Abstract

It might seem natural to approach the topic of habitual acts by focusing on the kinds of case where we tend to use the word ‘habit’. Thus several authors are interested in the distinctive features of habit-explanations, delineated as those that feature ‘habit’ in the explanans. I suggest that this is a misleading theoretical procedure which, in combination with the common assumption that habit essentially involves a variety of automaticity, is largely responsible for the current predominance of a restrictive conception of habit. On this conception, the operation of habit as a determinant of action is inaccessible to the agent’s consciousness and not sufficiently responsive to their motivational makeup. I do not question the usefulness of this conception for certain theoretical purposes. The problem is that it can hardly make sense of the traditional role of habit in ethical theory and related endeavors. I argue, however, that there is a broader conception of habit, which operates in the explanation and assessment of conduct under various linguistic guises, if somehow covertly. I identify the common semantic features of the associated ascriptions and argue that they all partake in the distinctive mode of explanation made available by the idea of habit. Then I appeal to pragmatic considerations to explain why it is often preferable to ascribe habits under these guises than to use overt habit ascriptions. Once this is done, a theoretically unified conception of habit emerges under the various guises, which has a richer theoretical potential than the restrictive conception.