Six Stages of Emergent Agency and Free Will

The Six-Stage Progression towards Emergent Agency

Below is a six-stage progression that uses Tomasello’s four stages at the “lower” rungs and then continues upward into Kegan’s higher constructive-developmental stages. Notably, Tomasello’s Stage 4 (Social-Normative) aligns with Kegan’s Stage 3 (Socialized Mind), bridging these two frameworks.

Stage 1: Goal-Directed Agency

Inspiration: Tomasello (Vertebrates)

Key Features:

• Behaviors guided primarily by simple feedback loops.
• Goals are immediate and often reactive (e.g., seeking food, avoiding pain).

Cognitive Architecture:

• Feedback control system
• Inhibition of competing responses to maintain a single course of action.

Stage 2: Intentional Agency

Inspiration: Tomasello (Mammals)

Key Features:

• Uses working memory to form intentions that go beyond immediate stimuli.
• Can choose among different behaviors to achieve a goal.

Cognitive Architecture:

• Working memory
• Maintains a mental “to-do list,” enabling flexible pursuit of intentions.

Stage 3: Rational Agency

Inspiration: Tomasello (Great Apes)

Key Features:

• Emergence of metacognition: reflection on one’s own thoughts and strategies.
• More sophisticated means-ends reasoning and problem-solving.

Cognitive Architecture:

• Metacognition
• Awareness of one’s own mental states enables planning and adjusting strategies.

Stage 4: Social-Normative Agency

Inspiration: Tomasello (Humans) aligned with Kegan Stage 3 (Socialized Mind)

• Key Features:
• Sense of “we” emerges; actions are guided by group norms and obligations.
• Strong concern for reputation, belonging, and fulfilling social roles.

Cognitive Architecture:

• Reputation/Obligation
• Social identity is shaped by shared goals and the perspectives of others.

Kegan Alignment:

• Matches Kegan’s Socialized Mind — the self is embedded in the social context.
• Subject = the group’s norms/expectations; Object = personal impulses.

Stage 5: Self-Authoring Agency

Inspiration: Extends Tomasello’s social-normative stage upward using Kegan Stage 4

Key Features:

• One begins to author an internal value system that can stand apart from group norms, even while still respecting them.
• Personal ideology, critical thinking, and self-defined goals become guiding principles.

Cognitive & Social Architecture:

• Integrated rational-social architecture (beyond mere norm compliance).
• The individual can reflect on group norms as objects and consciously adopt or reject them.

Kegan Alignment:

• Self-Authoring Mind — the individual’s identity is not wholly defined by the collective.
• Subject = one’s own ideology/values; Object = group norms and obligations.

Stage 6: Self-Transforming Agency

Inspiration: Follows Kegan Stage 5

Key Features:

• Recognition that one’s own system of values or ideology is itself contextual and can be transcended or revised.
• Openness to multiple systems and capacities for deeper integration.

Cognitive & Social Architecture:

• Meta-integration of norms, ideologies, and contexts.
• The self sees all frameworks (both one’s own and others’) as provisional, to be further evolved.

Kegan Alignment:

• Self-Transforming Mind — the individual is not merely the author of a worldview but can also step back and transform that worldview.
• Subject = the process behind identity and ideology; Object = one’s self-authored system.

The Utility of Emergent Agency Model

Below is an explanation of why combining Tomasello’s and Kegan’s models into a single, multi-stage framework can be more informative than using either model in isolation.

1. It Bridges Evolutionary and Adult Developmental Perspectives

• Tomasello’s lens focuses on the evolutionary trajectory of cognitive architectures — how humans (and precursors) have progressed from goal-directed to social-normative agency.
• Kegan’s lens focuses on adult developmental stages that unfold after these social-normative capacities are in place.

By integrating these two, the new framework provides a continuous story that starts with fundamental goal-oriented cognition (in the earliest vertebrates), then moves through increasingly social and reflective capabilities (mammals, great apes), and finally expands into the nuanced self-transformations of Kegan’s later stages. Neither model alone covers this full journey from the deep evolutionary roots to the highest levels of adult development.

