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Perhaps the most fraught application of the concept of causation is to the explanation of our own actions. Many have held it as obvious that our actions are caused by the beliefs and desires which motivate them, while many others have been more impressed by the difficulties which confront any causal theory of action. I'm afraid that the theory of causation advanced in this book does not enable us to arrive at definite conclusions about the role of causation in human action, but it can be used to elucidate some familiar issues and determine what is at stake in some long-running controversies about the causal theory of action. Specifically, I shall formulate several objections to the causal thesis and show that none of them are decisive. I shall also look at the prospects for a causal analysis of the notion of intentional action, at the chances of using causation to distinguish what is done intentionally from what is not. No settled view emerges but certain obstacles to a causal analysis are cleared away.
THE CAUSAL THEORY OF ACTION
Many philosophers hold that if S does A intentionally then S must have beliefs and desires which make A a sensible thing for him to do. Further they maintain that these beliefs and desires must cause S to do A. Davidson introduces this causal requirement as follows: ‘a person can have a reason for an action, and perform the action, and yet this reason not be the reason why he did it. Central to the relation between a reason and an action it explains is the idea that the agent performed the action because he had the reason’ (Davidson, 1980e:9).
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