Whereas action may seem to involve the realization of its agent’s
freely formed intentions, this is not so for events such as a
stone’s falling from a cliff, the movement of blood within a body,
or the inadvertent dropping of a pen. Although many of the contributions
in the philosophy of action during the last quarter century have
tried to undermine this distinction by reducing all aspects of
action to causal processes, this is not true of the six previously
published and five previously unpublished papers Hugh J. McCann
has organized under the four headings that make up The Works
of Agency.

For example, when Booth shot Lincoln, he wounded him fatally.
However, Booth need not have shot Lincoln to kill him-he could
have used other means-and he need not have killed Lincoln when
he shot him-the wound could have been non-life-threatening. Thus
although Booth both shot and killed Lincoln, the actions of shooting
and killing were not identical. Furthermore, Booth shot Lincoln
by the action of pulling a trigger, which was done by the action
of moving a finger, and by killing Lincoln he also assassinated
Lincoln and threw the nation into mourning. In this episode, we
have many actions all performed by Booth in one exercise of agency.
In Part I: The Ontology of Action, enlisting the aid of linguistics,
McCann works out a way to talk theoretically both about multiple
actions and about the unity of agency.

In Part II: The Foundations of Action, McCann moves to discussions
of the foundations or origins of action. If Booth’s attempt to
move his trigger finger had been thwarted by an unexpected binding
of it, he would have recognized that "overt movements"
such as moving one’s finger are not "basic actions"
(as some philosophers have argued). In examples such as this,
agents become aware of the "physical exertions" required
to make overt movements, and these exertions have a better claim
to be basic with respect to the foundations of action. However,
McCann steps behind even exertions and argues that "volition"–i.e.,
willing–is the best candidate for basic actions. Although the
detailed argumentation McCann advances in support of this view
is too intricate to reproduce in a review, we can say that willing
is a kind of thought, and that thought is such that it, if it
is taken as basic, does not generate the problem of infinite regress.
Because infinite regresses are generated when exertions, overt
movements and other kinds of action are taken as basic, a volitional
account of the foundation of action is to be preferred. This view
is supported by analyses of the willing of persons with paralysis.
Interpreting reports and attempted actions of paralytics in test
situations, McCann argues that paralytics do engage in the basic
action of willing (to exert their muscles, etc.), but because
of their paralysis no consequences or further actions ensue. Finally,
McCann argues that non-volitional, causal accounts of action cannot
overcome counter-examples based on the problem of "causal
deviance." Let us say that in the moment Booth had Lincoln
in his sights he was unexpectedly shocked by his own desire to
shoot Lincoln. If this shock included a brief physiological reaction
such as an "involuntary" clenching of muscles-including
the muscles in his trigger finger-Booth would have shot Lincoln,
and the cause of the shooting would have been his desire to do
so. McCann argues that attempts made by defenders of causal accounts
of action to exclude this sort of deviance (without excluding
any genuine kinds of action) have failed. However, a proper volitional
account does not so fail.

In Part III: Intention, Will, and Freedom, McCann argues that
if Booth had a desire to kill Lincoln it was not his "state
of desire" that caused him to kill Lincoln; rather the conceptual
content of the desire–would that I kill Lincoln–constituted
a "reason" for "deciding" to kill Lincoln.
By the decision-making process, Booth had to develop the "intention"
to kill Lincoln. Now when we talk about the formation of an intention
by decision we do not talk in causal terms. The same is true for
the "execution" of intentions in willing: we do not
use causal terms to talk about the relation between what a person
intended and what he or she willed. We expect explanations of
these things to be in the terms of reasons for deciding or willing,
not causes of deciding or willing. Intentional accounts, not causal
ones, explain action. Furthermore, if agents are responsible for
their actions, they must have the freedom to choose among alternative
possibilities. However, the existence of such freedom would seem
to be inconsistent with the deterministic, causal laws of the
natural world, and it is these laws that provide the paradigm
for scientific or rational accounts of events. If responsible
action requires such freedom, are explanations of action doomed
to be irrational? Hume’s critical rejection of necessary connection
between causes and effects helps McCann reduce the force of this
criticism: because the relevant kind of determinism must be critically
rejected even for non-actional events, accounts of action involving
freedom can be as rational as accounts of non-actional events.
Of course, explanations of action require intentional accounts
whereas explanations of non-actional events require causal accounts,
but neither kind of account exhibits determinism.

In Part IV: Practical Rationality, McCann deals with problems
having to do with the rationality of intentions. If Booth believed
the security around Lincoln was far too effective for him to be
able to shoot Lincoln, but he tried nevertheless, and if he succeeded
after all, we would have to say that Booth intentionally shot
Lincoln despite believing he could not do so. McCann argues that
although this is not how we act most of the time, it is neither
impossible nor irrational to act in this way (as some philosophers
have argued). Furthermore, the alternative accounts, which deny
that one can intend to do what one believes one cannot do, generate
other theoretical problems. He goes on to argue that intention
formation involves a distinctive form of rationality, "practical
rationality," the nature of which provides resources to generate
an account of the problem of acting against one’s better judgment.
If Booth had a felt obligation not to kill Lincoln-because it
is not good to kill-but if this felt obligation was relatively
weak, it is not likely that his better judgment-that he ought
not to kill Lincoln-would be convincing. Thus Booth could have
formed an intention to kill Lincoln against his better judgment.
With this account of the age-old problem of "weakness of
will" the book comes to an end.

Overall, The Works of Agency is a collection of detailed
meditations on the problems discussed in the action theory literature.
Interested philosophers should find reading it worthwhile;
more general readers may find it challenging.

© 2002 John Duncan

John Duncan ,
Ph.D., Senior Fellow, The University of King’s College, Halifax,
Nova Scotia

Categories: Philosophical