Telic power and its applications

ABSTRACT

I introduce a newly identified form of power: telic power. While deontic power is a key concept in social ontology, it is too narrow to capture a central dimension of the social world. I introduce and define the previously overlooked concept of telic power, offering two justifications for this new concept. First, it captures a distinct and central dimension of the social world that has previously been neglected due to the one-sided use of examples and a consequent emphasis on deontic power. Second, it is theoretically useful because telic power can both conflict with and reinforce our deontic powers.

KEYWORDS:

• Telic power
• deontic power
• class
• gender
• social ontology

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. This article is a modified version of chapter five in my Nonideal Social Ontology: The Power View (Burman 2023).

2. There are, however, some accounts of teleological normativity in social ontology. Examinations of teleological normativity with respect to social action and institutions include Seumas Miller’s Social Action: A Teleological Account (Miller 2001) and, more recently, Frank Hindriks and Francesco Guala’s ‘The Functions of Institutions: Etiology and Teleology’ (Hindriks and Guala 2021). Charlotte Witt and Sally Haslanger use the idea of teleological normativity in novel ways with respect to gender and gender norms. In the following sections, I take their views of gender norms and teleological normativity one step further by explicitly identifying and defending a new form of general social power. I discuss Witt’s view (2011) at length in my Nonideal Social Ontology.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Åsa Burman

Åsa Burman (formerly Andersson) is Reader in Practical Philosophy at Stockholm University and an affiliated researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies. She is an editor of the Journal of Social Ontology. She holds a PhD from Lund University in Sweden and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley. Burman is the author of Nonideal Social Ontology: The Power View, New York: Oxford University Press, 2023.