Affirmative action is standardly pursued in relation to admissions to prestigious universities, in hiring for prestigious jobs, and when it comes to being elected to parliament. Central to these forms of affirmative action is that they have to do with competitive goods. A good is competitive when, if we improve A’s chances of getting the good, we reduce B’s chances of obtaining the good. I call this Competitive Affirmative Action. I distinguish this from Non-competitive Affirmative Action. (...) The latter has to do with non-competitive goods, e.g., being granted early parole or freedom from arbitrary arrest. I argue that some of the most prominent objections against affirmative action—in particular, the reverse discrimination objection and the merit objection—speak less against Non-competitive Affirmative Action. And that some of the most prominent arguments in favor of affirmative action, insofar as they justify Competitive Affirmative Action, also justify Non-competitive Affirmative Action. (shrink)

An introductory survey of the contemporary philosophy of action.

Intentional action is often accompanied by knowledge of what one is doing—knowledge which appears non-observational and non-inferential. G.E.M. Anscombe defends the stronger claim that intentional action always comes with such knowledge. Among those who follow Anscombe, some have altered the features, content, or species of the knowledge claimed to necessarily accompany intentional action. In this paper, I argue that there is no knowledge condition on intentional action, no matter the assumed features, content, or species of the (...) knowledge. Further, rather than follow the usual methodology in this debate of arguing by counterexample, I present an argument that explains why we continue to find counterexamples: intentional action and knowledge are regulated by thresholds under distinct pressures; in particular, the threshold of control regulating intentional action is disparately influenced by the role of intentional action in practical normativity. (shrink)

The prohibition against using others ‘merely as means’ is one of Kant’s most famous ideas, but it has proven difficult to spell out with precision what it requires of us in practice. In ‘How to Use Someone “Merely as a Means”’ (2020), I proposed a new interpretation of the necessary and sufficient conditions for using someone ‘merely as a means’. I argued that my agent-focused actual consent inter- pretation has strong textual support and significant advantages over other readings of the (...) prohibition. In the present essay, I respond to comments by Claudia Blöser, Irina Schumski, and Oliver Sensen. I first address the role of maxims in relation to the Formula of Humanity, and I spell out in more detail the relation between the agent’s belief and the actual facts pertaining to the consent of the person who is used as means to the agent’s end. I then discuss the importance of the requirement that agents make their use of others conditional on the others’ consent as a matter of moral principle. I next show that the proposed reading of the prohibition, despite its focus on the agent’s maxims and practical reasoning, yields important conclusions about the moral status of external actions, and I address several cases that are pur- ported to spell trouble for my reading of Kant’s prohibition. I end by outlining two challenges for possible (rational) consent readings of the prohibition against using others merely as means. (shrink)

Intentional action is, in some sense, non-accidental, and one common way action theorists have attempted to explain this is with reference to control. The idea, in short, is that intentional action implicates control, and control precludes accidentality. But in virtue of what, exactly, would exercising control over an action suffice to make it non-accidental in whatever sense is required for the action to be intentional? One interesting and prima facie plausible idea that we wish to (...) explore in this paper is that control is non-accidental in virtue of requiring knowledge – either knowledge-that or knowledge-how (e.g., Beddor and Pavese 2021; cf., Setiya 2008; 2012 and Habgood-Coote 2018). We review in detail some key recent work defending such knowledge-centric theories of control, and we show that none of these accounts holds water. We conclude with some discussion about how control opposes the sort of luck intentional action excludes without doing so by requiring knowledge (that- or how). (shrink)

The objective of this work is to explore the notion of “action” and “agency” in artificial intelligence (AI). It employs a metaphysical notion of action and agency as an epistemological tool in the critique of the notion of “action” and “agency” in artificial intelligence. Hence, both a metaphysical and cognitive analysis is employed in the investigation of the quiddity and nature of action and agency per se, and how they are, by extension employed in the language (...) and science of artificial intelligence. The advent of the science of artificial intelligence and cognitive science, and the technological applications of artificial intelligence in the production of agents such as driverless cars and expert systems, have raised the question of moral, ethical and/or legal responsibility in AI agents. This has re-emphasized the importance of the philosophical discourse on the notions of action and agency, which in contemporary intellectual discourse are now perceived to be phenomena within the epistemic competence of the natural sciences. This paper argues that AI systems do not and cannot possess free agency and autonomy, thus cannot be morally and ethically responsible, hence, it recommends a socio-political response to the question of responsibility in AI. It is then the duty of individual nations, or the global community to define and enact policies on who shoulders the responsibility of actions executed by AIs. (shrink)

