upon them. A sessile sponge has no agency that we can detect. It sits passively on the sea floor responding reactively to its environment. But sentient animals engage actively with their environment, exploring, sniffing, hunting. Even if they never face moral choices between good and evil, they still choose whether, how, and when to engage in various activities. (Helen Steward makes a very impressive case for animal agency in her book A Metaphysics for Freedom. Some of what I say in this paragraph is influenced by her.)
Finally, unlike control and influence, which are never zero sum when exercised in series, agency is always zero sum. Because it requires genuine sourcehood, agency cannot be exercised in series. While an agent can be influenced by many factors, the actual exercise of agency always introduces something new. It settles something that was previously open-ended. If causal determinism were true, there would be no agency because creatures would never have the power to introduce anything new. Like puppets, their behavior would simply be a vector-sum of influencing factors. They would, like the pool stick, be mere conduits of causality originating elsewhere. Consequently, agency is incompatible with determinism. (This is one of Steward’s main contentions, and I fully concur.)
5. In Summary
Power, control, influence, and agency are not synonymous.
- Most centrally, power is ability. It is potentially difference-making. Anything that can make any difference at all has power.
- Control is the exercise of power. It is actually difference-making.
- Influence is degree of control. It makes a difference to the probabilities of things happening.
- Agency is original, non-derivative control. It requires a mind and will of some sort and is incompatible with determinism.
For each of these concepts I considered whether they are zero sum, that is, whether one thing’s having or exercising power, control, influence, or agency precludes something else from having or exercising the same power, control, influence, or agency. I argued that
- Power, in general, is not zero sum, though there may be special cases where it effectively is due to there being finite, unsharable resources.
- Control is zero sum when exercised in parallel but not when exercised in series.
- Influence is zero sum at the probability limits when exercised in parallel, but not when exercised in series.
- Agency is always zero sum. It cannot be exercised in series.
The main importance of the zero sum issue, at least with respect to Oord’s book, has do to with how God’s power, control, influence, and agency relate to creaturely power, control, influence, and agency. Are they necessarily in competition with each other, as Oord seems to think? Or can God and creatures synergize with each other? Zero sum means competition. Non-zero sum means the two can harmonize.