The Western model of intentional agency is culturally specific

Evidence

Michelle Rosaldo (1982), Marilyn Strathern (1988), and other anthropologists have suggested that perceiving action as the externalization of intentions by active human agents is a key facet of the Western imagination. We might add that the right to discover, classify, and judge intentions, as invested in many legal systems, is a crucial means of exerting social and political control. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 264

Categorization

Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims

• XREF: Connects to Marilyn Strathern’s critique of Western individualism, relevant to the reader’s interest in cross-cultural frameworks.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how do non-Western legal systems conceive of intent and agency differently?

Related

• Judging intentions is a culturally specific instrument of social control (similarity 0.88)