Hugh J. McCann

The implications of this example for the philosophy of action are, of course, important: at the very least, it casts serious doubt on the often heard view that the notion of volition is a mere invention of philosophers, having no use outside philosophical contexts. It is, then, worthy of study. But many recent philosophers have paid practically no attention to actual cases of paralysis. Instead, they have preferred to deal a priori with the possibility of a paralytic trying to perform a bodily movement, and to deal with it in such a way that the occurrence of acts of volition, to which they have theoretical objections, need not be admitted in the theory of action. I have undertaken a theoretical defense of volition elsewhere, so we shall deal little with such objections here. Instead, we shall focus on the subject of trying, and especially on attempts like that described above, which seem to me to have been badly misunderstood. It will be my contention that trying is generally present in intentional, overt action, that in cases of paralysis trying has substantially the same features it has in relatively uncontroversial cases, and that the attempts of paralytics constitute sound evidence that acts of volition occur typically when bodily movements are performed.

One of the principal preoccupations of action theory is with the role of intention in the production of action. It should be expected that this role would be important, since an item of behavior appears to count as action just when there is some respect in which it is intended by the agent. This being the case, an account of the function of intention should provide insight into how human action might differ from other sorts of events, what the foundations of human autonomy may be, etc. But the claim that intention plays an important role in action is implicitly opposed to another thesis held by many action theorists: that whenever she acts, an agent always follows her strongest motive or desire. If this is so, there may be no need for special states of intending, since these might just intervene between motive and action. Rather, it can be argued, intention conceived as an independent state should be gotten out of action theory, and its functional role imputed to the agent’s strongest desire. The tension between this reductivist view and views which credit intention with a distinctive functional role in the genesis of action is what I wish to explore in this paper. The first two sections are devoted to showing how the conflict arises. In sections III and IV I shall consider two ways of trying to resolve the conflict, neither of which seems to me adequate. Finally, I shall urge briefly that if the conflict cannot be resolved, we should favor a theory which maintains a nonreductive view of intention.

Recent views on practical rationality harmonize well with a fundamentally Kantian conception of the foundations of morality. Rationality in practical thinking is not a matter of valid reasoning, or of foIlowing maximization principles. From an agent-centered perspective, it consists in observing certain standards of consistency. In themselves, these standards lack the force of duties, hence there can be no irresolvable conflict between rationality and morality. Furthermore, the Kantian test of universalization for maxims of action may be scen as adapting agent-centered standards of consistency to the task of specifying moral duties, so that objective rationality and morality are one and the same.

Based on views she draws from Anselm, Katherin Rogers mounts an extend­ed attack on my account of God’s relationship to human sin. Here I argue first that if Anselm’s view of the relationship in question is different from my own, then Rogers fails to locate any reason for thinking his account is correct. I argue further that Rogers fails to demonstrate her claim that my account of God’s relation to sin makes him a deceiver, that her criticisms of my theodicy of sin are misguided, and that she is mistaken in claiming a world in which God has full sovereignty over human willing is less safe for the repentant than I hold it to be.

Most philosophers of action have seen little or no connection between the individuation of action and questions of freedom and responsibility. Is this a mistake? According to a recent suggestion by Fred Dretske it may be. Dretske views overt actions not as observable events with a distinctive sort of causal history, but rather as causal sequences, in which a distinctive sort of inner cause produces the appropriate outcome. So when Jimmy voluntarily wiggles his ears, the motion of his ears is not his action; it is only a component of the action, its result. The entire action consists in an event-causal sequence wherein an inner event C causes the result: it is C’s causing the motion of Jimmy’s ears.

This book offers an extended argument that the existence of contingent things is grounded in and hence accounted for by a paradigm existent, which is none other than existence itself—in effect, the ipsum esse subsistens of traditional philosophical theology. Much of the focus is on the nature of contingent existence, which the author contends is a genuine determination of real individuals, though not a property in the usual sense. This implies rejection of a number of other accounts of individual existence, which are refuted in detail in the first five chapters. Chapter 2 argues that existence is not a first-level property of things that have it; in particular, it is not a property that divides a realm of Meinongian objects into those that exist and those that do not. Chapter 3 is directed against theories according to which an entity and its existence are one and the same. These are rejected on the ground that they must either misrepresent contingent things as necessarily existing or deny that contingent existence is anything at all, which violates our intuition that to say a contingent thing exists is to attribute something to it, even if not an ordinary property. Chapter 4 is dedicated to showing that contingent existence is not a second-order property—that is, a property of properties. General statements of existence may perhaps be understood as second-order statements about what properties are instantiated. Singular claims, however, cannot be understood in this way; for to treat a statement like “Socrates exists” as second order commits us in the end to haecceities, which the author rejects, as either violating the distinction between abstract and the particular, or committing us in turn to the identity of indiscernibles, which faces powerful objections. Finally, the view that individual existence is a matter of being contained by some relevant domain is rejected in chapter 5 because, among other reasons, it leads to the manifestly false result that the maximum world, which contains all other existents, does not itself exist.

