Two Accounts of the Problem of Enhanced Control

According to event-causal libertarianism, an action is free in the sense relevant to moral responsibility when it is caused indeterministically by an agent’s beliefs, desires, intentions, or by their occurrences. This paper attempts to clarify one of the major objections to this theory: the objection that the theory cannot explain the relevance of indeterminism to this kind of freedom (known as free will). Christopher Evan Franklin (2011, 2018) has argued that the problem of explaining the relevance of indeterminism to free will (which he calls “the problem of enhanced control”) arises because it is difficult to see how indeterminism could enhance our abilities, and disappears when we realize that beside the relevant abilities free will requires opportunities. In this paper, I argue that the problem occurs not because of the focus on abilities, but because of the difficulty to explain how indeterminism could contribute to the satisfaction of the sourcehood condition of free will in the framework of event-causal theory of action.

Pluralistic Attitude-Explanation and the Mechanisms of Intentional Action

According to the Causal Theory of Action (CTA), genuine actions are individuated by their causal history. Actions are bodily movements that are causally explained by citing the agent’s reasons. Reasons are then explained as some combination of propositional attitudes—beliefs, desires, and/or intentions. The CTA is thus committed to realism about the attitudes. This chapter explores current models of decision-making from the mind sciences, and argues that it is far from obvious how to locate the propositional attitudes in the causal processes they describe. The outcome of the analysis is a proposal for pluralism: there are several ways one could attempt to map states like ‘intention’ onto decision-making processes, but none will fulfill all of the roles attributed to the attitudes by the CTA.

Is Davidson's Theory of Action Consistent?

A theory of human action should provide an account of the connection between reason and action when an agent acts for a reason, and it should provide an account of the explanatory force of explanations of actions. On the causal theory of action, the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and explanations of actions are modeled on ordinary causal explanations, where events are explained by citing other events as their causes. A once common objection to the causal theory had it that reasons cannot be causes, since explanations of actions do not fit reason and action into a nomic nexus expressed by laws or law-like generalizations. Against this train of thought, Donald Davidson defends a version of the causal theory by arguing that the view that the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and the view that explanations of actions do not fit reasons and actions into a nomic nexus are compatible. Davidson's theory generated a small industry of criticism focusing on the implications of his version of the causal theory for the nature of the causal connection between reasons and actions.

Is Davidson's Theory of Action Consistent?

A theory of human action should provide an account of the connection between reason and action when an agent acts for a reason, and it should provide an account of the explanatory force of explanations of actions. On the causal theory of action, the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and explanations of actions are modeled on ordinary causal explanations, where events are explained by citing other events as their causes. A once common objection to the causal theory had it that reasons cannot be causes, since explanations of actions do not fit reason and action into a nomic nexus expressed by laws or law-like generalizations. Against this train of thought, Donald Davidson defends a version of the causal theory by arguing that the view that the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and the view that explanations of actions do not fit reasons and actions into a nomic nexus are compatible. Davidson's theory generated a small industry of criticism focusing on the implications of his version of the causal theory for the nature of the causal connection between reasons and actions.

Anti-intellectualism, instructive representations, and the intentional action argument

Intellectualists hold that knowledge-how is a species of knowledge-that, and consequently that the knowledge involved in skill is propositional. In support of this view, the intentional action argument holds that since skills manifest in intentional action and since intentional action necessarily depends on propositional knowledge, skills necessarily depend on propositional knowledge. We challenge this argument, and suggest that instructive representations, as opposed to propositional attitudes, can better account for an agent’s reasons for action. While a propositional-causal theory of action, according to which intentional action must be causally produced “in the right way” by an agent’s proposition-involving reasons, has long held sway, we draw on Elizabeth Anscombe’s insights offer a path toward an alternative theory of action. In so doing, we reject the implicitly Cartesian conception of knowledge at the core of the intentional action argument, while hanging on to the idea that mental states are representations of a certain kind. Our argument provides theoretical support for anti-intellectualism by equipping philosophers with an account of non-propositional, practical content.

No facts without perspectives

Perner and Roessler (in: Aguilar J, Buckareff A (eds) Causing human action: new perspectives on the causal theory of action, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp 199–228, 2010) hold that children who do not yet have an understanding of subjective perspectives, i.e., mental states, explain actions by appealing to objective facts. In this paper, we criticize this view. We argue that in order to understand objective facts, subjects need to understand perspectives. By analysing basic fact-expressing assertions, we show that subjects cannot refer to facts if they do not understand two types of perspectivity, namely, spatial and doxastic perspectivity. To avoid conceptual confusion regarding different ways of referring to facts, we distinguish between reference to facts de re and de dicto.

Human Actions at the Root of Moral Wrongdoing and Criminal Law’s Actus Reus

The basic condition of responsibility is that one acts (or in some cases, chooses not to act). The criminal law embeds this moral requirement for responsibility in its doctrines of actus reus. The acts that are necessary for responsibility all have the common feature that the actor have willed his bodily movements by virtue of which that actor attains his ends in acting, and that that willing caused his bodily movements willed. This is a version of what is known as the causal theory of action. It seemingly requires something that neuroscience is taken to deny, namely, that one’s choices cause the acts chosen to be done, and that such choices are not epiphenomenal with those actions.

THE AGENT'S ROLE IN THE CAUSATION OF ACTION: IS MICHAEL SMITH'S CAUSAL THEORY OF ACTION IN TROUBLE?

ABSTRACT The goal of this paper is to find out if Michael Smith's version of the causal theory of action is able to solve David Velleman's agency par excellence challenge. Smith (2012) has claimed that his theory can deal with the challenge insofar as the exercise of the capacity to be instrumentally rational plays the intermediating role which Velleman (1992a) thinks of the agent as playing in the causation of action. However, I argue Smith misunderstands the challenge at hand, thereby failing to find the agent's proper role in action explanation. Moreover, I claim Velleman's objection puts Smith's account of the causal theory in trouble by showing it cannot reconcile the causal explanation of intentional action with our ordinary conception of agency. If Smith intends to explain what a 'full-blooded' intentional action is, I then believe he needs to incorporate into his theory a more robust account of rational guidance.