References
- Davidson , Donald . 1980 . “ ‘Actions, Reasons and Causes,’ in ” . In Essays on Actions and Events 3 – 19 . Oxford : Oxford University Press .
- Goldman , Alvin . 1970 . A Theory of Human Action Englewood Cliffs , NJ : Prentice Hall . (
- In speaking of normal conditions, I mean to exclude coercive conditions. When acting under threat, people act deliberately and purposefully (they certainly act intentionally— so as to save their own life, for instance) without acting voluntarily.Though I do not have the time to develop the point here, I think coercion (of the threat variety) is a very special case. When the act is intentional, as it must be for the threat to be effective, I think the resulting act is, metaphysically speaking, as free as everyday rational acts. It derives its special status (i.e., its status as involuntary) from the moral dimensions of our concept of freedom. Since I lack the space to defend this claim, I restrict the argument in the text to intentional actions of the non-coercive kind.
- Feinberg , Joel . 1966 . “ ‘Causing Voluntary Actions,’ in ” . In Metaphysics and Explanation Edited by: Capitan , W. H. and Merrill , D. D. Pittsburgh , PA : University of Pittsburgh Press . (Feinberg is here describing a principle derived from Hart and Honore (Causation and the Law [Oxford: Clarendon Press 1959]) who regard a fully voluntary act as ‘a barrier and a goal… through which we do not trace the cause of a later event’ (41). Feinberg thinks this principle puts a restriction on the ‘extendibility’ of action: if X talks Y into killing Z, thereby causing Z's death through the will of Y, it is (by this principle) Y, not X, that kills Z. For further discussion see David Lewis, ‘Causation’ and 'Postscripts to “Causation'” in Philosophical Papers, Vol II (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1986); Jonathan Bennett, Events and their Names (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett 1988); and J. L. Mackie, The Cement of the Universe (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1974).
- Anyone who subscribes to a causal theory of knowledge will be committed to the idea that, in many cases at least (all those in which we act from knowledge), we are caused to have the beliefs that (in part) constitute our reasons for acting.
- Assuming, as I do, that causality is an extensional relation: that if A causes B, and B = C, then A causes C. This is not to say, of course, that causal explanation is extensional.
- 1988 . Explaining Behavior Cambridge , MA : MIT Press . I developed such a component theory of behavior in (If we let M stand for the movement of Jimmy's ears and C for some internal event that causes his ears to move, then Jimmy's behavior, his moving his ears, is identified with C's causing M— a process of which M is the product. Some behavior is unintentional (the way snoring, blinking, and breathing are). In this case C is merely some (non-intentional) internal cause. If C consists of Jimmy's reasons, some belief-desire complex, then the behavior is an action.
- Though, of course, we may be legally and morally (not to say causally) responsible for the result of this action.
- Though it may say something about his freedom of will— another problem about which I have little to say in this essay.
- 1986 . Philosophical Papers, Vol II Oxford : Oxford University Press . ‘Causation’ and 'Postscripts to 'Causation” in (
- One should not confuse ‘sensitivity’ with ‘improbability.’ As Lewis himself points out, you can kill someone by planting a bomb attached to a randomizing device. When the bomb goes off, killing someone, you are the killer no matter how low you set the probability on the randomizer. Sensitivity has more to do with the number of intervening coincidences.
- This is not to say I cannot wiggle Jimmy's ears by going through Jimmy. We saw earlier how I might wiggle Jimmy's ears by triggering an automatic (reflexive) response. This is the way I make you blink by a sudden movement towards your face.
- Explaining Behavior. Cf. my