Unlearning Agency: Lessons from Cults

This paper investigates a type of agential impairment that has not been fully appreciated in the philosophical literature: unlearning agency, a process which undermines or destroys its victim’s sense of self and agential competence. This type of manipulation is prominent in cults and is vividly displayed by the puzzling phenomenon of cult members seeming to harm themselves despite doing what they claim they want to do, as when several men in Heaven’s Gate cult volunteered to castrate themselves in accordance with their beliefs. Drawing on the literature on cults and using Heaven’s Gate as its test case, this paper distinguishes unlearning agency from other agential impairments in the philosophical literature. It then explores why unlearning agency matters. Understanding this type of agential damage not only highlights a new type of exemption from moral responsibility, but also outlines methods of rehabilitating agency. Furthermore, it provides an explanation for why cults can harm members who are doing what they want to do, without having to rely on an objective theory of well-being. Finally, this paper explores how unlearning agency can arise in other contexts besides cults. Thus, we should take this threat to agency seriously.