Just as bodily actions are things you do with your body, mental actions are things you do with your mind. Both are different from things that merely happen to you. Where does the idea of mental action come from? What are mental actions? And why do they matter in philosophy? These are the three main questions answered in this paper. Section 1 introduces mental action through a brief history of the topic in philosophy. Section 2 explains what it (...) is to be a mental action in terms of intentional action. Section 3 argues that the fact that we can perform mental actions has some striking consequences concerning mental content. Section 4 shows how mental action helps to explain some important facts about self-knowledge and the normativity of thought. The conclusion mentions two further fruitful avenues for philosophical research on mental action. (shrink)

I agree with Nachev and Hacker’s general approach. However, their criticism of claims of covert automaticity can be strengthened. I first say a few words on what voluntary action involves and on the consequent limited relevance of brain research for the determination of voluntariness. I then turn to Nachev and Hacker’s discussion of possible covert automaticity and show why the case for it is weaker than they allow.

Negligence and omission are closely related: commonly, in cases of negligent action, the agent has failed to turn her attention to some pertinent fact. But that omission is itself typically unwitting. A sufficient condition for blameworthiness for an unwitting omission is offered, as is an account of blameworthiness for negligent action. It is argued that one can be blameworthy for wrongdoing done from ignorance even if one is not blameworthy for that ignorance.

My topic is the intelligent guidance of action. In this paper I offer an empirically grounded case for four ideas: that [a] cognitive processes of practical reasoning play a key role in the intelligent guidance of action, [b] these processes could not do so without significant enabling work done by both perception and the motor system, [c] the work done by perceptual and motor systems can be characterized as the generation of information specialized for action guidance, which (...) in turn suggests that [d] the cognitive processes of practical reasoning that play a key role in the guidance of intelligent action are not the abstract, syllogistic ones philosophers often treat as the paradigm of practical reasoning. Rather, these cognitive processes are constrained by, and work well with, the specialized concepts outputted by perception and the feedback outputted by sensorimotor processes. (shrink)

It has been argued recently that knowledge is the norm of practical reasoning. This norm can be formulated as a bi-conditional: it is appropriate to treat p as a reason for acting if and only if you know that p. Other proposals replace knowledge with warranted or justified belief. This paper gives counter-examples of both directions of any such bi-conditional. To the left-to-right direction: scientists can appropriately treat as reasons for action propositions of a theory they believe to be (...) false but good approximations to the truth for present purposes. Cases based on a variant of Pascal’s Wager and actions performed by a skeptic also illustrate the point. To the right-to-left direction: in certain circumstances, it can be unreasonable for a scientist to reason from propositions of a theory she knows to be true. (shrink)

This book is a general defence of Donald Davidson's and G.E.M. Anscombe's 'unifying' approach to the individuation of actions and other events against objections raised by Alvin I. Goldman and others. It is argued that, ironically, Goldman's rival 'multiplying' account is itself vulnerable to these objections, whereas Davidson's account survives them. Although claims that the unifier-multiplier dispute is not really substantive are shown to be unfounded, some room for limited agreement over the ontological status of events is indicated. Davidson's causal (...) criterion of event identity is then defended against charges of triviality or inadequacy. It is concluded that Davidson's criterion is not primarily a criterion for arriving at particular judgments of individuation, but a metaphysical standard for the correctness of such judgments, however arrived at. Contents: Unifiers vs. Multipliers - Davidson's individuation of events - Goldman's act generation - causal, 'by'-relational, and temporal problems - ontology and event constituents - Davidson's causal criterion. This book is unique in providing a detailed survey and analysis of the recent unifier-multiplier dispute, and will be of interest to all researchers in action theory, as well as those working more broadly in metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Researchers recently demonstrated a strong direct relationship between judgments about what a person knows and judgments about how a person should act. But it remains unknown whether actionability judgments cause knowledge judgments, or knowledge judgments cause actionability judgments. This paper uses causal modeling to help answer this question. Across two experiments, we found evidence that actionability judgments cause knowledge judgments.

