ABSTRACT
Is it possible for someone to do something deliberately and freely even while she believes - and is well aware she believes - that she has more compelling reason to do otherwise? In the chapter’s first half, I argue that this is not possible if the person has formed her normative belief in response to her interest in deciding what to do. Under these circumstances, her behavior would fail to reflect this belief only if she were pushed or pulled to do something that she herself is opposed to doing. But this means that in behaving this way, she would not be exercising her agency. In the second half of the chapter, I argue that rational agents are nonetheless capable of being passive in relation to their own agency in the sense that someone is passive when she is a bystander to an event. I review various forms this passivity can take, concluding that some measure of passive bystandership is a necessary condition of every action of every rational being.
