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Demarcating Actions and their Effects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Irving Thalberg
Irving Thalberg*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Chicago Circle
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Extract

C.A. Macdonald's incisive note, ‘On the Unifier-Multiplier Controversy', gave me fresh thoughts regarding the method of actindividuation which he defends against Jonathan Bennett's and my own misgivings. I believe a second look at the Reductive Unifying account, in light of Macdonald's apology for it, will help us size up the issues, notably those involving causation and time.

I shall follow previous debaters and dwell upon examples of mayhem, where one individual kills another by carrying out a more rudimentary action. Here is Donald Davidson's case. A queen murders her royal husband by emptying a vial of poison into his ear as he sleeps. To be exact: she rotates her wrist, and the lethal drug cascades toward his ear.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 1981 , pp. 241 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1981

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References

* Macdonald's article (this Journal 8 (1978) 707-14) list's all the works I allude to; hence I only make parenthetical references to relevant page numbers.