Joint actions often require agents to track others’ actions while planning and executing physically incongruent actions of their own. Previous research has indicated that this can lead to visuomotor interference effects when it occurs outside of joint action. How is this avoided or overcome in joint actions? We hypothesized that when joint action partners represent their actions as interrelated components of a plan to bring about a joint action goal, each partner’s movements need not be represented in (...) relation to distinct, incongruent proximal goals. Instead they can be represented in relation to a single proximal goal – especially if the movements are, or appear to be, mechanically linked to a more distal joint action goal. To test this, we implemented a paradigm in which participants produced finger movements that were either congruent or incongruent with those of a virtual partner, and either with or without a joint action goal (the joint flipping of a switch, which turned on two light bulbs). Our findings provide partial support for the hypothesis that visuomotor interference effects can be reduced when two physically incongruent actions are represented as mechanically interdependent contributions to a joint action goal. (shrink)

Action can only be spontaneous and impulsive if not guided by contemplation; contemplation, on the other hand, may only be luxurious playfulness if not either purposed - or suitable - to motivate action. This volume seeks to prove what may seem self-evident to common sense, but adhering to common sense is never pointless nor excessive. Next to this, Thinking in Action is the offspring of friendship, respect and commitment between two academic communities, the Hellenic and the Serbian (...) philosophical communities, that admittedly have a lot in common, especially with regard to philosophy, and hopefully as many differences as needed in order to secure a long-lasting and fertile exchange of ideas; it is also the natural-born child of necessity: philosophy is about argumentation, debate and confrontation. Thinking in Action inaugurates Hellenic-Serbian Philosophical Dialogue Series that entertains no hesitation in being as ambitious as any philosophical series could be: it seeks to establish a permanent, wide and rich channel of fruitful philosophical interaction between the two philosophical communities. Having high aspirations is one thing; meeting these aspirations as well as the expectations of the reader is a totally different one. We wish Thinking in Action, the first volume of the Hellenic-Serbian Philosophical Dialogue Series, apart from being the initial step of a long journey, will also be a fascinating one to the reader. (shrink)

Many anglophone scholars take the early Confucians to be virtue ethicists of one kind or another. A common virtue ethical reading of one of the most influential early Confucians, namely Mengzi, ascribes to him the view that moral actions are partly (or entirely) moral because of the state from which they are performed, be it the agent’s motives, emotions, or their character traits. I consider whether such a reading of the Mengzi is justified and I argue that it is not. (...) I argue that there is no reason to believe that Mengzi distinguishes the moral value of actions that are performed from virtuous and non-virtuous states. Given this, virtue (as a feature of agents) is normatively posterior to virtuous actions. I conclude, first, that this poses a challenge to a wide range of common interpretations of the Mengzi, be they virtue ethical or otherwise, and second, that there might be conceptual space for an account of virtue ethics that rejects the normative priority of virtue over virtuous actions. (shrink)

This chapter presents four different senses of “voluntary” that might be in play. First, voluntary1 movement contrasts with bodily movement not guided by the person—such as blinking or digesting, which are involuntary1. Second, you might move voluntarily1, and yet make a mistake—you might send an email to the wrong person—you then act involuntarily2. In contrast, voluntary2 action is successful. Third, you might purposely and even successfully do something you didn’t want to do—through the cargo overboard during the storm. In (...) such cases, you act involuntarily3. In contrast, you might act happily, as a volunteer, so to speak. You then act voluntarily3. Finally, sometimes you can be manipulated or deceived into acting as a volunteer—in which case you lack an important form of freedom. We might say that you act involuntarily4. I suggest that the first two senses might be fruitfully studied by neuroscience, while the final sense marks a distinction draw by ethical reflection. (shrink)

This paper considers the connection between automaticity, control and agency. Indeed, recent philosophical and psychological works play up the incompatibility of automaticity and agency. Specifically, there is a threat of automaticity, for automaticity eliminates agency. Such conclusions stem from a tension between two thoughts: that automaticity pervades agency and yet automaticity rules out control. I provide an analysis of the notions of automaticity and control that maintains a simple connection: automaticity entails the absence of control. An appropriate analysis, however, shows (...) that actions are forms of control and pervasively automatic even if automaticity implies the absence of control. Consequences are drawn for the theory of mental agency and the psychological concepts of automaticity and control. (shrink)

