There has recently been much interest in the role of attention in controlling action. The role has been mischaracterized as an element in necessary and sufficient conditions on agential control. In this paper I attempt a new characterization of the role. I argue that we need to understand attentional control in order to fully understand agential control. To fully understand agential control we must understand paradigm exercises of agential control. Three important accounts of agential control—intentional, reflective, and goal-represented control—do not (...) fully explain such exercises. I argue that understanding them requires understanding how deployments of visual attention implement flexible occurrent control, or a capacity to flexibly adjust the degree of control that individuals exercise over their actions. While such deployments of attention are neither necessary nor sufficient for exercising agential control, they constitute an attentional skill for controlling action, understanding which is central to fully understanding agential control. We can appreciate its centrality if we appreciate that this attentional skill for controlling action is plausibly crucial to acting non-negligently. (shrink)

In paradigm exercises of agency, individuals guide their activities toward some goal. A central challenge for action theory is to explain how individuals guide. This challenge is an instance of the more general problem of how to accommodate individuals and their actions in the natural world, as explained by natural science. Two dominant traditions–primitivism and the causal theory–fail to address the challenge in a satisfying way. Causal theorists appeal to causation by an intention, through a feedback mechanism, in explaining guidance. (...) Primitivists postulate primitive agential capacities in their explanations. The latter neglect to explain how primitive capacities integrate with findings from natural science. The former do not explain why some feedback mechanism’s activity amounts to the agent’s guidance. In this paper I argue that both traditions should acknowledge a capacity to guide, as actually constituted by the executive system. I argue that appeals to this empirically discovered psychological system explain how individuals guide in a way that integrates with explanations from cognitive science. Individuals’ capacity to guide is embedded in the natural world through the activity of its constituent (mechanistic) components. (shrink)

This essay will defend a causal conception of action explanations in terms of an agent’s reasons by delineating a metaphysical and epistemic framework that allows us to view folk psychology as providing us with causal and autonomous explanatory strategies of accounting for individual agency. At the same time, I will calm philosophical concerns about the issue of causal deviance that have been at the center of the recent debates between causalist and noncausalist interpretations of action explanations. For that purpose, it (...) is important to realize that the domain of folk-psychological action explanation is also the domain of skillful and goal-directed bodily movements, a domain to which we have independent epistemic access. (shrink)

The paper motivates a novel research programme in the philosophy of action parallel to the ‘Knowledge First’ programme in epistemology. It is argued that much of the grounds for abandoning the quest for a reductive analysis of knowledge in favour of the Knowledge First alternative is mirrored in the case of intentional action, inviting the hypothesis that intentional action is also, like knowledge, metaphysically basic. The paper goes on to demonstrate the sort of explanatory contribution that intentional action can make (...) once it is no longer taken to be a target for reductive analysis, in explaining other, non-intentional kinds of action and voluntariness. (shrink)

This essay defends a version of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) – the doctrine that there is normally a stronger reason against an act that has a bad state of affairs as one of its intended effects than against an otherwise similar act that has that bad state of affairs as an unintended effect. First, a precise account of this version of the DDE is given. Secondly, some suggestions are made about why we should believe the DDE, and about (...) why it is true. Finally, a solution is developed to the so-called ‘closeness problem’ that any version of the DDE must face. (shrink)

In this essay, I will suggest ways of improving on Davidson’s conception of the explanatory autonomy of folk psychological explanations. For that purpose, I will appeal to insights from the recent theory of mind debate emphasizing the centrality of various forms of empathy for our understanding of another person’s mindedness. While I will argue that we need to abandon Davidson’s position of anomalous monism, I will also show that my account is fully compatible with Davidson’s non-reductive and interpretationist account of (...) meaning and mental content. Indeed, my account does more justice to the empathic capacities underlying our interpretive capacities, which Davidson himself has to acknowledge in thinking about the constitutive features of thought and meaning. More specifically, I will propose a new way of philosophically safeguarding the causal-explanatory autonomy of our ordinary action explanations by showing how our empathic capacities are involved in epistemically delineating the domain of rational agency. (shrink)

Given the many marvelous things animals can do and moreover the success we have in employing the intentional stance towards animals, it seems to be almost unthinkable to say that animals could not act at all. Nonetheless, this is exactly what I argue for. I claim that strictly speaking there is no animal action, only behaviour. I defend this claim in three steps. Firstly, I recapitulate some of the weighty grounds that speak in favour of animal agency. Secondly, I explain (...) why I still doubt that animals act. The argument is that the account of agency that I take to be the most attractive one entails that animals can't act. Since this account of agency is non-standard, I spend the bulk of the paper with providing a sketch of what, according to it, actions are. Finally, I explain why it is still so natural and promising to regard animals as agents, although in fact they aren't. As one might put it: of course they act, only strictly speaking they don't. (shrink)

This essay will defend a causal conception of action explanations in terms of an agent’s reasons by delineating a metaphysical and epistemic framework that allows us to view folk psychology as providing us with causal and autonomous explanatory strategies of accounting for individual agency. At the same time, I will calm philosophical concerns about the issue of causal deviance that have been at the center of the recent debates between causalist and noncausalist interpretations of action explanations. For that purpose, it (...) is important to realize that the domain of folk-psychological action explanation is also the domain of skillful and goal-directed bodily movements, a domain to which we have independent epistemic access. (shrink)

Argues for a causal-psychological account of acting for reasons. This view is distinguished from a more ambitious causal theory of action, clarified as far as possible, and motivated—against non-reductive, teleological, and behaviourist alternatives—on broadly metaphysical grounds.

