The Normativity of Action

Abstract

The concept of action is playing an increasingly prominent role in attempts to explain how subjects can represent the world. The idea is that at least some of the role traditionally assigned to internal representations can, in fact, be played by the ability of subjects to act on the world, and the exercise of that ability on appropriate occasions. This paper argues that the appeal to action faces a serious dilemma. If the concept of action employed is a representational one, then the appeal to action is circular: representation has been presupposed rather than explained. However, if the concept of action employed is a non-representational one, then the appeal to action will be inadequate: in particular, the appeal will fail to account for the normativity of representation. The way out of this dilemma is to develop a conception of action that is normative, but where this normativity is not inherited from the action's connection to distinct representational states. The normative status of such actions would be sui generis. This paper argues that such a conception of action is available.

Keywords:

• Representation
• Action
• Normativity
• Vehicle Externalism
• Myth Of The Giving
• Proper Function
• Millikan

Acknowledgements

This paper was supported by the AHRC

Notes

Notes

[1] The expression ‘the extended mind’ derives from Clark and Chalmers (1998), as does the expression ‘active externalism’. ‘Environmentalism’ is employed by Rowlands (1999). The expression ‘vehicle externalism’ is employed by Hurley (1998), and I am going to use this expression in a way recognizably akin to the use made of it by Hurley. Recognizable forms of this view have been defended by Clark (1997), Clark and Chalmers (1998), Donald (1991), Hurley (1998), Hutchins (1995), Noë (2004), O’Regan and Noë (2001, 2002), Rowlands (1999, 2003), and Wilson (1995, 2004). Arguably, the daddy of them all, however, is James Gibson (1966, 1979).

[2] Broadly speaking, there are four possibilities extant in the literature: (1) actions are bodily movements caused by intentional states, (2) actions are intentional states that cause bodily movements, (3) actions are a combination of intentional states and bodily movements, and (4) actions are intentional states individuated by way of their effects—i.e., successful tryings. The precise nature of each account is, for our purposes, unimportant. What is important is that each asserts that if anything is to count as an action, it must stand in some appropriate relation to an intentional, hence representational, state (on more than one account that relation is that of identity).

[3] My development(s) of the myth are somewhat different from that of Hurley.

[4] I defend this claim at much greater length in Rowlands (2006), chapter 6.

[5] This is a simplified version of the definition she supplies in Millikan (1984).

[6] I defend this in much more depth in my (1997) and (1999); and in even more depth in my (2006).

[7] My thanks to John Sutton for making me aware of this work.