This book comprises eleven essays in the philosophy of action, six of which were previously published. The book has a fairly extensive index. The essays are arranged in four groups. The first group contains two essays on the individuation of action. The second contains four essays that argue for the view that what makes an event an action is, not how it is caused, but that it is, or begins with, a volition, “an intrinsically actional” mental event. The third contains three essays that defend the view that free and responsible action is incompatible with determinism, largely by arguing for a noncausal account of reasons explanation of action. The final group contains two essays on intention formation and rationality; the first argues that it is sometimes rational to form intentions that are inconsistent with each other or with one’s beliefs; the second argues that an important sort of practical reasoning has as its conclusion the forming of an intention for action, rather than the adopting of a belief as to what one should do.

I have defended the view that God’s complete sovereignty over the universe, which requires that he be creatively responsible for our decisions, is compatible with libertarian free will. William Rowe interprets me as holding that this is entirely owing to God’s being timelessly eternal, and argues that God’s decisions as creator would still be determining in a way that destroys freedom. His argument overlooks an important part of my view-an account of creation according to which God’s will as creator does not stand as an independent determining condition of our own. I try here to clarify that account, and to show that Rowe’s criticisms leave it untouched.

Recent empirical work calls into question the so-called Simple View that an agent who A’s intentionally intends to A. In experimental studies, ordinary speakers frequently assent to claims that, in certain cases, agents who knowingly behave wrongly intentionally bring about the harm they do; yet the speakers tend to deny that it was the intention of those agents to cause the harm. This paper reports two additional studies that at first appear to support the original ones, but argues that in fact, the evidence of all the studies considered is best understood in terms of the Simple View.

Contrary to Dretske's view, treating actions as causal complexes wherein inner states produce external results does not permit us to claim that even if their components are caused, the actions are not. What triggers the initial element of a causal sequence causes the sequence itself, so whatever might cause the relevant inner state would also cause the action. Dretske's claim that the failure of my agency to extend to the results of actions I induce in others is owing to the "sensitivity" of those results' causal antecedents is also mistaken. Such sensitivity attends the results of my own actions without undoing my agency

Responsibility for an action requires what Professor McCann calls an exercise of legitimate agency of the part of an agent, a necessary condition for which is libertarian freedom. Free decisions are to be explained teleologically, not causally. Agent causation cannot account for the existence of a free decision, but neither does event causation account for the existence of determined events. The problem of accounting for the existence of a free decision is therefore of a piece with the problem of accounting for the existence of the world itself. All of this, like a related line of argument by Professor McCall to which you can turn, is a long way from what seems to me the continuing arguableness of determinism and the unavoidableness of the proposition that both Incompatibilism and Compatibilism about freedom are false. But we all need to remember, with Cromwell, in our own bowels if not by those of Christ, that we may be mistaken. I guess that given the proportion of false to true views in the world, we need to remember it is arguable that we are all more likely to be mistaken. -- T.H.

In a recent issue of Analysis I gave a critique of some arguments made by Di Nucci concerning the so-called Simple View – the view that an agent performs an action intentionally only if he intends so to act. In turn Di Nucci offers a reply that concentrates on two points. The first has to do with a group of examples, one having to do with waking a flatmate, and the others with routine actions such as shifting gears while driving. I rejected these examples, arguing that it is not at all obvious that in them the Simple View is violated. Additionally, I pointed out that these are not cases of agents doing something they thought they could not do, and so have no direct bearing on the issues of practical rationality that motivate Bratman's treatment of the Simple View, which Di Nucci is concerned to defend . Di Nucci accepts this second point. He claims, however, that I failed to understand the dialectic of his argument. ….

Libertarian treatments of free will face the objection that an uncaused human decision would lack full explanation, and hence violate the principle of sufficient reason. It is argued that this difficulty can be overcome if God, as creator, wills that I decide as I do, since my decision could then be explained in terms of his will, which must be for the best. It is further argued that this view does not make God the author of evil in any damaging sense. Neither does it impugn my freedom. God’s creative activity does not put in place any secondary causes that determine my decision; and his will does not stand as an independent determining condition either, since it is fully expressed in my decision alone.

Some authors reject what they call the "Simple View"---i.e., the principle that anyone who A's intentionally intends to A. My purpose here is to defend this principle. Rejecting the Simple View, I shall claim, forces us to assign to other mental states the functional role of intention: that of providing settled objectives to guide deliberation and action. A likely result is either that entities will be multiplied, or that the resultant account will invite reassertion of reductionist theories. In any case, the account must drive a wedge between intention and practical rationality, by forbidding agents to intend goals it is rational to seek. Worse yet, the states it "substitutes" for intention turn out to be subject to the same constraints that prompted the substitution, and hence are indistinguishable from intention in the very respect in which they are alleged to differ. Thus, I shall argue, there is no evidence to justify such supposed distinctions, and the Simple View is to be preferred.