ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the emergent status of mental powers from objections regarding over-determination by drawing on a view that calls "structure realism." It considers the nature of those powers that are distinctively human. The book argues that agency is a "meta-causal power." It begins with the question, central to the philosophy of social science, of what it is that social scientists should study. The book offers a sophisticated account of the complex and irreducible sociality of such a domain, and the various kinds of emergent powers that it grounds. It describes John Searle's account of the deontological moral powers generated through rulegoverned institutions with Alasdair MacIntyre's account of the Aristotelian virtues inculcated through the pursuit of goods internal to shared practices. The book examines the categories of moral responsibility and normativity.
