Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 55 1981-2, also reprinted as chapter 1 in Action, Reason, and Value
In this paper author tried to give a rendering of the progress that has been made in the philosophy of human action since Aristotle. Author first admits Rorty's point that the content of philosophy is often influenced by whatever is currently fashionable or reflective of academic power struggles. Author proceeds though to give a construction of the progress on theories of human action (as distinct from action that humans--and animals-- do) that goes from Aristotle to Aquinas to Frege and then Davidson.
Author's first topic is Aristotle's theory of human action and claims the theory is a causal one, placing rational appetite in conjunction with intellectual deliberation about means-ends reasoning. (pg4-5) The famous objection raised by Ryle in The Concept of Mind was as follows: if the components to the causal story aren't human actions, how can the result be? Author defends the causal theory by claiming Ryle is question-begging on a causal story-- causes are different from their effects, so non-human-action causes can effect a human-action. (pg6-8) Author then also critiques Aristotle because of his claim that one's ethical character is reflected at all times in one's rational appetite (a necessary component for choice and action). Thus weakness of the will is not chosen-- an unappealing result. (pg8) An enduring lesson from Aristotle is that humans only act on what they think it is possible for them to do.
Aquinas systematized and cleaned up Aristotle's theory, naming the faculty that hosts the rational appetite 'the will'. Importantly, Aquinas also created an 'intention', which wills an end through a means. But the intention is for the ends; a 'choice' is for the means. (pg9) Author considers that the concept of causation used here is not the same as its 'post-Humean relative': the ancient causal theory is one of essences within objects activating changes in other objects, rather than 'nomological relation between events'. (pg10) This raises the challenge to the causal account of human action raised by Wittgenstein and Ryle (again), namely that it is semantic-mental relations, not physical causes, that underwrite human action. (pg10-11) Author points out, however, that semantic relations can enter into causal ones and he will continue to interpret the progress in terms of causation. (pg12)
The next part of the paper deals with the opacity of intentions, e.g. Oedipus intending to kill the stranger that insulted him, but not intending to kill his father, even though the insulting stranger and his father are the same person (though he didn't know it). (pg12-16) Here Frege enters with his analysis of referents in opaque conditions (indirect reference) and he adds an important feature to the theory: 'an action as an individual event cannot be intended. It is intended only to the extent that it makes true a proposition that is intended' (pg15) Thus the addition that an action is to make true a proposition that it intends. Author also considers wayward causation problems (pg16-19) as well. His (and Frankfurt's) solution is adding a proviso: the bodily movements (or mental processes) that are supposed to accomplish a particular end depend on my intending to move (or think) them in order to make the particular end happen. (pg18-19)
The last problem in the causal theory of human action that the author deals with is the problem of what parts of a causal sequence are included in a human action. Do we include the effects of an action in it? Do we include the causes? (pg19-20) Hornsby argues for including the causes of human actions in the action itself, a break, author claims, from Aristotle. According to Donagan, Aristotle claimed that the act of intending and then choosing causes a human action, but isn't a human action itself. Hornsby's mistake, according to author, is of narrating an event rather than looking for the specific bodily movements that the action consisted in. (pg20-21)
The other part of this problem is that an intention seems to effect an action, but an intention forms in the brain and therefore effects just a bunch of neuro-electrical signals. Maybe; but add this to the claim that the effects of actions aren't included in the actions themselves and it seems to claim that overt bodily movements (that are the effects of neuro-electical signals) aren't part of a human action! (pg20-21). Excluding effects from the analysis of actions separates bodily movements from actions, since they are the far-end causal effects of many internal physical processes (pg21). Author's solution is to remember Frege's proviso on actions: intending in action is not intending the occurring effects, but a proposition those effects make true. (pg22) Finally, the author brings to bear Aquinas' treatment of choices for means and intentions for ends on the problem of how to include seemingly peripheral bodily movements into human actions. (pg23)
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