I argue against a view of the individuation of actions endorsed most notably by Hornsby and Davidson. This is the view that in, for example, Anscombe’s case of the pumping man, we have a single action which can be described, variously, as a pumping, a poisoning and so on. I argue that, even in the area of the standard arguments against this view, such as that based on the logic of ‘by’ and the argument from temporal dimensions, the (...) case against the Davidson‐Hornsby view has not been made as strong as it ought to have been. I show how those standard arguments can be strengthened; and I argue that the principal considerations adduced in support of the view do not in fact lend it the support that they have been widely thought to lend it. I conclude that the view should be rejected. (shrink)

Beau Branson rounds out the previous two chapters, by exploring the doctrine of inseparable operations ad extra in the writings of St Gregory of Nyssa. This doctrine says that all the activities of the three hypostases of the Trinity, at least insofar as they relate to things outside of (“ad extra”) the Trinity, are not only qualitatively identical but numerically identical. Importantly, Branson focuses his attention on Gregory’s theory of action and the individuation of events that emerges from (...) his theological defense of the doctrine of inseparable operations ad extra. Through a heavy engagement with contemporary metaphysics, Branson shows that Gregory’s philosophy of action is not only coherent, anticipating current trends in the ontology of actions and events, but may provide novel solutions to longstanding problems in this field. (shrink)

Psychologists and philosophers are often tempted to make general claims about the importance of certain experimental results for our commonsense notions of intentional agency, moral responsibility, and free will. It is a strong intuition that if the agent does not intentionally control her own behavior, her behavior will not be an expression of agency, she will not be morally responsible for its consequences, and she will not be acting as a free agent. It therefore seems natural that the interest centers (...) on the notion of intentional control. If it can be experimentally shown that agents do as a matter of fact not control their own actions, even though they think they do, it will have far reaching consequences for our moral psychology. In this paper I look at recent eliminative arguments allegedly demonstrating that our commonsense notion of intentional control is incompatible with experimental data in support of the dual visual stream theory. (shrink)

This paper examines the idea of an extended unit of action, which is the idea that the reasons for or against an individual action can depend on the qualities of a larger pattern of action of which it is a part. One concept of joint action is that the unit of action can be extended in this sense. But the idea of an extended unit of action is surprisingly minimal in its commitments. The paper (...) argues for this conclusion by examining uses of the idea of an extended unit of action in four theoretical contexts. It also explains why the idea of an extended unit of action need not involve magical thinking, and discusses possible replies to an objection based on a worry about recklessness. (shrink)

Manifest Activity presents and critically examines the model of human power, the will, our capacities for purposeful conduct, and the place of our agency in the natural world of one of the most important and traditionally under-appreciated philosophers of the 18th century: Thomas Reid. For Reid, contrary to the view of many of his predecessors, it is simply manifest that we are active with respect to our behaviours; it is manifest, he thinks, that our actions are not merely remote products (...) of forces that lie outside of our control. Reid holds, instead, that actions are all and only those events that spring from active power and he produces insightful and imaginative arguments for the claim that only a creature with a mind is capable of having active power. He believes that only human beings, and creatures 'above us', are capable of directing events towards ends, of endowing them with purpose or direction, the distinctive feature of action. However, he also holds that all events, and not merely human actions, are products of active power, power possessed either by human beings or by God. This collection of theses leads Reid to the view that human behaviour and the progress of nature are both essentially teleological. Patterns in nature are the products of laws of which God is the author; patterns in human conduct are the products of character and the laws that individuals set for themselves. Manifest Activity examines Reid's arguments for this view and the view's implications for the nature of character, motivation and the special kind of causation involved in the production of human behavior. (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)

