Abstract
The problem of deviant causation has been a serious obstacle for causal theories of
action. We suggest that attending to the problem of deviant causation reveals two related
problems for causal theories. First, it threatens the reductive ambitions of causal theories
of intentional action. Second, it suggests that such a theory fails to account for how the
agent herself is guided by her reasons. Focusing on the second of these, we argue that
the problem of guidance turns out to be related to a number of other issues in the
literature on action explanation, and that it is much more general: it threatens not only
causal theories but any theory of action. Finally, we suggest that a certain version of the
view that acting has a constitutive or formal aim can overcome this problem.