2. It Highlights Critical Thresholds at the Social-Normative Level

Tomasello locates the major evolutionary shift in humans at the point of shared intentionality and social norms. Kegan’s Stage 3 (the Socialized Mind) sits precisely at this junction, making it an ideal bridge:

• Tomasello’s Stage 4 (Social-Normative) and
• Kegan’s Stage 3 (Socialized Mind)

In the integrated model, these two stages align, revealing why group norms are pivotal for both evolutionary success (Tomasello) and psychological maturity (Kegan). This alignment clarifies that what Tomasello frames in biological and cultural terms — e.g., reputation, obligation — matches the psychological shift that Kegan describes as the embedding of the self in social relations.

3. It Clarifies the Progression Beyond the Social-Normative Plateau

Tomasello’s stages describe how we arrive at a socially normative agency, but not what comes next in terms of continued transformation of the self. Kegan’s stages 4 and 5 precisely articulate further growth beyond social consensus:

1. Self-Authoring Mind (Stage 4) — where one begins to choose or create values and norms for oneself, rather than being defined by a group.
2. Self-Transforming Mind (Stage 5) — where one can transcend even one’s own authored system, integrating multiple frameworks.

The integrated model, therefore, captures both:

• The evolutionary emergence of sophisticated social norms, and
• The higher-order developmental expansions that follow in mature adults.

4. It Provides a More Complete Account of Cognition and Agency

By weaving the two models together, we get a fuller picture of what changes at each step:

• Neurocognitive changes (from basic feedback loops to working memory to metacognition to social norm regulation).
• Developmental self-transformations (from being defined by social norms to defining one’s own norms and, ultimately, questioning those very definitions).

Neither Tomasello nor Kegan independently explains both the underlying architectures (e.g., feedback control vs. metacognition) and the meaning-making transformations (e.g., socialized vs. self-authored). The synthesis integrates both, yielding a more holistic understanding of how minds evolve and develop over time.

5. It Enhances Practical Applicability

The new model can guide practical interventions in education, leadership, AI, and organizational design:

• Lower stages (Tomasello’s) imply basic training in executive functioning, emotional regulation, and simple collaboration.
• The social-normative stage (Tomasello’s Stage 4 / Kegan’s Stage 3) points to group dynamics, cultural norms, and reputation management — crucial in workplaces and communities.
• Higher stages (Kegan’s 4 and 5) highlight the importance of fostering autonomy, critical reflection, and the capacity to revise one’s worldview — key for leadership development, innovation, and conflict resolution.

By tailoring strategies to the specific stage a group or individual is at, facilitators, educators, and organizations can catalyze growth more effectively.

6. It Aligns Biological, Social, and Psychological Dimensions

This integrated approach acknowledges that human intelligence:

1. Emerged biologically through evolutionary advantages (Tomasello).
2. Is intrinsically social in its orientation.
3. Continues to transform psychologically in adulthood (Kegan).

We see how social heuristics, norms, and cultural evolution (Tomasello’s focus) fuel the further reflective transformations (Kegan’s focus). In turn, Kegan’s higher stages illustrate that some individuals and cultures can rewrite or reinvent the very norms that shaped them.

Conclusion

In sum, the combined framework is more informative because it provides:

• A seamless arc from simpler evolutionary origins to the highest forms of mature, self-transforming intelligence.
• A precise mapping of where fundamental social-normative capacities sit in relation to further human developmental growth.
• A richer understanding of how both cognitive architectures and meaning-making structures interact, evolve, and transform over time.

By drawing from both Tomasello’s evolutionary insights and Kegan’s adult developmental stages, we get a more comprehensive model of human agency — one that accounts for not only where we came from but also where we can go as individuals and societies.

1. Free Will as Emergent Agency

Rather than seeing free will as an all-or-nothing property (either you have it or you do not), we treat it as an emergent capacity that expands as cognitive and social architectures become increasingly sophisticated.

• Lower stages have less flexibility (more constrained, immediate, reactive forms of choice).
• Higher stages have greater flexibility (more reflective and transformative potential).