It is not necessarily the case that we ever have experiences of self, but human beings do regularly report instances for which self is experienced as absent. That is there are times when body parts, mental states, or actions are felt to be alien. Here I sketch an explanatory framework for explaining these alienation experiences, a framework that also attempts to explain the “mental glue” whereby self is bound to body, mind, or action. The framework is a multi-dimensional model (...) that integrates personal and sub-personal components, psychological and neural processes. I then proceed to show how this model can be applied to explain the action-related passivity experiences of persons suffering from schizophrenia. I argue that a distinctive phenomenological mark of these experiences is that they are vividly felt, unlike ordinary actions (those taken to belong to self), and I seek to explain these heightened sensory experiences from within the proposed framework. I also propose hypotheses concerning such phenomena as thought insertion and anarchic hand syndrome that are motivated by this framework. Finally, I argue that the proposed model and view of self-experiences is consistent with several aspects of and theories of consciousness, especially theories which indicate that consciousness is more likely to be engaged when we are dealing with novelty or error—e.g. when self seems to have gone missing. I conclude by recommending that if we wish to learn about self, we would be well advised to attend closely to those times when it seems absent. -/- . (shrink)

Some of the things we do intentionally we do halfheartedly. I develop and defend an account of halfheartedness with respect to action on which one is halfhearted with respect to an action A if one’s overall motivation to A is weak. This requires getting clear on what it is to have some level of overall motivation with respect to an action, and on what it means to say one’s overall motivation is weak or strong. After developing this (...) account, I defend the claim that one key functional expression of halfhearted action is the possession of impaired control over the action in question. Finally, I elucidate a puzzle that sometimes arises with respect to halfhearted action. The puzzle arises when an agent’s commitment in acting conflicts with an agent’s acceptance of poor performance. (shrink)

Groups behave in a variety of ways. To show that this behavior amounts to action, it would be best to fit it into a general account of action. However, nearly every account from the philosophy of action requires the agent to have mental states such as beliefs, desires, and intentions. Unfortunately, theorists are divided over whether groups can instantiate these states—typically depending on whether or not they are willing to accept functionalism about the mind. But we can (...) avoid this debate. I show how a more general view of action captures what is central to action without mentioning mental states, and I argue that a group’s members can fulfill the role in group action that mental states play in our actions. Group behavior is explicable in terms of reasons, regardless of whether the group itself cognizes those reasons. After discussing the kind of reasons at issue and arguing that groups can act in light of them without minds, I assess how this account bears on the question of group responsibility. (shrink)

As historically acknowledged in the Reasoning about Actions and Change community, intuitiveness of a logical domain description cannot be fully automated. Moreover, like any other logical theory, action theories may also evolve, and thus knowledge engineers need revision methods to help in accommodating new incoming information about the behavior of actions in an adequate manner. The present work is about changing action domain descriptions in multimodal logic. Its contribution is threefold: first we revisit the semantics of action (...) theory contraction proposed in previous work, giving more robust operators that express minimal change based on a notion of distance between Kripke-models. Second we give algorithms for syntactical action theory contraction and establish their correctness with respect to our semantics for those action theories that satisfy a principle of modularity investigated in previous work. Since modularity can be ensured for every action theory and, as we show here, needs to be computed at most once during the evolution of a domain description, it does not represent a limitation at all to the method here studied. Finally we state AGM-like postulates for action theory contraction and assess the behavior of our operators with respect to them. Moreover, we also address the revision counterpart of action theory change, showing that it benefits from our semantics for contraction. (shrink)

Drawing on recent phenomenological discussions of collective intentionality and existential phenomenological accounts of agency, this article proposes a novel interpretation of shared action. First, I argue that we should understand action on the basis of how an environment pre-reflectively solicits agents to behave based on (a) the affordances or goals inflected by their abilities and dispositions and (b) their self-referential commitment to a project that is furthered by these affordances. Second, I show that this definition of action (...) is sufficiently flexible to account for not only individual action (in which both (a) and (b) refer only to an individual) but also several distinct subtypes of shared action. My thesis is that behaviour counts as shared action if and only if it is caused by a solicitation in which either (a) the goals, or (b) the commitments, or both (a) goals and (b) commitments are joint, i.e., depend on several individuals. We thereby get three distinct subtypes of shared actions: (i) jointly coordinated individually committed action, (ii) individually coordinated jointly committed action, and (iii) jointly coordinated jointly committed action. (shrink)

