This essay develops the theory of action presupposed by Buddhist Reductionists. Their account uses the theory of two truths to reconcile the folk theory of human action with the Buddhist claim that there are no agents. The conventional truth has it that persons are substance-causes of actions, and the willings that trigger actions are exercises of a person’s powers in light of their reasons. According to the ultimate truth, there are no persons, only causal series of bundles of tropes. An action is a bodily or mental event in one such series that has the occurrence of a prior intention event as its cause. Facts about causally connected psychophysical elements explain the utility, and thus the conventional truth, of claims about persons as agents. This two-tier account of human agency makes possible a novel approach to making attributions of moral responsibility compatible with psychological determinism.
Taking Conventional Truth Seriously: Authority regarding Deceptive Reality
