Action (philosophy): Difference between revisions

{{short description|Intentional,Event purposive,done consciousby andan subjectivelyagent meaningfulfor thinga that may be donepurpose}}

{{About|the theory of action in general|[[Ludwig von Mises]]' work on this subject|Human Action{{!}}''Human Action''|the concept in sociology|Social action}}{{Agency sidebar}}

''Volitionalists'' aim to overcome these shortcomings of Davidson's account by including the notion of ''volition'' or ''trying'' in their theory of actions.<ref name="Stuchlik">{{cite journal |last1=Stuchlik |first1=Joshua |title=From Volitionalism to the Dual Aspect Theory of Action |journal=Philosophia |date=2013 |volume=41 |issue=3 |pages=867–886 |doi=10.1007/s11406-013-9414-9 |s2cid=144779235 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/STUFVT}}</ref> ''Volitions'' and ''tryings'' are forms of affirming something, like ''intentions''. They can be distinguished from intentions because they are directed at executing a course of action in the here and now, in contrast to intentions, which involve future-directed plans to do something later.<ref name="Stuchlik"/> Some authors also distinguish ''volitions'', as acts of the will, from ''tryings'', as the summoning of means within one's power.<ref name="Stuchlik"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Honderich |first1=Ted |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HONTOC-2 |chapter=Volution}}</ref> But it has been argued that they can be treated as a unified notion since there is no important difference between the two for the theory of action because they play the same explanatory role.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Adams |first1=Frederick |last2=Mele |first2=Alfred R. |title=The Intention/Volition Debate |journal=Canadian Journal of Philosophy |date=1992 |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=323–337 |doi=10.1080/00455091.1992.10717283 |s2cid=142465441 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/ADATID}}</ref> This role includes both the experiential level,<ref name="Craig"/> involving the trying of something instead of merely intending to do so later, and the metaphysical level, in the form of mental causation bridging the gap between mental intention and bodily movement.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Honderich |first1=Ted |title=The Oxford Companion to Philosophy |date=2005 |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HONTOC-2 |chapter=Trying}}</ref><ref name="Stuchlik"/>

Philosophers have investigated the concept of actions mostly in regard to physical actions, which are usually understood in terms of bodily movements.<ref name="Noa"/><ref name="Brent"/> It is not uncommon among philosophers to understand bodily movements as the only form of action.<ref name="Stuchlik"/> Some volitionists, on the other hand, claim that all actions are mental because they consist in volitions. But this position involves various problems, as explained in the corresponding section above. However, there is a middle path possible between these two extreme positions that allows for the existence of both physical and mental actions.<ref name="Brent"/> Various mental events have been suggested as candidates for non-physical actions, like imagining, judging or remembering.<ref name="Brent"/>

One influential account of mental action comes from [[Galen Strawson]], who holds that mental actions consist in "triggering the delivery of content to one's field of consciousness".<ref name="Brent">{{cite journal |last1=Brent |first1=Michael |last2=Upton |first2=Candace |title=Meditation and the Scope of Mental Action |journal=Philosophical Psychology |date=2019 |volume=32 |issue=1 |pages=52–71 |doi=10.1080/09515089.2018.1514491 |s2cid=149891767 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/BREMAT-9}}</ref><ref name="Strawson">{{cite journal |last1=Strawson |first1=Galen |title=Mental Ballistics or the Involuntariness of Spontaniety |journal=Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society |date=2003 |volume=103 |issue=3 |pages=227–257 |doi=10.1111/j.0066-7372.2003.00071.x |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/STRMBO}}</ref> According to this view, the events of imagining, judging or remembering are not mental actions strictly speaking but they can be the products of mental actions.<ref name="Brent"/> Mental actions, in the strict sense, are ''prefatory'' or ''catalytic'': they consist in preparing the mind for these contents to arise.<ref name="Strawson"/> They foster hospitable conditions but cannot ensure that the intended contents will appear.<ref name="Brent"/> Strawson uses the analogy of jumping off a wall, in which the jumping itself (corresponding to the triggering) is considered an action, but the falling (corresponding to the entertaining of a content) is not an action anymore since it is outside the agent's control.<ref name="Brent"/><ref name="Strawson"/> Candace L. Upton and Michael Brent object that this account of mental actions is not complete.<ref name="Brent"/> Taking their lead from mental activities taking place during [[meditation]], they argue that Strawson's account leaves out various forms of mental actions, like maintaining one's attention on an object or removing a content from consciousness.<ref name="Brent"/>

