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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.
Why is this an objection?
How do we know? From persistence following devaluation!
Schwabe & Wolf (2010, p. figure 6)
Sometimes your instrumental actions manifestly run counter to your intentions.
Neal, Wood, Wu, & Kurlander (2011)
Sometimes your instrumental actions manifestly run counter to your intentions.
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.
Why is this an objection?
How do we know? From persistence following devaluation!
response 1
insist there’s an intention
Neal et al. (2011)
option (i) - the intention to eat the stale popcorn is more common in ‘high habit’ group
‘strong-habit participants experienced the shift in motivation as a function of the food’s freshness. They rated the fresh popcorn as more likable than the stale, and thus they did not value the popcorn more than those with weak habits. [...]
‘Furthermore, tests of whether the habit effects depended on liking for the popcorn or current hunger revealed that these factors did not moderate the effects of habit strength on eating.’
(Neal et al., 2011, p. 1432)
option (ii) - there are other intentions, perhaps intentions to empty the bag, or intentions to grasp and place
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.
Why is this an objection?
How do we know? From persistence following devaluation!
response 2
deny instrumental actions are all actions
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.
Why is this an objection?
How do we know? From persistence following devaluation!