Noel Hendrickson argues that the coarse-grained account of action individuation is unwittingly committed to the metaphysical thesis that all causation is deterministic. I show that the argument does not succeed. On one of the interpretations, all the argument shows is that the minimalists are committed to deterministic causation in a manner of speaking, which is quite compatible with sui generis indeterministic causation. On another, the problem is that minimalism is taken to be committed to a necessary identity claim (...) where the view is only committed to a contingent identity claim. I explore other strategies of saving the argument. In particular, I consider whether the argument will succeed if the designators in question are rigid. I argue that there are principled reasons for thinking that such a strategy must fail. (shrink)

The way individual actions enter into larger courses of action often has an effect on the utility of those individual actions. This simple fact has motivated recent discussions about the intelligibility of act-utilitarianism. It has become clear that act-utilitarianism is incomplete, if not intelligible, without an account of the utility-making properties of courses of action taken as a whole. In this paper I offer a brief discussion of the difficulties of a simple act-utilitarianism and then offer three complementary (...) principles in which the utility of an action is made to depend upon the courses of action of which it may be a constituent. I hope that the discussion will be of interest not only to committed act-utilitarians but to its sympathetic critics as well. (shrink)

Introducción: cultivar el pensamiento positivo en el ser humano es una necesidad y está relacionado estrechamente con su calidad de vida. Los estudiantes universitarios transitan por una etapa del ciclo vital individual importante, una de sus metas es lograr una profesión; tener una actitud mental optimista puede ser de gran ayuda para el alcance de sus propósitos. Métodos: se realizó una investigación de tipo descriptiva y transversal con el objetivo de determinar un sistema de acciones para alcanzar un pensamiento positivo (...) en los estudiantes universitarios desde diciembre de 2012 a julio de 2014. Se emplearon encuestas en el diagnóstico para identificar las necesidades sentidas de aprendizaje, el nivel de conocimientos sobre el tema y el estado actual de la población objeto de estudio, constituida por los 167 estudiantes del plan D de la Facultad Tecnología de la Salud de Camagüey. Se analizó la información a través del procesamiento de los datos. Se utilizaron también métodos del nivel teórico: análisis-síntesis, inducción-deducción y análisis documental. Se aplicó el consentimiento educado. Resultados: se mostró la necesidad de conocer sobre el tema y la certeza de que no muchos aplican el pensamiento positivo. Conclusiones: se reveló la necesidad de lograr una cultura de salud con la aplicación de acciones para el logro en los estudiantes del pensamiento positivo. Introduction: Nurturing positive thinking in human beings is a necessity and it's closely linked with their quality of life. University students face an important stage of their vital cycle. One of their goals is to achieve/attain a profession; that is why, to have an optimistic attitude can be of great help to reach this purpose. Methods: a descriptive and cross-sectional research was carried out in in order to determine a system of actions to develop positive thinking in university students from December 2012 to July 2014. Surveys were used in the diagnosis so as to identify the real learning necessities, the level of knowledge on the topic and the current status of the target population, which was composed by 167 students studying under curriculum D at the Health Technology School in Camagüey. The information was analyzed through the processing of data. Methods of the theoretical level were also used: analysis-synthesis, induction-deduction and documental analysis. Educated consent was obtained. Results: the necessity of knowing about this topic, as well as the certainty that not many students implement positive thinking were demonstrated. Conclusions: the necessity of acquiring knowledge on health topics was revealed through the application of actions to develop students` positive thinking. (shrink)

When the side effect of an action involves moral considerations (e.g. when a chairman’s pursuit of profits harms the environment) it tends to influence theory-of-mind judgments. On average, bad side effects are judged intentional whereas good side effects are judged unintentional. In a series of two experiments, we examined the largely uninvestigated roles of individual differences in this judgment asymmetry. Experiment 1 indicated that extraversion accounted for variations in intentionality judgments, controlling for a range of other general individual differences (...) (e.g. working memory, self-control). Experiment 2 indicated that extraversion’s influence was partially mediated by more specific variations in intentional action concepts. A priming manipulation also provided causal evidence of judgment instability and bias. Results suggest that the intentional action judgment asymmetry is multiply determined, reflecting the interplay of individual differences and judgment biases. Implications and the roles of individual differences in judgment and decision-making research are discussed. (shrink)