2. Six Stages of Expanding Free Will

Recall our integrated six-stage model:

1. Goal-Directed (Vertebrates)
2. Intentional (Mammals)
3. Rational (Great Apes)
4. Social-Normative (Humans) — aligns with Kegan Stage 3 (Socialized Mind)
5. Self-Authoring (Kegan Stage 4)
6. Self-Transforming (Kegan Stage 5)

Below is how “free will” might progressively look across these stages.

Stage 1: Goal-Directed Free Will

Nature of “Freedom”:

• The organism can inhibit or activate basic goal-directed impulses (hunger, thirst, danger avoidance).
• “Choice” is limited to toggling one drive on or off in response to environmental triggers.

Limitations:

• Strongly bound by immediate stimuli; minimal self-reflection.
• Free will here mostly feels like responding or not responding, with few interpretive layers.

Stage 2: Intentional Free Will

Nature of “Freedom”:

• The agent can hold an intention in mind and choose among multiple possible actions (e.g., “go here,” “hide there”).
• The capacity to plan beyond the immediate moment slightly increases freedom: “Which path do I take to get food?”

Limitations:

• Still heavily driven by basic drives and perceptual context.
• Lacks a deeper self-conscious reflection on the reasons behind the choice.

Stage 3: Rational Free Will

Nature of “Freedom”:

• Can reflect on one’s own thought processes; weigh pros and cons in a more deliberate way.
• E.g., “I know I want food, but if I approach from the east, I might be more successful than from the west.”
• A more robust internal sense of choosing means to ends.

Limitations:

• Still individual-focused; minimal sense of collective norms or moral obligations.
• Free will extends to strategic reasoning but not to re-writing social frameworks.

Stage 4: Social-Normative Free Will

Nature of “Freedom”:

• Belonging to a group, abiding by social norms and moral codes, or choosing to deviate.
• Freedom arises from deliberation within a recognized system of norms, roles, and expectations.
• A sense of “I can be good or bad,” “I can follow or break the rules,” but the rules themselves are mostly taken as given.

Limitations:

• The self is embedded in the social perspective; can’t fully author or transform that normative framework.
• Free will is exercised within the inherited moral and cultural system.

Stage 5: Self-Authoring Free Will

Nature of “Freedom”:

• The individual steps outside the group’s rules to define or adopt a personal ideology.
• Freedom involves creating or choosing which norms to live by, not just toggling existing rules.
• “I have the power to author a moral system that fits my deepest convictions.”

Limitations:

• One is still “subject” to the particular worldview or ideology that one authors.
• While there’s far more self-determination than before, it remains somewhat bounded by the logic of the self-authored system.

Stage 6: Self-Transforming Free Will

Nature of “Freedom”:

• The individual can reflect even on their own authored frameworks as provisional, seeing their potential biases or limitations.
• Freedom includes the capacity to “step outside” any single ideology, adopt multiple perspectives, and transform them all.
• “I can shift among different value systems, seeing each as partial or context-bound.”

Limitations:

• While broad, no vantage point is infinite. The agent still lives in a social and physical context.
• True “absolute” freedom does not exist; this stage acknowledges that freedom itself is always in flux.

4. Free Will as Context-Dependent but Increasingly Self-Determined

At each stage, the sense of “I can choose” is shaped by:

• What you perceive as possible (cognitive architecture).
• Which constraints you recognize (social norms, personal values).
• How you weigh consequences (reputation, self-constructed ethics, or multi-perspectival awareness).

As you move upward, you gain a larger toolkit for:

• Reflecting on constraints,
• Revising or rewriting them,
• Potentially transforming entire systems of thought and value.

Thus, free will expands to the extent you can stand outside your current frameworks and choose among them — or modify them altogether.

5. Conclusion

In this integrated, stage-based view:

1. Free will emerges incrementally with each new level of agency — from simple inhibition of impulses to fully reflective, transformative choice.
2. The highest degrees of free will occur when an agent can meta-reflect on and re-author the social, cultural, and personal frameworks that would otherwise constrain it.
3. True freedom is never “absolute.” Even the most advanced stage acknowledges that all choices are shaped by context, but it allows for continual evolution of the individual’s sense of what’s possible and what’s permissible.

Through this lens, free will becomes a dynamic, evolving phenomenon — one that is intimately tied to our biological heritage (Tomasello’s stages) and our psychological growth (Kegan’s stages).