Wayne Wu argues that attention is necessary for action: since action requires a solution to the ‘Many–Many Problem’, and since only attention can solve the Many–Many Problem, attention is necessary for action. We question the first of these two steps and argue that it is based on an oversimplified distinction between actions and reflexes. We argue for a more complex typology of behaviours where one important category is action that does not require a solution to the (...) Many–Many Problem, and so does not require attention. (shrink)

Nanotechnology, as with many technologies before it, places a strain on existing legislation and poses a challenge to all administrative agencies tasked with regulating technology-based products. It is easy to see how statutory schemes become outdated, as our ability to understand and affect the world progresses. In this article, we address the regulatory problems that nanotechnology posses for the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) classification structure for ‘‘drugs’’ and ‘‘devices.’’ The last major modification to these terms was in 1976, with (...) the enactment of the Medical Device Amendments. There are serious practical differences for a classification as a drug or device in terms of time to market and research. Drugs are classified, primarily, as acting by ‘‘chemical action.’’ We lay out some legal, philosophic, and scientific tools that serve to provide a useful, as well as legally and scientifically faithful, distinction between drugs and devices for the purpose of regulatory classification. These issues we raise are worth the consideration of anyone who is interested in the regulation of nano-products or other novel technologies. (shrink)

The category of sympathy marks a number of basic divisions in early modern approaches to action explanations, whether for human agency or for change in the wider natural world. Some authors were critical of using sympathy to explain change. They call such principles “unintelligible” or assume they involve “mysterious” action at a distance. Others, including Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, appeal to sympathy to capture natural phenomena, or to supply a backbone to their metaphysics. Here (...) I discuss how concerns about sympathetic actions form at least a partial background for differing seventeenth-century conceptions of what it is to explain action. I argue that critics of sympathy generally insist on an “atomistic” approach to action explanation, which makes primitively relational phenomena come out as problematic. Proponents of sympathy, by contrast, allow for a more holistic approach to action explanation, which allows for such basic connections. Hence, divergent attitudes toward sympathetic action in part explain differences in approaches to explanation. I conclude by showing how some of these core concerns fade into the background when in the eighteenth-century sympathy gets psychologised and individualised. (shrink)

Abstract: When I throw a ball at you, do you see it as catch-able? Do we perceive objects as edible, climbable or Q-able in general? One could argue that it is just a manner of speaking to say so: we do not really see an object as edible, we only infer on the basis of its other properties that it is. I argue that whether or not an object is edible or climbable is indeed represented perceptually: we see objects as (...) edible, and do not just believe that they are. My argument proceeds in two steps. First, I argue that in order to perform an action Q with respect to an object, we need to represent this object as Q-able and, second, I argue that we represent objects as having these properties perceptually. (shrink)

ABSTRACT It’s often assumed, especially in discussions of free will and moral responsibility, that unavoidable actions are possible. In recent years, however, several philosophers have questioned that assumption. Their views are considered here, and the possibility of unavoidable actions is defended and then applied to issues in action theory and in the literature on moral responsibility.

In this paper, I critically assess the enactive account of visual perception recently defended by Alva Noë (2004). I argue inter alia that the enactive account falsely identifies an object’s apparent shape with its 2D perspectival shape; that it mistakenly assimilates visual shape perception and volumetric object recognition; and that it seriously misrepresents the constitutive role of bodily action in visual awareness. I argue further that noticing an object’s perspectival shape involves a hybrid experience combining both perceptual and imaginative (...) elements—an act of what I call ‘make‐perceive’. (shrink)

I argue that we should give up the fight to rescue causal theories of action from fundamental challenges such as the problem of deviant causal chains; and that we should rather pursue an account of action based on the basic intuition that control identifies agency. In Section 1 I introduce causalism about action explanation. In Section 2 I present an alternative, Frankfurt’s idea of guidance. In Section 3 I argue that the problem of deviant causal chains challenges (...) causalism in two important respects: first, it emphasizes that causalism fails to do justice to our basic intuition that control is necessary for agency. Second, it provides countless counterexamples to causalism, which many recent firemen have failed to extinguish – as I argue in some detail. Finally, in Section 4 I argue, contra Al Mele, that control does not require the attribution of psychological states as causes. (shrink)