Focusing on the recent work of Michael Bratman as emblematic of several important developments in the philosophy of action, I raise four questions that engage with a set of interlocking concerns about systemic functionalism in the philosophy of action. These questions are: (i) Are individual and institutional intentions the same kind of thing? (ii) Can the risk of proliferation of systemic functional explanations be managed? (iii) Is there an appealing basis for the apparent methodological individualism in our theories (...) of action and agency? and (iv) Why not, instead, pursue a methodologically anti-individualist and ecological approach to action and agency? The latter alternative, I suggest, offers a promising way to retain many of the core insights of the Bratmanian project while avoiding the difficulties inherent to some of the methodological presumptions of some strands of contemporary philosophy of action. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 13 The article starts with the theses that it is the very concept of action that is at stake in many debates between philosophers and historians. Whereas in philosophy actions are conceptualized by reference to their beginning, namely their motives or intentions, in historiography the consequences of actions are much more in the focus of interest. Especially the debate about the dualism of structure and agency is characterized by different concepts of action. In the (...) article it is argued that this dualism can be overcome by stressing the intentionality of collective actions. First, a concept of action is developed against the background of a theory of intentionality. Second, intentional collective action is distinguished from individual and social actions and an analysis of a collective we-intention is proposed. Third, it is argued that the development of social structures has to be understood by reference to intentional collective actions. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 13 The article starts with the theses that it is the very concept of action that is at stake in many debates between philosophers and historians. Whereas in philosophy actions are conceptualized by reference to their beginning, namely their motives or intentions, in historiography the consequences of actions are much more in the focus of interest. Especially the debate about the dualism of structure and agency is characterized by different concepts of action. In the (...) article it is argued that this dualism can be overcome by stressing the intentionality of collective actions. First, a concept of action is developed against the background of a theory of intentionality. Second, intentional collective action is distinguished from individual and social actions and an analysis of a collective we-intention is proposed. Third, it is argued that the development of social structures has to be understood by reference to intentional collective actions. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 10, Issue 2, pp 235 - 247 The article starts with the theses that it is the very concept of action that is at stake in many debates between philosophers and historians. Whereas in philosophy actions are conceptualized by reference to their beginning, namely their motives or intentions, in historiography the consequences of actions are much more in the focus of interest. Especially the debate about the dualism of structure and agency is characterized by different concepts (...) of action. In the article it is argued that this dualism can be overcome by stressing the intentionality of collective actions. First, a concept of action is developed against the background of a theory of intentionality. Second, intentional collective action is distinguished from individual and social actions and an analysis of a collective we-intention is proposed. Third, it is argued that the development of social structures has to be understood by reference to intentional collective actions. (shrink)

Two questions have been discussed within the context of the action individuation debate. First, the question of action individuation proper - how many actions have been performed when one kills someone by shooting, for example. Second, the question of action externalization - what are the spatial and temporal boundaries of the killing and of the shooting. The internalists (Davidson, Hornsby) argue that the boundaries of actions do not reach beyond the skin of the individual. The (...) externalists (e.g. Ginet) argue that the boundaries of actions do extend beyond the individual. The main problem for the externalists is to explain why so conceived actions are actions. In the paper I evaluate Ginet’s response to this question but find it ultimately unsatisfactory. (shrink)