This chapter contains sections titled: Reductionist Accounts of Teleology Non ‐ Reductionist Accounts Prospects and Consequences References.

In debates about rationalizing action explanation causalists assume that the psychological states that explain an intentional action have both causal and rational features. I scrutinize the presuppositions of those who seek and offer rationalizing action explanations. This scrutiny shows, I argue, that where rational features play an explanatory role in these contexts, causal features play only a presuppositional role. But causal features would have to play an explanatory role if rationalizing action explanation were a species of causal explanation. Consequently, we (...) should conclude that action explanation is not a species of causal explanation. (shrink)

According to the classical Doctrine of Double Effect, there is a morally significant difference between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm. Versions of DDE have been defended in a variety of creative ways, but there is one difficulty, the so-called “closeness problem”, that continues to bedevil all of them. The problem is that an agent's intention can always be identified in such a fine-grained way as to eliminate an intention to harm from almost any situation, including those that have been (...) taken to be paradigmatic instances in which DDE applies to intended harm. In this paper, we consider and reject a number of recent attempts to solve the closeness problem. We argue that the failure of these proposals strongly suggests that the closeness problem is intractable, and that the distinction between intending harm and merely foreseeing harm is not morally significant. Further, we argue that there may be a deeper reason why such attempts must fail: the rationale that makes the best fit with DDE, namely, an imperative not to aim at evil, is itself irredeemably flawed. While we believe that these observations should lead us to abandon further attempts to solve the closeness problem for DDE, we also conclude by showing how a related principle that is supported by a distinct rationale and avoids facing the closeness problem altogether nevertheless shares with DDE its most important features, including an intuitive explanation of a number of cases and a commitment to the relevance of intentions. (shrink)

Mental acts are conspicuously absent from philosophical debates over the nature of action. A typical protagonist of a typical scenario is far more likely to raise her arm or open the window than she is to perform a calculation in her head or talk to herself silently. One possible explanation for this omission is that the standard ‘causalist’ account of action, on which acts are analyzed in terms of mental states causing bodily movements, faces difficulties in accommodating some paradigmatic cases (...) of mental action – or so I argue. After drawing out these objections to causalism, I outline a more promising approach. Building on previous work, I show how the approach I favour, on which the attempt to analyze action is dispensed with, provides a unified account of both mental and physical action. (shrink)

In On Not Expecting Too Much from Narrative, Lamarque (2004) challenges theories of narrative identity. For while narrativity might tell us something of interest about our selves, the requirements for this would be so strong that theories of narrative identity would not be able to meet them. In contrast, he identifies minimal conditions for narrativity, so that our identity could be of a narrative nature as well. But in that case, the concept of narrativity would be so weak that it (...) would hardly be able to tell us anything about ourselves. I first examine Lamarque's criticism of narrative concepts of identity. He shows that stories, understood in a minimal sense, are not found but told and that they establish a temporal relationship between at least two events. I then examine the concept of teleological explanations of action. Considering the problem of deviant causal chains that causalists are confronted with, they are at least a serious alternative to causal explanations of action. By doing that, I also attempt to render plausible the irreducibility of teleological explanations of action to causal ones. Subsequently, I outline some features of teleological explanations of action. Finally, I defend the idea that teleological explanations of action are essentially narrative explanations of action because they meet Lamarque's minimal conditions of narratives. I then make the case that these kinds of narratives are not trivial with respect to our personal identity but, on the contrary, are the prerequisite under which we can perceive ourselves as rational agents. (shrink)

In On Not Expecting Too Much from Narrative, Lamarque (2004) challenges theories of narrative identity. For while narrativity might tell us something of interest about our selves, the requirements for this would be so strong that theories of narrative identity would not be able to meet them. In contrast, he identifies minimal conditions for narrativity, so that our identity could be of a narrative nature as well. But in that case, the concept of narrativity would be so weak that it (...) would hardly be able to tell us anything about ourselves. I first examine Lamarque's criticism of narrative concepts of identity. He shows that stories, understood in a minimal sense, are not found but told and that they establish a temporal relationship between at least two events. I then examine the concept of teleological explanations of action. Considering the problem of deviant causal chains that causalists are confronted with, they are at least a serious alternative to causal explanations of action. By doing that, I also attempt to render plausible the irreducibility of teleological explanations of action to causal ones. Subsequently, I outline some features of teleological explanations of action. Finally, I defend the idea that teleological explanations of action are essentially narrative explanations of action because they meet Lamarque's minimal conditions of narratives. I then make the case that these kinds of narratives are not trivial with respect to our personal identity but, on the contrary, are the prerequisite under which we can perceive ourselves as rational agents. (shrink)