''Explanations'' can be characterized as answers to why-questions.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Mayes |first1=G. Randolph |title=Theories of Explanation: 4. Contemporary Developments in the Theory of Explanation |url=https://iep.utm.edu/explanat/ |website=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |access-date=1 March 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-link=Brad Skow|last1=Skow |first1=Bradford |title=Reasons Why |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press UK |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/SKORW |chapter=2. From Explanations to Why-Questions}}</ref> Explanations of actions are concerned with why the agent performed the action. The most straightforward answer to this question cites the agent's desire. For example, John went to the fridge ''because'' he had a desire for ice cream. The agent's beliefs are another relevant feature for action explanation.<ref name="Audi"/> So the desire to have ice cream does not explain that John went to the fridge unless it is paired with John's belief that there is ice cream in the fridge. The desire together with the belief is often referred to as the ''reason'' for the action.<ref name="Audi"/><ref name="Craig"/> ''Causalist theories'' of action usually hold that this reason explains the action because it ''causes'' the action.<ref name="Audi"/><ref name="Stuchlik"/>

The problem of ''responsibility'' is closely related to the philosophy of actions since we usually hold people responsible for what they do. But in one sense the problem of responsibility is wider since we can be responsible not just for doing something but for failing to do something, so-called [[Omission (law)|omission]]s.<ref name="Audi">{{cite book |last1=Audi |first1=Robert |title=The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy |publisher=Cambridge University Press |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/AUDTCD-2 |chapter=action theory|year=1999 }}</ref><ref name="Honderich"/><ref name="Craig"/> For example, a pedestrian witnessing a terrible car accident may be morally responsible for calling an ambulance and for providing help directly if possible. Additionally to what the agent did, it is also relevant what the agent could have done otherwise, i.e. what powers and capacities the agent had.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Talbert |first1=Matthew |title=Moral Responsibility |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=1 March 2021 |date=2019}}</ref> The agent's intentions are also relevant for responsibility, but we can be responsible for things we did not intend. For example, a chain smoker may have a negative impact on the health of the people around him. This is a side-effect of his smoking that is not part of his intention. The smoker may still be responsible for this damage, either because he was aware of this side-effect and decided to ignore it or because he should have been aware of it, so-called [[negligence]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=King |first1=Matt |title=The Problem with Negligence |journal=Social Theory and Practice |date=2009 |volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=577–595 |doi=10.5840/soctheorpract200935433 |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/KINTPW}}</ref>

'We move our eyes, head and body in taking in what is around us... [we]: crane our necks, peer, squint, reach for our glasses or draw near to get a better look...'…...'Perception is a mode of activity on the part of the whole animal...It cannot be represented in terms of merely passive, and internal, processes...' <ref>Alva Noë [[Action in Perception]]: (2004), MIT Press(pp1/2 and 111)</ref>

Some philosophers (e.g. [[Donald Davidson (philosopher)|Donald Davidson]]<ref>"Davidson, D. Essays on Actions and Events, 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 2001a.</ref>) have argued that the mental states the agent invokes as justifying his action are physical states that cause the action.{{citation needed|date=May 2018}} Problems have been raised for this view because the mental states seem to be reduced to mere physical causes.{{citation needed|date=May 2018}} Their mental properties don't seem to be doing any work.{{citation needed|date=May 2018}} If the reasons an agent cites as justifying his action, however, are not the cause of the action, they must explain the action in some other way or be causally impotent.{{citation needed|date=May 2018}} Those who hold the belief that mental properties are reducible to physical properties are known as token-identity reductionists.<ref>{{Citation|last1=van Riel|first1=Raphael|title=Scientific Reduction|date=2019|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2019/entries/scientific-reduction/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Spring 2019|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2020-03-10|last2=Van Gulick|first2=Robert}}</ref> Some have disagreed with the conclusion that this reduction means the mental explanations are causally impotent while still maintaining that the reduction is possible.<ref name=":0">{{Citation|last1=Robb|first1=David|title=Mental Causation|date=2019|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/mental-causation/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Summer 2019|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2020-03-10|last2=Heil|first2=John}}</ref> For example, Dretske has put forward the viewpoint of reasons as structuring causes.<ref name=":0" /> This viewpoint maintains that the relation, intentional properties that are created in the process of justifying one's actions are causally potent in that the process is aan instance of action.<ref name=":0" /> When considering that actions are causally potent, Dretske claims that the process of justifying one's actions is necessarily part of the causal system. <ref name=":0" /> Others have objected to the belief that mental states can cause physical action without asserting that mental properties can be reduced to physical properties.<ref>{{cite webbook |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epiphenomenalism/ |title=Epiphenomenalism |website=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]|year=2019 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University }}</ref> Such individuals suggest that mental states are epiphenomenal, in that they have no impact on physical states, but are nonetheless distinct entities (see [[epiphenomenalism]]).<ref>Huxley, T. H., 1874, “On"On the Hypothesis that Animals are Automata, and its History”History", The Fortnightly Review 16 (New Series): 555–580. Reprinted in Method and Results: Essays by Thomas H. Huxley, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1898.</ref>

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