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Question Session 02
Week 02 Questions:
Philosophical Issues in Behavioural Science
s.butterfill@warwick.ac.uk
this is being recorded
Barty + Jan : background
What distinguishes your actions from things that merely happen to you? (‘The Problem of Action’)
Standard Solution: actions are those events which stand in an appropriate causal relation to an intention.
‘deviant causal chains’ (Davidson, 1980, pp. 78--9)
Minimally, the action should not be manifestly run counter to the intention;and neither should whether the action occurs be independent of what the agent intends.
Objection: some instrumental actions manifestly run counter to the agents’ intentions.
Barty + Jan : background
What distinguishes your actions from things that merely happen to you? (‘The Problem of Action’)
Are regulating blood flow and fighting off of viruses’ things that merely happen to us, or are they are things we do?
‘Among the things I did were
get up,
wash,
shave,
go downstairs, and
spill my coffee.’
(Davidson, 1971, p. 43)
‘Among the things that happened to me were
being awakened and
stumbling on the edge of the rug.’
(Davidson, 1971, p. 43)
regulating blood flow?
fighting off of viruses?
eating popcorn
pressing a button to watch a film clip
Barty + Jan : background
What distinguishes your actions from things that merely happen to you? (‘The Problem of Action’)
being an agent
vs
being an arena in which things take place
Barty
How are we to understand the 'you' in
It strikes me that either:
A) 'you' refers to your mind/consciousness
or
B) 'you' refers to your body as a complete functioning system
If B, does this mean that there are some actions that we perform that do not require conscious intention?
The regulation of blood flow and fighting off of viruses are not things that merely happen to us, they are things we do.
Barty’s (?) argument
1. 'you' refers to your body as a complete functioning system
therefore:
2. The regulation of blood flow and fighting off of viruses are not things that merely happen to us, they are things we do.
3. Neither of these involves intention
therefore:
4. there are some actions that we perform that do not require conscious intention?
action
agent
regulation of blood flow
heart
fighting off a virus
immune system
scrolling
human <-- ‘you’
Barty’s (?) argument
1. 'you' refers to your body as a complete functioning system
therefore:
2. The regulation of blood flow and fighting off of viruses are not things that merely happen to us, they are things we do.
3. Neither of these involves intention
therefore:
4. there are some actions that we perform that do not require conscious intention?
If we allow that not all agents have intentions,
then not all actions involve intentions.
e.g. the philosopher Bratman (2000)
Barty
How are we to understand the 'you' in
It strikes me that either:
A) 'you' refers to your mind/consciousness
or
B) 'you' refers to your body as a complete functioning system
If B, does this mean that there are some actions that we perform that do not require conscious intention?
The regulation of blood flow and fighting off of viruses are not things that merely happen to us, they are things we do.
Can we understand intention as the desired outcome of 'you' by B? Or must intention be understood only consciously (making intention as the mark of action & B incompatible)?
Two Backrgound Questions to Barty’s Assault
Which things are agents?
What are intentions?
action
agent
regulation of blood flow
heart
fighting off a virus
immune system
scrolling
human <-- ‘you’
Do hearts have intentions?
Two Backrgound Questions to Barty’s Assault
Which things are agents?
What are intentions?
dilemma
- need to avoid taking a side in philosophical debate about intention (Setiya, 2014)
- cannot say nothing about what intention is (because want to consider Standard Solution)
Intention : minimal assumptions
Intention : minimal assumptions
Two Backrgound Questions to Barty’s Assault
Which things are agents?
What are intentions?
dilemma
- need to avoid taking a side in philosophical debate about intention (Setiya, 2014)
- cannot say nothing about what intention is (because want to consider Standard Solution)
solution: minimal assumptions
Jan
Was not Davidson in his Essay ‘Agency’ concerned with
Agency
and therefore
Intentional Action that is expression of Agency
rather than action per se?
[...] the "Standard Solution" has been taken out of context of previous work both by Davidson and Anscombe and is being refuted in the lectures with claims, that could be easily accommodated in the wider theory of those philosophers.
‘Among the things I did were
get up,
wash,
shave,
go downstairs, and
spill my coffee.’
(Davidson, 1971, p. 43)
‘Among the things that happened to me were
being awakened and
stumbling on the edge of the rug.’
(Davidson, 1971, p. 43)
eating popcorn
pressing a button to watch a film clip
Jan
Was not Davidson in his Essay ‘Agency’ concerned with
Agency
and therefore
Intentional Action that is expression of Agency
rather than action per se?
[...] the "Standard Solution" has been taken out of context of previous work both by Davidson and Anscombe and is being refuted in the lectures with claims, that could be easily accommodated in the wider theory of those philosophers.
Jan
Was not Davidson in his Essay ‘Agency’ concerned with
Agency
and therefore
Intentional Action that is expression of Agency
rather than action per se?
[...] the "Standard Solution" has been taken out of context of previous work both by Davidson and Anscombe and is being refuted in the lectures with claims, that could be easily accommodated in the wider theory of those philosophers.
Backrgound Questions to Barty’s + Jan’s Assaults
Which things are agents?
What are intentions?
Which events are expressions of agency?
What distinguishes your actions from things that merely happen to you? (‘The Problem of Action’)
Standard Solution: actions are those events which stand in an appropriate causal relation to an intention.
‘deviant causal chains’ (Davidson, 1980, pp. 78--9)
Minimally, the action should not be manifestly run counter to the intention;and neither should whether the action occurs be independent of what the agent intends.
Objection: some instrumental actions manifestly run counter to the agents’ intentions. <-- not expressions of agency
response 2
deny instrumental actions are all actions
‘Who is there that has never wound up his watch on taking off his waistcoat in the daytime, or taken his latchkey out on arriving at the door−step of a friend? Very absent−minded persons in going to their bedroom to dress for dinner have been known to take off one garment after another and finally to get into bed, merely because that was the habitual issue of the first few movements when performed at a later hour.’
(James, 1901)
Are these expressions of agency?
What distinguishes your actions from things that merely happen to you? (‘The Problem of Action’)
Standard Solution: actions are those events which stand in an appropriate causal relation to an intention.
‘deviant causal chains’ (Davidson, 1980, pp. 78--9)
Minimally, the action should not be manifestly run counter to the intention;and neither should whether the action occurs be independent of what the agent intends.
Objection: some instrumental actions manifestly run counter to the agents’ intentions. <-- not expressions of agency
‘When [beliefs and desires] are described as directly causing an intention, and the intention as directly causing movements, not only has the agent been cut out of the story but so has any psychological item that might play his [sic] role’
(Velleman, 2000, p. 125)
(Velleman is attacking Davidson’s model)
The standard model (Davidson’s) ‘specifies the way in which behavior must be caused in order to qualify as a purposeful activity, but not the way it must be caused in order to qualify as an autonomous action.’
(Velleman, 2000, p. 9)
Which notion should the Problem of Action concern? Purposeful activity or autonomous action?
Functions of Ben’s model of minds and actions:
- ethical
- legal
- normative
- predictive
--- speed vs accuracy
As far as folk psychologies are concerned, is intention is the mark of action?
From discoveries in the behavioural sciences, is intention is the mark of action?
Backrgound Questions to Barty’s + Jan’s Assaults
Which things are agents?
What are intentions?
Which events are expressions of agency?
more questions?