This article investigates the hitherto under-examined relations between affirmative action, paternalism and respect. We provide three main arguments. First, we argue that affirmative action initiatives are typically paternalistic and thus disrespectful towards those intended beneficiaries who oppose the initiatives in question. Second, we argue that not introducing affirmative action can also be disrespectful towards these potential beneficiaries because such inaction involves a failure to adequately recognize their moral worth. Third, we argue that the paternalistic disrespect involved in (...) affirmative action is alleviated when the potential beneficiaries’ preferences against such initiatives are adaptive. We conclude that although there is a relevant sense in which paternalistic affirmative action is disrespectful, it may well be more disrespectful not to pursue such policies. (shrink)

According to the ‘standard story’ in the philosophy of action, actions are those movements of a creature’s body that are caused and rationalized by the creature’s mental states. The attractions of the causal condition have been widely discussed. The rationalization condition is nearly ubiquitous, but it is notoriously obscure, and its motivation has rarely been made explicit. This paper presents a new argument for including the rationalization condition in the causal theory of action, and sketches a broadly Davidsonian (...) theory of what rationalization is. (shrink)

This paper replies to Himmelreich's ‘The Paraphrase Argument Against Collective Actions’ [2017], which presents three putative counterexamples to the multiple agents analysis of plural action sentences. The paper shows that the argument from the first example, the discursive dilemma, fails because it relies crucially on a simplification of the target analysis, and that the others don't bear on the question because they turn out on examination to be about individual rather than group action sentences.

In this paper, I confront Parfit’s Mixed Maxims Objection. I argue that recent attempts to respond to this objection fail, and I argue that their failure is compounded by the failure of recent attempts to show how the Formula of Universal Law can be used to demarcate the category of obligatory maxims. I then set out my own response to the objection, drawing on remarks from Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals for inspiration and developing a novel account of how the Formula (...) of Universal Law can be employed to determine the deontic status of action tokens, action types, and maxims. (shrink)

An action-oriented perspective changes the role of an individual from a passive observer to an actively engaged agent interacting in a closed loop with the world as well as with others. Cognition exists to serve action within a landscape that contains both. This chapter surveys this landscape and addresses the status of the pragmatic turn. Its potential influence on science and the study of cognition are considered (including perception, social cognition, social interaction, sensorimotor entrainment, and language acquisition) and (...) its impact on how neuroscience is studied is also investigated (with the notion that brains do not passively build models, but instead support the guidance of action). A review of its implications in robotics and engineering includes a discussion of the application of enactive control principles to couple action and perception in robotics as well as the conceptualization of system design in a more holistic, less modular manner. Practical applications that can impact the human condition are reviewed (e.g., educational applications, treatment possibilities for developmental and psychopathological disorders, the development of neural prostheses). All of this foreshadows the potential societal implications of the pragmatic turn. The chapter concludes that an action-oriented approach emphasizes a continuum of interaction between technical aspects of cognitive systems and robotics, biology, psychology, the social sciences, and the humanities, where the individual is part of a grounded cultural system. (shrink)

Judging by our folk appraisals, then, knowledge and action are intimately related. The theories of rational action with which we are familiar leave this unexplained. Moreover, discussions of knowledge are frequently silent about this connection. This is a shame, since if there is such a connection it would seem to constitute one of the most fundamental roles for knowledge. Our purpose in this paper is to rectify this lacuna, by exploring ways in which knowing something is related to (...) rationally acting upon it, defending one particular proposal against anticipated objections. (shrink)

There are a number of questions, the answers to which define specific theoretical approaches to Hegel’s philosophy of action. To begin with, does Hegel attempt to give a theory of free will that responds to the naturalistic skepticism so prevalent in the history of modern philosophy? Though some scholars hold that he is interested in providing such a theory, perhaps the majority view is that Hegel instead socializes his conception of the will such that the traditional naturalistic worries are (...) no longer germane.1 A second question is: does Hegel have a theory of action as such that competes with those found in the history of modern philosophy and more particularly in the Anglophone literature from the mid-20th century onwards? Though perhaps the majority view is that Hegel does have such a theory of action, it is commonly held to be independent of any commitments to a conception of free will, and to take a form radically different from the other offerings in the literature in virtue of introducing and essentially retrospective rather than prospective relation between the agent and her action. (shrink)

