Many discussions of agency treat it as a property that organisms possess. From this perspective, agency appears analogous to characteristics such as size, mass, or complexity, and the central question becomes whether a particular system has agency and, if so, how much.
APS rejects this interpretation.
Biological agency is not primarily something an organism has. It is something an organism does.
Living systems persist only through ongoing activity. Nutrients are acquired and transformed, internal conditions are regulated, damaged structures are repaired, and environmental changes are accommodated. These activities are not optional additions to life. They are the means through which life continues to exist.
For this reason, agency should be understood as an activity of self-maintenance rather than as a static property. An organism remains an agent because it continuously contributes to preserving the conditions required for its own viability. When this viability-maintaining activity permanently ceases, agency disappears even if many structural features temporarily remain intact.
This distinction helps explain why agency is fundamentally processual. Living systems are not agents because they possess a special substance, mechanism, or internal faculty. They are agents because they actively participate in maintaining their own organised persistence through time.
APS Principle: Biological agency is not a property possessed by living systems. It is the ongoing activity through which living systems maintain the conditions of their own persistence.
See also: biological agency, process, viability, persistence