What Happens When Agency Fails?

Have you ever stopped and asked yourself what happened the last time you cheated? It could be on anything: on a quiz, in a video game, or anything else. What did you think of your actions and motivations in that moment? And even after you did it, did you still consider yourself a “good” person? These questions point to an interesting phenomena: our sense of agency can be misused, and ethical self-direction demands continuous reflection as opposed to blindly following rules or possibilities.

Recent behavioral research highlights how nuanced these questions about lying and cheating really are. In behavioral researcher Samuel Skowronek’s study “Disentangling Dishonesty: An Empirical Investigation of the Nature of Lying and Cheating”, Skowronek draws a sharp distinction between lying and cheating as separate but somewhat related unethical behaviors. “Cheating”, in this instance,  involves creating false evidence while “lying” is defined as misrepresenting a fact (ResearchGate, 2025). Skowronek’s findings show that people who cheat often feel better about themselves immediately after the instance of cheating than those who lie feel after telling a falsehood (ResearchGate,2025). This “cheater’s high” can create a self-reinforcing feedback loop: the perpetrator acts in an unethical manner, experiences a positive internal reaction, and becomes more willing to act in the same unethical way again.

In plain terms, this means agency can steer us into patterns that are morally corrosive, especially when the internal reward outweighs the external consequences. In action it can look like this: you cheat once, you feel good, you rationalize it, and you find yourself in a cycle. That makes the question of ethical agency urgent: it is not enough that you can choose to act; you must also choose how you act, and reflect on why you acted that way. That reflective cycle recalls a reference from one of my previous posts on a philosophical lens of agency from Bennett W. Helm’s article “Accountability and Some Social Dimensions of Human Agency.” In that post, Helm argued that our capacity to act meaningfully and be held responsible cannot be understood purely from the internal viewpoint of the person engaged in reflecting. Instead, it relies on a much broader social matrix, namely communities of respect where norms are shared and dignity is at stake (Wiley Online Library,2012). From this perspective, when you cheat, you not only violate your own personal moral code but also the social environment that holds you accountable. The internal reward loop from cheating might feel good in the moment, but it degrades the external social fabric of your agency: your sense of being someone whose actions matter in a community that you find meaning and validation in.

Putting both lines of inquiry together, we find deeper wisdom about agency in a more holistic sense. It’s not only about the freedom to act but about using that freedom to act in a responsible and ethical manner. You might exercise a form of agency when you cheat, but that does not make it “good” agency. “Good” agency implies careful and considerate choices aligned with dignity and reflection. It’s about acting while aware of the social aspects and consequences of your choices, and remaining mindful of how your self-image and community image inform each other. So when next you’re in a situation that tempts you to bend rules or shortcut a process, pause and ask: “What will I feel after I act? What will others think of this? Does this reinforce or destroy my sense of community and respect?” If you skip that reflection, your agency slides into drift rather than direction.