Oedipus’s agency arises from action neither voluntary nor involuntary

Evidence

The tragedy of Oedipus depicts a story of suffering and disempowerment that is neither voluntary nor involuntary. For Oedipus is an agent who, not knowing what he has done, makes a deep difference in the world. On gradually learning the secret of his past acts he inflicts terrible wounds on the body that performed them, on the self that can neither be recognized nor repudiated. Oedipus’ final acts consist of his public renunciation of kingly power as both expression and consequence of pain. They embody and extend his passion—his agony—not of his conscious intention. Oedipus’ agency is constituted by the conflicting definitions of his predicament that is the outcome of his insistence on uncovering the truth of his origin. The act of disempowering himself is performed because, as the slayer of his father and the husband of his mother (a double transgression, both unknowingly committed), he is the cause of his subjects’ unique suffering, which will cease when he exiles himself from Thebes—that is, when he disempowers himself. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 450

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Offers a counter-model of agency that does not rest on intention or responsibility, which is the load-bearing concept of secular ethics.
• XREF: Resonates with the critique of the sovereign, self-conscious knowing subject found in postcolonial and psychoanalytic theory.

Related

• Agency includes acts neither voluntary nor involuntary but constituted by conflicting self-definitions. (similarity 0.95)
• Embodied ethical sensibility, not reasoned responsibility, can drive moral action (similarity 0.79)
• Acts carry ethical significance apart from any notion of answerability (similarity 0.79)