Jennifer Hornsby's account of human action frees us from the temptation to think of the person who acts as 'doing' the events that are her actions, and thereby removes much of the allure of 'agent causation'. But her account is spoiled by the claim that physical actions are 'tryings' that cause bodily movements. It would be better to think of physical actions and bodily movements as identical; but Hornsby refuses to do this, seemingly because she thinks that to do so (...) would be to endorse the so-called 'standard causal story'. But Hornsby misses a possibility here, for we can insist on this identity claim without endorsing the standard story if we embrace an account which parallels the disjunctive account in the philosophy of perception. This will leave us with a picture of physical action that saves the insights of Hornsby's account without succumbing to its distortions. (shrink)

Is there any distinctive aspect of rationality that deserves the label of “instrumental rationality”? Recently, Joseph Raz (2005) has argued that instrumental rationality is a “myth”. In this essay, I shall give some qualified support to Raz’s position: as I shall argue, many philosophers have indeed been seduced by certain myths about instrumental rationality. Nonetheless, Raz’s conclusion is too strong. Instrumental rationality is not itself a myth: there really is a distinctive aspect of rationality that deserves the label of “instrumental (...) rationality”. -/- In the first two sections of this essay, I shall start by giving a rough intuitive description of the phenomenon that seems to me the best candidate for the label “instrumental rationality”. As we shall see, this rough description gives us reason to reject some of the myths that surround instrumental rationality. Then in the rest of this essay, I shall try to give a more precise general specification of this phenomenon. In Sections 3 and 4, I shall consider what has been said about instrumental rationality by several other philosophers. Identifying what is missing in these other philosophers’ accounts will help me to develop my own positive specification, which I shall present in Sections 5 and 6. (shrink)

“Free Will” is a philosophical term of art for a particular sort of capacity of rational agents to choose a course of action from among various alternatives. Which sort is the free will sort is what all the fuss is about. (And what a fuss it has been: philosophers have debated this question for over two millenia, and just about every major philosopher has had something to say about it.) Most philosophers suppose that the concept of free will is very (...) closely connected to the concept of moral responsibility. Acting with free will, on such views, is just to satisfy the metaphysical requirement on being responsible for one's action. (Clearly, there will also be epistemic conditions on responsibility as well, such as being aware—or failing that, being culpably unaware—of relevant alternatives to one's action and of the alternatives' moral significance.) But the significance of free will is not exhausted by its connection to moral responsibility. Free will also appears to be a condition on desert for one's accomplishments (why sustained effort and creative work are praiseworthy); on the autonomy and dignity of persons; and on the value we accord to love and friendship. (See Kane 1996, 81ff. and Clarke 2003, Ch.1.). (shrink)

Davidson's 1963 essay "Actions, Reasons, and Causes" convinced most philosophers that reason explanations are a species of causal explanation. By way of argument, Davidson challenged the non-causalist to make sense of cases where the agent has more than one reason that would justify her behavior but only acts on one of these reasons. We claim that a teleological account of action explanation can answer Davidson's challenge, but we argue further that if the Davidsonian challenge is a problem for the teleologist, (...) then it is equally a problem for the causalist, and thus cannot serve as an argument for causalism. (shrink)

During the last century, most philosophers of science have tried to expunge teleological explanations from the fields of epistemology. They took for granted that the Darwinian concepts of natural selection and evolution effectively dispense us with any presence of goal-directedness in nature: based on an anti-metaphysical attitude, they hold purposes and goals to be of religious and spiritual nature, thereby obstacles to any effective comprehension of biological processes. Accordingly, teleological categories have been abandoned in many ways in favor of mechanical (...) causes and non-teleological processes: since Darwin demonstrated that no teleology is required in order to explain the natural world, causal explanations became the only tools to investigate natural processes. (shrink)

The paper discusses the issue of psychophysical agency in the context of Indian philosophy, focusing on the oldest preserved texts of the classical tradition of Sāṃkhya–Yoga. The author raises three major questions: What is action in terms of Sāṃkhyakārikā (ca. fifth century CE) and Yogasūtra (ca. third century CE)? Whose action is it, or what makes one an agent? What is a right and morally good action? The first part of the paper reconsiders a general idea of action – including (...) actions that are deliberately done and those that ‘merely’ happen – identified by Patañjali and Ῑśvarakṛṣṇa as a permanent change or transformation (pariṇāma) determined by the universal principle of causation (satkārya). Then, a threefold categorization of actions according to their causes is presented, i.e. internal agency (ādhyātmika), external agency (ādhibhautika) and ‘divine’ agency (ādhidaivika). The second part of the paper undertakes the problem of the agent’s autonomy and the doer’s psychophysical integrity. The main issues that are exposed in this context include the relationship between an agent and the agent’s capacity for perception and cognition, as well as the crucial Sāṃkhya–Yoga distinction between ‘a doer’ and ‘the self’. The agent’s self-awareness and his or her moral self-esteem are also briefly examined. Moreover, the efficiency of action in present and future is discussed (i.e. karman, karmāśaya, saṃskāra, vāsanā), along with the criteria of a right act accomplished through meditative insight (samādhi) and moral discipline (yama). (shrink)