This chapter discusses butō dance as an example of improvisation that challenges not only the extant philosophical definitions of improvisation, but also some fundamental presumptions about self-government and agency that are current in action theory. In the first part of the chapter, I identify the main features of butō improvisation, with regard to the nature of its basic movement, and the kind of subjectivity implicated in its generation. I then raise some questions regarding the philosophical characterization of this form (...) of dance, and in the second part of the paper, I argue that butō improvisation undermines the intuitive distinctions between “ordinary” and “specialized action”, thereby eluding both the philosophical rationalistic theories of action as mediated by intentions, and the theories of arational action as expressive of individual subjectivity. My claim is that butō can be better interpreted as a shared action which is neither mediated by intentions nor expressive of the individual self, meant to generate a community by sharing the experience of the living body. This characterization has the advantage that it helps to put in the right perspective the puzzle about the normative standards of improvised action, which is addressed in the third part of the chapter. According to Nelson Goodman, improvisation as such undermines the very idea of a normative paradigm against which to evaluate possible solutions. In the case of butō, the absence of normative standards of action (e.g., success, correctness, or rightness) may be also connected to the absence of a subject in charge of his action. This is because butō improvisation does not count on the dancer as a pre-defined subject existing prior to and independently of her performance. In contrast to these interpretations, I hold that there are normative criteria for butō improvisation, which govern its explorative and generative functions by a training based on unselfing. This model turns away from the rhetoric of spontaneous free movements and the search for individual authenticity. It advocates for a model of intentional agency that it is not mediated by (individual or joint) intentions, but aspires to generate a community by sharing the experience of a living emotional body. (shrink)

Margaret Archer and Pierre Bourdieu have advanced what seem at first sight to be incompatible theories of human agency. While Archer places heavy stress on conscious reflexive deliberation and the consequent choices of identity and projects that individuals make, Bourdieu's concept of habitus places equally heavy stress on the role of social conditioning in determining our behavior, and downplays the contribution of conscious deliberation. Despite this, I argue that these two approaches, with some modification, can be reconciled in a single (...) emergentist theory of human action that is sketched out in this article. It examines how human dispositions and our reflexive decisions are related to the determination of human action, linking dispositions and decisions to their neural base in human physiology and to the social factors that influence them. As a result, it argues, we can see human action as the outcome of a continuous interaction between dispositions and reflexivity. The article goes on to relate this explanation back to Bourdieu's concept of the habitus and Archer's account of reflexivity. It argues that the weaknesses in Bourdieu's theory of action can be resolved by a reasonable reinterpretation of the habitus that makes it consistent with the emergentist theory and creates space for human choices as well as social influences on our behavior. This opens up a role for the sort of reflexive deliberations advocated by Archer and thus to a reconciliation of the key contributions of both Archer and Bourdieu. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Bridge From Analysis to Action:Psychodynamic Analyses of Religion and Michael S. Hogue's American ImmanenceAJ Turner (bio)I. IntroductionThe purpose of this essay is to work constructively with Michael S. Hogue's groundbreaking American Immanence: Democracy for an Uncertain World to demonstrate how psychodynamic analyses of religion are essential theoretical allies in the fight for resilient democracy. The "revolution in mind"1 that psychodynamic approaches contribute, especially in their analyses of (...) religion, both complements and complicates socio-political theory as a whole. In the improvisational spirit of "yes-and," the goal here is not to identify and decry the failures and shortcomings of Hogue's theopolitical vision but rather to inspire the recovery of a sibling discourse—a kind of "rebirth of a forgotten alternative"2—that also draws deeply from the American immanental tradition in order to add psychodynamic depth to Hogue's timely and important analysis. Psychodynamic theories of religion shed light on how symbolic identifications, including and especially ultimate concerns, structure personal and collective experience. By engaging religion and theology sympathetically, constructively, and creatively, theorists such as Rollo May, Gordon Allport, Karen Horney, Erich Fromm, and Ernest Becker departed from the skepticism, reductionism, and dismissal that characterized psychoanalytic analyses of religion in the wake of Freud.3 Each of these figures, and especially Becker whose work will be a focus in this essay, are noteworthy interlocutors for extending Hogue's theopolitical theorizing of resilient democracy, particularly in how they drew unique inspiration from the American immanental tradition [End Page 44] in their social analyses. In this respect, they provide a more robust theorization of the psychosocial conditions of the associational ethos needed to connect Hogue's conception of resilient democracy with forms of agonistic organization and democratic activism. Briefly stated, psychodynamic approaches are a helpful bridge for connecting these proposals to strategies of organization, their impediments, and collective action.In this way, both psychodynamic analyses of religion and Hogue's theopolitical innovation insist that no revolutionary political change is possible, and certainly not of the kind or scale needed to counter our wickedly entangled global crises, without a deep engagement with theological imaginaries. They differ, however, in their theoretical aims. Whereas Hogue compellingly argues for the political upshot of a theology deriving from the American immanental tradition, psychodynamic analysts of religion focus on the function of ultimate concerns in individual and collective life. In other words, American Immanence rests on a methodology of analyzing the philosophical and theological assumptions that have contributed to our climate crises and then presenting clear and compelling articulation of an alternative paradigm meant to open up new ways of being. In contrast psychodynamic analyses leverage conceptual clarity of psychic reality for the fundamentally therapeutic aim of transformation. At their best, both approaches share what could be called an etiological orientation to ontological questions in order to provide liberative alternatives through rational understanding and clarification, but the terrain, and thus the problems they hope to mitigate in their analyses are focused differently. Extending the visual metaphor, they are different lenses highlighting different areas of the same landscape. Furthermore, it must be said that neither are sufficient in themselves, but the psychodynamic theorists of religion to be highlighted in this essay share deeply with Hogue's heading in American Immanence.II. A Problematic AssumptionIn emphasizing and attempting to explain4 the role of non-rational processes in the both individual and social processes of perception and organization of experience, psychodynamic theories confound a widely held and problematic assumption that the triumph of rational analysis is the hallmark for building the society to which we should aspire. Political theory in general, [End Page 45] especially as it has taken its cues from a rationalist legacy about the inherently liberating force of Reason, has been weighted toward an assumption that its task of exposing the mystifications of power would suffice in inspiring more "rational" and therefore necessarily equitable social organization. This speaks to the longstanding socio-political interest in "consciousness raising" tactics, which are often meant to dispel "false consciousness." It even comes across in the emphases of Deweyan pragmatists on education. Psychologists of all stripes point out that this approach... (shrink)

