A full cosmos

On Tuesday evening, Rachel and I were discussing the extent to which members of a certain personality cult are responsible for their actions. As we talked, Rachel said that the root of our disagreement was probably in a disagreement about free will; namely, she thinks people have more freedom of will than I do. At the time, I agreed. I thought about it more on Wednesday and I have a more satisfying framing for this. The “personal responsibility” point of view sits in a too-empty cosmos. The individual stands alone, obviously influenced by others and constrained in ways, but ultimately The Decider. This cosmos consists of humans and not much else. While it does allow for a spectrum of opinions on the degree of freedom of the will, it is fundamentally a cosmos aimed at answering the question of responsibility. An animate cosmos, on the other hand, is full to the brim—and most of the population isn’t human. In this cosmos, an “individual” isn’t really any such thing. The individual is a…