Alfred Mele

Must a rational ass equidistant from two equally attractive bales of hay starve for lack of a reason to prefer one bale to the other? Must a human being faced with a comparable, explicitly motivational, tie fail to pursue either option? Surely, one suspects, some practical resolution is possible. Surely, ties of either sort need not result in death or paralysis. But why? Donald Davidson has suggested that, in the human case, resolution depends upon the tie’s being broken---upon the agent’s coming to want to perform some action more than she wants to perform any genuine alternative. However, practical resolution is possible, I argue, even while the tie remains intact. This has significant implications for the theory of motivation. Most importantly, not all states that move us to action need be understood as moving us to A in virtue of their incorporating preponderant motivation to A.

This volume is a welcome contribution to the philosophy of action. Audi employs a host of subtle distinctions and carefully crafted arguments in defending a unified position on the major issues in action theory. In his characteristically lucid prose, he makes vivid the location of those issues at the intersection of ethics, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind. Given the tight organization and the unifying introduction, this volume is an exceptionally cohesive collection of essays. It will make a lasting contribution to the literature in action theory.

Professor Mele uses the term `autonomy' where other philosophers have spoken of `freedom', `free will' and the like. His well-worked-out paper, which is individual in more than its usage, is not committed to either of the tired doctrines that determinism is inconsistent with autonomy and that it is consistent with it. He is agnostic about which choice to make. Some proponents of the first doctrine, those who believe determinism, draw the conclusion that there is no autonomy. Some proponents of the second doctrine maintain also maintain that indeterminism would in fact deprive us of autonomy. Professor Mele, as he says, is confident that we are somehow autonomous. He develops two ideas of it, incompatibilist autonomy and compatibilist autonomy, but is convinced that more work is needed on all sides. His is not the kind of labour that I myself take to be needed, or anyway desirable. Is it is more respectful of the recent past of the problem than is now a good idea? Well, disrespect is sometimes a bad idea. But we agree that the problem of determinism and freedom, once announced by philosophical undertakers to be dead and buried, even undertakers not employed by either side, has outlived all its undertakers.

The occurrence or apparent occurrence of incontinent actions challenges several influential views in ethics and the philosophy of mind, e.g., Hare's prescriptivism and the Socratic idea that we always act in the light of the imagined greatest good. It also raises, as I shall explain, an interesting and instructive problem for proponents of causal theories of action. But whereas Socrates and Hare attempt to avoid the difficulties with which akrasia confronts them by denying - wrongly, I shall argue - that there are akratic actions ([15], 352a-358d; [13], Ch. 5), the causal theorist need not take this unhappy tack. In this paper I shall argue that the truth of a causal theory of action (CTA) is compatible with the occurrence of akratic actions and, in particular, with akratic actions against what I shall call a "here-and-now" intention - i.e., an intention of the agent to do an A here and now. I shall suggest that akratic actions of this type plainly do occur, and I shall attempt to explain how they might be accommodated by a causal theory of action.

This article is my contribution to an author-meets-critics session on Daniel Dennett’s Freedom Evolves (Viking, 2003) at the 2004 meetings of the American Philosophical Association – Pacific Division. Dennett criticizes a view I defend in Autonomous Agents (Oxford University Press, 1995) about the importance of agents’ histories for autonomy, freedom, and moral responsibility and defends a competing view. Our disagreement on this issue is the major focus of this article. Additional topics are manipulation, avoidance, and avoidability

The latest offering in the highly successful Oxford Readings in Philosophy series, The Philosophy of Action features contributions from twelve leading figures in the field, including: Robert Audi, Michael Bratman, Donald Davidson, Wayne Davis, Harry Frankfurt, Carl Ginet, Gilbert Harman, Jennifer Hornsby, Jaegwon Kim, Hugh McCann, Paul Moser, and Brian O'Shaughnessy. Alfred Mele provides an introductory essay on the topics chosen and the questions they deal with. Topics addressed include intention, reasons for action, and the nature and explanation of internal action. A selective bibliography is included as a guide to further reading. Comprehensive and up-to-date, this collection provides an accessible and stimulating introduction for readers interested in the philosophy of action, the philosophy of mind, and moral philosophy.

We shall formulate an analysis of the ordinary notion of intentional action that clarifies a commonsense distinction between intentional and nonintentional action. Our analysis will build on some typically neglected considerations about relations between lucky action and intentional action. It will highlight the often- overlooked role of evidential considerations in intentional action, thus identifying the key role of certain epistemological considerations in action theory. We shall also explain why some vagueness is indispensable in a characterization of intentional action as ordinarily understood.

Alfred Mele develops a conceptual analysis of some of the concepts that inform the recent experimental studies of intentional action. Based on a distinction between unconscious urge and conscious decision, he suggests that the neural activity described by Libet’s experiments may represent an urge to move rather than a decision to do so, and that the decision to move might be made only when the subject becomes conscious of the urge. If this is the case, then Libet’s experiments do not threaten freewill.

The term 'motivation' has considerable currency both in moral philosophy and in the philosophy of mind. It appears in debates between internalists and externalists about moral judgments and moral reasons, in the related controversy over moral realism, and in explanatory schemes for purposive behavior offered in the philosophy of mind. But what is motivation? My aim in this paper is to elucidate a notion of motivation associated with a popular perspective on intentional conduct, a perspective that accords states of mind an important causal/explanatory bearing on such behavior. My strategy is to develop an account of a central species of motivation. Space constraints and my own limitations preclude my offering a complete account of motivation here; however, the account to be developed illuminates motivation as a whole.

Gregory Kavka’s toxin puzzle has spawned a lively literature about the nature of intention and of rational intention in particular. This paper is largely a critique of a pair of recent responses to the puzzle that focus on the connection between rationally forming an intention to A and rationally A-ing, one by David Gauthier and the other by Edward McClennen. It also critically assesses the two main morals Kavka takes reflection on the puzzle to support, morals about the nature of intention and the consequences of a divergence between “reasons for intending and reasons for acting.

This volume is aimed at readers who wish to move beyond debates about the existence of free will and the efficacy of consciousness and closer to appreciating how free will and consciousness might operate. It draws from philosophy and psychology, the two fields that have grappled most fundamentally with these issues. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors explore such issues as how free will is connected to rational choice, planning, and self-control; roles for consciousness in decision making; the nature and power of conscious deciding; connections among free will, consciousness, and quantum mechanics; why free will and consciousness might have evolved; how consciousness develops in individuals; the experience of free will; effects on behavior of the belief that free will is an illusion; and connections between free will and moral responsibility in lay thinking. Collectively, these state-of-the-art chapters by accomplished psychologists and philosophers provide a glimpse into the future of research on free will and consciousness.