This investigation provides an in-depth exploration of the dialectics of action and technology in the works of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, both in terms of the concrete use contexts of technological artifacts and the entanglement between individual agents and their sociotechnical surroundings. Furthermore, it briefly outlines some potentials of Sartre’s thoughts for debates in contemporary philosophy of technology. Throughout his works, Sartre approaches human action from different yet dialectically interrelated perspectives that are always accompanied by and developed in (...) relation to reflections about technology. Against the background of a complementary conception of human action that is derived from Sartre’s major works, the implementation of matter in the course of action primarily represents an instrumentalization. Things are thus always disclosed as implement things due to the practical character of human existence. Although things do not prescribe action, the material characteristics and properties of these things render them more useful for attaining some and more adverse for attaining other ends. Despite the ontological freedom of human beings, their position in societal forms of organization, to which Sartre refers to as practical ensembles, delimits their choice of means and necessitates them to satisfy their needs and desires with the limited means available. In this way, la force des choses arises, not as a result of the characteristics of technology but as an outcome of sociality and politics. (shrink)

In recent years, there have been many attempts at defining learning as a social phenomenon as opposed to an individual and primarily psychological matter. The move towards understanding learning as social processes has also altered the concept of knowledge as a well-defined element stored in books, brains, CD-Roms, disks, videos or on the Internet. Instead, knowledge has been perceived as a social and context related construction. The roots of the social angle within theories on learning and knowledge are much older (...) than the current literature suggests. This paper illustrates how these theories can be traced back to pragmatism as a philosophy and foundation for an educational approach introduced by the American, John Dewey, more than one hundred years ago. The paper also suggests that Dewey avoids some pitfalls that have come with the new theories, particularly the strong division between individual vs. social and school vs. everyday life learning. (shrink)

