The School of Liberal Arts, University of Wollongong Agora Speaker Series
Thursday 7 September, 3.30 to 5.00pm
This is an in-person event at the University of Wollongong - Register here
Professor Jeanette Kennett (Macquarie University)
The Privilege of Self-Control.
People living in poverty are subject to a range of stigmatizing social myths linking their poverty to a blameworthy lack of individual self-control that is taken to justify denying them access to central elements of a good human life. Indeed, a recent survey indicated that only 39% of respondents thought everyone should be able to pursue a hobby and only 27% believed those on any income should have the chance to go out socialising. (Britons have become so mean that many of us think poor people don’t deserve leisure time | Frances Ryan | The Guardian)
Do poor people lack self-control? In this talk, I argue that important forms of self-control – those that support what Michael Bratman has called planning agency – rely significantly on social, rather than individual, resources. I first outline a standard account of self-control as the capacity to delay gratification. I then show how diachronic or proactive forms of self-control are integral to the kind of planning agency that provides access to important human and social goods. I argue that the resources required for the confident exercise of planning agency are mostly unavailable to people living in poverty in our communities, who are restricted by their circumstances to reactive forms of self-control and self-management. Moreover, these forms of self-management – when exercised by poor people - often go unrecognized or are interpreted as failures of self-control. I conclude that planning agency and proactive self-control are largely the preserve of social privilege.
The Agora Speaker Series is proudly hosted by
The School of Liberal Arts
Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities
University of Wollongong
NSW 2522 Australia
SOLA Enquiries sola-enquiries@uow.edu.au