As it is broadly accepted, typical uses of demonstratives are accompanied by demonstrations. The concept of demonstration, however, manifests the action–product ambiguity analogous to that visible in the opposition between jumping and the resulting jump, talking and the resulting talk or crying and the resulting cry. It is also a heterogeneous concept that enables demonstrations to vary significantly. The present paper discusses action–product ambiguity as applied to demonstrations as well as the heterogeneity of the latter. An account that (...) acknowledges ambiguity and heterogeneity of demonstrations is sketched in the paper. It is argued that it has a rich explanatory and descriptive potential. (shrink)

It is common to think of addiction as involving behavior which in some sense is ?out of control.? But does this mean addictive actions occur because of compulsion or because of ordinary weakness of will? Many philosophers argue that addictive actions occur because of weakness of will, since there is plenty of evidence suggesting that they are not caused by irresistible desires. In fact, addicts seem, in general, to perform these actions freely in the sense of having the ability to (...) refrain from doing so. In this paper I argue, first, that it is not the addiction-as-compulsion view that is mistaken, but rather the view that irresistible desires are a defining feature of compulsion. Second, drawing on some results in addiction neuroscience, I construct and defend a new analysis of compulsivity that distinguishes addictive from weak-willed actions in a way that is consistent with the view that addictive actions are performed freely. (shrink)

This study focuses in testing the power of reciprocity and leadership as collective action incentive structures and cooperation economic benefits in explaining collective action initiation in the context of a post-communist transition economy. The paper is based on a structured survey targeting Albanian export-oriented farmers. Different from most previous studies, this paper uses both regression analysis and machine learning procedure which is better suited for analysing non-linear relationships. The empirical findings are at odds with common sense that non-cooperation (...) is the dominant strategy, because the presence of tolerant reciprocators and leadership resources provide promising incentive structures for collective action development. KEYWORDS: Albania, collective action, collective action benefits, incentive structures, leadership, power, reciprocity. (shrink)

Basic actions are those intentional actions performed not by doing any other kind of thing intentionally. Complex actions involve doing one kind of thing intentionally by doing another kind of thing intentionally. There are both basic and complex mental actions. Some complex mental actions have a striking feature that has not been previously discussed: they have several distinct contents at once. This chapter introduces and explains this feature, here called “content plurality.” This chapter also argues for the philosophical significance of (...) this feature. The existence of content plurality offers a new explanation of transparent self-knowledge and suggests a new theory of inference. It also opens up a new conception of the relation between decisions to act and judgments about what ought to be done. (shrink)

It has been widely accepted that intentional actions are “the actions to which “a certain sense of the question ‘why?’ is given application” (Anscombe 1957/2000: 9). But there are robust reasons for thinking that this claim is false. First, there are intentional actions for which such questions are unsound. We have good reasons for thinking that the questions are not “given application” in these cases. Second, when these questions are “given application” this is best explained, it is argued, not in (...) terms of a necessary link between intentional action and this type of enquiry, but in terms of the fact that this is an enquiry that we pursue when we take an agent to have exercised certain of their rational capacities. (shrink)

In the past couple of decades, there were a few major attempts to establish the thesis of pragmatic infringement – that a significant pragmatic ingredient figures significantly in the truth-conditions for knowledge-ascriptions. As candidates, epistemic contextualism and Relativism flaunted conversational standards, and Stanley's SSI promoted stakes. These conceptions were propelled first and foremost by obviously pragmatic examples of knowledge ascriptions that seem to require a pragmatic component in the truth-conditions of knowledge ascriptions in order to be accounted for. However, if (...) such examples can be adequately explained purely pragmatically, the need that such examples seem to invoke in such a pragmatic component is undermined. Here I lay out a new pragmatic account – of action-directed pragmatics, offering a different account of such examples and their pragmatic flavor. If adequate, it obviates the above need for pragmatic enrichment. Specifically, I develop and I argue for a well-entrenched pragmatic feature – that of a steering role. The assertions of knowledge ascriptions and their denials as well as of simple assertions (that don't invoke knowledge) play a pragmatic role of steering audiences in joint deliberational setups toward, or away from, the speaker's preferred action (as well as in assertions of 'I am sure', of epistemic modals, taste assertions, causal assertions, and more.) Various features and consequences of this account are drawn. Specifically, I explain why in the bank example (and related ones) the husband, in denying the knowledge ascription, neither lies nor misleads. (shrink)