The U.S. Supreme Court held 7-2 that an individual harmed by an overt act that is not tortious under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act does not have a civil cause of action under RICO. Therefore, an individual terminated from his job in furtherance of a racketeering conspiracy does not have a civil cause of action, since such termination is not an “independently wrongful” act under RICO.The plaintiff, Robert Beck, was the president, CEO, director, and shareholder of (...) Southeastern Insurance Group. The defendants, including Ronald Prupis, were senior officers and directors of SIG. In 1998, the plaintiff discovered that the defendants were engaged in racketeering. The racketeering activities included refusing to qualify contractors for SIG surety bonds unless they paid fees to SIG; diverting corporate funds for their personal use; and providing regulators, shareholders, and creditors with false financial statements. (shrink)

I examine an intuitive property of folk-psychological explanations I call self-sufficiency. I argue that individualism cannot honor this property and work toward distilling an account of psychological explanation that does honor it, given some fairly standard assumptions. In doing so, my preference for an Externalist individuation of intentional state will emerge unambiguously. The assumptions I rely on are fairly standard but not uncontroversial. Yet not always do I attempt to defend them from objections. My goal is an account of (...) folk psychology consistent with our every-day practices rather than the deduction of an idealized psychology from first principles. I conclude with some applications offered as evidence that the goal was achieved. (shrink)

Limits to Action: The Allocation of Individual Behavior presents the ideas and methods in the study of how individual organisms allocate their limited time and energy and the consequences of such allocation. The book is a survey of individual resource allocation, emphasizing the relationships of the concepts of utility, reinforcement, and Darwinian fitness. The chapters are arranged beginning with plants and general evolutionary considerations, through animal behavior in nature and laboratory, and ending with human behavior in suburb and institution. (...) Topics discussed include operant conditioning; the principle of diminishing returns; and issues in relation to mating strategies. Biologists, sociologists, economists, and psychologists will find the book interesting. (shrink)

Kirk Ludwig develops a novel reductive account of plural discourse about collective action and shared intention. Part I develops the event analysis of action sentences, provides an account of the content of individual intentions, and on that basis an analysis of individual intentional action. Part II shows how to extend the account to collective action, intentional and unintentional, and shared intention, expressed in sentences with plural subjects. On the account developed, collective action is a matter (...) of there being multiple agents of an event and it requires no group agents per se. Shared intention is a matter of agents in a group each intending that they bring about some end in accordance with a shared plan. Thus their participatory intentions differ from individual intentions not in their mode but in their content. Joint intentional action then is a matter of a group of individuals successfully executing a shared intention. (shrink)

For the events "e" and "f" to be identical, They must have the same subject and spatio-Temporal location, And their (participial) property-Descriptions must belong to the same "modification set" (e.G., Reddening, Reddening slowly, Reddening in july). The same criterion applies to actions, Which are here treated strictly as a proper subclass of events (john's closing the door = the door's being closed by john = the door's becoming closed). Actions related by goldman's "causal generation" are therefore distinct, But those related (...) by his other three types of act-Generation are not. This conclusion requires abandonment of the view--Questionable on other grounds--That causal contexts are thoroughly extensional. (shrink)

When doing mental ontology, we must ask how to individuate distinct categories of mental states, and then, given that individuation, ask how states from distinct categories interact. One promising proposal for how to individuate cognitive from sensorimotor states is in terms of their representational form. On these views, cognitive representations are propositional in structure, while sensorimotor representations have an internal structure that maps to the perceptual and kinematic dimensions involved in an action context. This way of thinking has (...) resulted in worries about the interface between cognition and sensorimotor systems – that is, about how representations of these distinct types might interact in performing actions. I claim that current solutions to the interface problem fail, because they have not sufficiently abandoned intuitions inspired by faculty psychology. In particular, current proposals seek to show how cognitive states can enforce prior decisions on sensorimotor systems. I argue that such “determination” views are the wrong kind of views to adopt, given the form distinction. Instead, I offer a proposal on which propositional representations can at best bias us toward certain kinds of action. This kind of view, I argue, appealingly distributes the explanation of action across distinctive contributions from cognitive and sensorimotor processing. (shrink)

