Arational Actions

Hursthouse, Rosalind

doi:10.2307/2026906

Cited by 249 publications

(63 citation statements)

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“…13 For more on the difference between belief-orientated and action-orientated confabulations see Hindricks (forthcoming). Hursthouse (1991) offers persuasive examples of intentional actions not performed for reasons (but out of habit, anger, etc.) which do not involve confabulation.…”

Section: Reasons and Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verbal Reports and ‘Real’ Reasons: Confabulation and Conflation

Sandis

2015

Ethic Theory Moral Prac

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This paper examines the relation between the various forces which underlie human action and verbal reports about our reasons for acting as we did. I maintain that much of the psychological literature on confabulations rests on a dangerous conflation of the reasons for which people act with a variety of distinct motivational factors. In particular, I argue that subjects frequently give correct answers to questions about the considerations they acted upon while remaining largely unaware of why they take themselves to have such reasons to act. Pari passu, experimental psychologists are wrong to maintain that they have shown our everyday reason talk to be systematically confused. This is significant because our everyday reason-ascriptions affect characterizations of action (in terms of intention, knowledge, foresight, etc.) that are morally and legally relevant. I conclude, more positively, that far from rendering empirical research on confabulations invalid, my account helps to reveal its true insights into human nature.

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Section: Reasons and Consciousnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Verbal Reports and ‘Real’ Reasons: Confabulation and Conflation

Sandis

2015

Ethic Theory Moral Prac

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“…I argue, rather, that deviant causal chains are symptomatic of a fundamental problem with causalism; and that we should give up the fight to accommodate deviant cases and focus, rather, on developing an alternative to causal views of action which 6 Deviant causal chains are, since Davidson, the classic challenge to the sufficiency of causalism. There are many challenges to its necessity that I don´t have room to discuss here: Dreyfus's skilled activity (1984,1988,2005); arational actions (Hursthouse 1991), emotional behaviour (Goldie 2000), passive actions (Zhu 2004), habitual actions (Pollard 2003(Pollard & 2006, omissions (Sartorio 2005(Sartorio & 2009; more on this in section 4), and automatic actions (Di Nucci 2008).…”

Section: Deviant Causal Chainsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Action, Deviance, and Guidance

Nucci

2011

SSRN Journal

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I argue that we should give up the fight to rescue causal theories of action from fundamental challenges such as the problem of deviant causal chains; and that we should rather pursue an account of action based on the basic intuition that control identifies agency. In Section 1 I introduce causalism about action explanation. In Section 2 I present an alternative, Frankfurt's idea of guidance. In Section 3 I argue that the problem of deviant causal chains challenges causalism in two important respects: first, it emphasizes that causalism fails to do justice to our basic intuition that control is necessary for agency. Second, it provides countless counterexamples to causalism, which many recent firemen have failed to extinguish -as I argue in some detail. Finally, in Section 4 I argue, contra Al Mele, that control does not require the attribution of psychological states as causes.We should give up the fight to rescue causal theories of action (Davidson 1963;Bratman 1984;Mele & Moser 1994 are some influential examples) from fundamental challenges such as the problem of deviant causal chains; we should rather pursue an account of action based on the basic intuition that control identifies agency. To this end, I propose to revive Harry Frankfurt's concept of guidance (1978). In Section 1 I introduce causalism about action explanation. In Section 2 I introduce Frankfurt's rival idea, guidance. In Section 3 I argue that the problem of deviant causal chains challenges causalism in two important respects: firstly, it reminds us that causalism fails to do justice to our basic intuition that control is necessary for agency. Secondly, it provides countless counterexamples to causalism, which many recent firemen have failed to extinguish. Finally, in Section 4 I argue, contra Al Mele (1997), that control does not in turn require causalism because it does not require the attribution of psychological states as causes. CausalismThe classic version of causalism was first introduced by Donald Davidson in Actions, Reasons, and Causes (1963) Behaviour is purposive when its course is subject to adjustments which compensate for the effects of forces which would otherwise interfere with the course of the behaviour, and when the occurrence of these adjustments is not explainable by what explains the state of affairs that elicits them. The behaviour is in that case under the Moser's (1994, p. 253)) are more complicated. Here is for example the full analysis of intentional action offered by Mele & Moser, which, as I show in Section 3, is also subject to deviant counterexamples: "Necessarily, an agent, S, intentionally performs an action, A, at a time, t, if and only if: (i) at t, S A-s and her A-ing is an action; (ii) at t, S suitably follows-hence, is suitably guided by-an intention-embedded plan, P, of hers in A-ing; (iii) (a) at the time of S's actual involvement in A-ing at t, the process indicated with significantly preponderant probability by S's on bal-ance evidence at t as being at least partly constitutive of her A-in...

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“…In a well-known paper, Rosalind Hursthouse argues that certain common, and not irrational, actions cannot be accommodated by the dominant philosophical model of the rational explanation of action (Hursthouse 1991). Examples of the category Hursthouse has in mind would include: rumpling someone's hair (out of affection or tenderness); jumping in joy or excitement; destroying something connected with a particular person in anger; covering one's face (in the dark) from shame or fear; 'puffing oneself up' with pride; caressing the clothes of a loved one in grief.…”

Section: Introduction: Hursthouse's Puzzlementioning

confidence: 99%

Emotions and Their Expressions

Sias¹,

Bar‐On²

2016

The Expression of Emotion

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In a well-known paper, Rosalind Hursthouse argues that certain common, and not irrational, actions cannot be accommodated by the dominant philosophical model of the rational explanation of action. Although there is no rational explanation, she claims, there is a good explanation for such action: they are done out of emotion. In this paper I argue that we can reject Hursthouse's conclusion that explanation of action as the expression of emotion is sui generis if we have a sufficiently broad understanding of how features can count in favour of actions. What is distinctive about expressive acts, I will argue, is not that they are spontaneous products of the 'overflowing of powerful feeling,' requiring a form of explanation that is arational, but rather that they are done intentionally but for their own sake as a constitutive part of doing justice to one's sense of the gravity (or indeed levity) of a situation. The action is not arational, but can be assessed for its expressive adequacy. Furthermore, the expressive action, on this view, has a purpose -that of doing justice, or giving adequate external form to one's sense of the situation.If there are reasons sometimes simply to acknowledge or honour the gravity of a situation then we can reconcile expressive action with the standard picture of rational explanation of action.

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Arational Actions

Cited by 249 publications

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Verbal Reports and ‘Real’ Reasons: Confabulation and Conflation

Verbal Reports and ‘Real’ Reasons: Confabulation and Conflation

Action, Deviance, and Guidance

Emotions and Their Expressions

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