Thinking about Action

[摘要] The promise of action theory (the study of intentional action) is that it might provide a new way into old disputes about the foundations of ethics, or the mind-body problem, or even first-order moral questions. The difficulty is accounting for the three quite different characteristics of intentional action: the characteristic way practical thought affects the world, the distinctive patterns and norms of means-end reasoning, and a special way of knowing about one's own actions. I explore the idea that we must first understand how agents think about action in order to understand these central features. In particular, I argue that practical thought – intentions and means-end beliefs – represents itself as the cause of its object. In addition to resolving action-theoretic debates, this account fulfills some of the promise of action theory, providing a rigorous foundation for a number of ethical and metaethical positions.

[发布机构] the University of Pittsburgh