Manipulative actions come in a bewildering variety of forms: direct and indirect deception, playing on emotions, tempting, inciting, and so on. It is not obvious what feature all these actions share in virtue of which they are all of the same kind and in virtue of which they are all morally wrong. This article argues that all manipulative actions are cases in which the manipulator attempts to lead the victim astray by trying to get her to have emotions, beliefs, or (...) desires that, as the manipulator sees it, are not ideal for the victim. To attempt to lead a person astray in this way is to fail to respect the moral and rational agency of the victim. This analysis captures the fact that actions of many kinds--and with many different psychological effects--can be manipulative, and it tells us what is wrong with acting manipulatively. It also helps distinguish manipulation from non rational persuasion. (shrink)

Ordinary action explanation formulated as "I am doing A because I am doing B" is explanation of an action in terms of another action-in-progress. According to Michael Thompson, the explained action is a teleological part of the explaining complex action, which is composed of different parts. Thompson's analysis focuses on the part-whole relation between the explained action and the explaining action, thus ignores a possibility: these two actions can be two different parts of (...) a complex action. I shall argue that the interrelation between different parts of a complex action corresponds to a new kind of action explanation of the formulas: "I am doing A because I am doing B" and "I am doing B because I have done A", where A and B are two different parts of a complex action. This kind of action explanation is associated with the temporal schema of an action-type, for example, X: First, do A; second, do B; then, C; finally, D. This is an attempt to probe into the inner structure of complex action. (shrink)

I argue that the neural realizers of experiences of trying are not distinct from the neural realizers of actual trying . I then ask how experiences of trying might relate to the perceptual experiences one has while acting. First, I assess recent zombie action arguments regarding conscious visual experience, and I argue that contrary to what some have claimed, conscious visual experience plays a causal role for action control in some circumstances. Second, I propose a multimodal account of (...) the experience of acting. According to this account, the experience of acting is a temporally extended, co-conscious collection of agentive and perceptual experiences, functionally integrated and structured both by multimodal perceptual processing as well as by what an agent is, at the time, trying to do. (shrink)

The extensive involvement of nonconscious processes in human behaviour has led some to suggest that consciousness is much less important for the control of action than we might think. In this article I push against this trend, developing an understanding of conscious control that is sensitive to our best models of overt action control. Further, I assess the cogency of various zombie challenges—challenges that seek to demote the importance of conscious control for human agency. I argue that though (...) nonconscious contributions to action control are evidently robust, these challenges are overblown. (shrink)

Popular discussions of faith often assume that having faith is a form of believing on insufficient evidence and that having faith is therefore in some way rationally defective. Here I offer a characterization of action-centered faith and show that action-centered faith can be both epistemically and practically rational even under a wide variety of subpar evidential circumstances.

Contemporary action theory is generally concerned with giving theories of action ontology. In this paper, we make the novel proposal that the standard view in action theory—the Causal Theory of Action—should be recast as a “model”, akin to the models constructed and investigated by scientists. Such models often consist in fictional, hypothetical, or idealized structures, which are used to represent a target system indirectly via some resemblance relation. We argue that recasting the Causal Theory as a (...) model can not only accomplish the goals of causal theorists, but also give the theory greater flexibility in responding to common objections. (shrink)

In this paper, we offer a criticism, inspired by Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations, of the enactivist account of perception and action. We start by setting up a non-descriptivist naturalism regarding the mind and continue by defining enactivism and exploring its more attractive theoretical features. We then proceed to analyse its proposal to understand normativity non-socially. We argue that such a thesis is ultimately committed to the problematic idea that normative practices can be understood as private and factual. Finally, we offer (...) a characterization of normativity as an essentially social phenomenon and apply our criticisms to other approaches that share commitments with enactivism. (shrink)