This paper offers a framework for consciousness of internal reality. Recent PET experiments are reviewed, showing partial overlap of cortical activation during self-produced actions and actions observed from other people. This overlap suggests that representations for actions may be shared by several individuals, a situation which creates a potential problem for correctly attributing an action to its agent. The neural conditions for correct agency judgments are thus assigned a key role in self/other distinction and self-consciousness. A series of behavioral (...) experiments that demonstrate, in normal subjects, the poor monitoring of action-related signals and the difficulty in recognizing self-produced actions are described. In patients presenting delusions, this difficulty dramatically increases and actions become systematically misattributed. These results point to schizophrenia and related disorders as a paradigmatic alteration of a ''Who?'' system for self-consciousness. (shrink)

Aquinas accepts that (i) some kinds of voluntary action are (qua voluntary) “basic,” not divisible into (non-fictional) further kinds; (ii) a concrete individual action may belong to more than one basic kind; (iii) the basic kinds to which it belongs are determined by the agent’s intentions qua performing the action; (iv) some intentions may stand to others as means to ends; (v) there can be concrete individual actions in which the agent’s intended means are disordered with respect (...) to the ends; (vi) such actions are morally wrong; (vii) whether a given intention is disordered as means to a given end is determined solely by the natures of the agent and of the intended means or ends. Together, these propositions entail that, pace many analytic philosophers, concrete individual actions can have a moral wrongness that consists neither in expectation of disutility nor in violation of the pure logic of practical reason. (shrink)

A Companion to the Philosophy of Action offers a comprehensive overview of the issues and problems central to the philosophy of action. The first volume to survey the entire field of philosophy of action (the central issues and processes relating to human actions). Brings together specially commissioned chapters from international experts. Discusses a range of ideas and doctrines, including rationality, free will and determinism, virtuous action, criminal responsibility, Attribution Theory, and rational agency in evolutionary perspective. Individual (...) chapters also cover prominent historic figures from Plato to Ricoeur. Can be approached as a complete narrative, but also serves as a work of reference. Offers rich insights into an area of philosophical thought that has attracted thinkers since the time of the ancient Greeks. (shrink)

This paper examines a potential problem area for theories of direct reference: that of the substitution of co-referential names within the belief context of a belief attribution used to explain an action. Of particular interest are action explanations which involve cases of repetition — wherein beliefs are held which, though about one (other) individual, are mistakenly thought to concern two different people. It is argued that, despite the commonly held view to the contrary, no problem is posed by (...) substitution in such circumstances to theories of direct reference. (shrink)

How do humans, their needs, and technology interact in society? Marcel Siegler explores the dialectical relationship between human needs and desires, the demands and requirements of the built world, and the forms of organization that hold both humans and the built world together. He argues that complex societal constellations emerge from the actions individuals perform with the technological means at hand to satisfy their needs and desires in the short and long run. Based on a novel, complementary reading of French (...) philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, the study develops a conceptual framework for analyzing the intricate machinations of sociotechnical systems from a perspective on situated human-technology interaction. (shrink)

I defend the view that individual agents have instrumental moral reasons for and against contributing to collective actions. I distinguish three versions of this view found in the literature and argue that only one withstands scrutiny: the version on which each individual contribution to a collective action is a cause of the latter’s large-scale outcomes. The central difficulty with this view is its apparent incompatibility with leading theories of causation. Against these theories I motivate a general structural principle about (...) causation which enables instrumentalism to deliver the intuitively correct verdicts about individual agents’ moral reasons in cases of collective action. (shrink)