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Is Davidson's Theory of Action Consistent?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Robert Murray
Robert Murray*
Affiliation:
Erindale College, University of Toronto, Mississauga, ON, CanadaL5L 1C8 Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto, ON, CanadaM5B 2K3
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Extract

A theory of human action should provide an account of the connection between reason and action when an agent acts for a reason, and it should provide an account of the explanatory force of explanations of actions. On the causal theory of action, the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and explanations of actions are modeled on ordinary causal explanations, where events are explained by citing other events as their causes. A once common objection to the causal theory had it that reasons cannot be causes, since explanations of actions do not fit reason and action into a nomic nexus expressed by laws or law-like generalizations. Against this train of thought, Donald Davidson defends a version of the causal theory by arguing that the view that the connection between reasons and actions is that of event causality and the view that explanations of actions do not fit reasons and actions into a nomic nexus are compatible. Davidson's theory generated a small industry of criticism focusing on the implications of his version of the causal theory for the nature of the causal connection between reasons and actions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 317 - 334
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1995

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References

1 Examples include Honderich, Ted ‘The Argument for Anomalous Monism,’ Analysis 42 (1982) 59–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sosa, Ernest ‘Mind-Body Interaction and Supervenient Causation,’ Midwest Studies in Philosophy 9 (1984) 271-81CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kim, Jaegwon ‘The Myth of Nonreductive Materialism,’ Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association 63 (1989) 31–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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3 Davidson, responds to this criticism in ‘Thinking Causes,’ in Heil, John and Mele, Alfred eds., Mental Causation (Oxford: Clarendon 1993).Google Scholar

4 See, for example, Nagel, Ernest The Structure of Science (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World 1961), esp. 555.Google Scholar

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6 ‘Agency,’ reprinted in Davidson, Donald Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon 1980), 52-3Google Scholar. Unless indicated otherwise, all page references to works by Davidson are to this book.

7 ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes,’ 15-16; ‘Hempel on Explaining Action,’ 264; ‘Problems in the Explanation of Action,’ in Pettit, P. Sylvan, R. and Norman, J. eds., Metaphysics and Morality: Essays in Honor of J.J.C. Smart (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1987), 42Google Scholar

8 ‘Actions, Reasons, and Causes,’ 10. Hereafter this article will be referred to as’ ARC.'

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13 Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1984), 369

14 Railton, Peter ‘Explaining Explanation’ (Diss., Princeton University, 1980)Google Scholar. See also Railton's ‘A Deductive-Nomological Model of Probabilistic Explanation,’ Philosophy of Science 45 (1978), esp. 224-6.

15 Explaining Explanation (London: Routledge 1990), 205-6. See pages 87-93 for his complete discussion of Aristotle's distinction between per se cause and incidental cause.

16 See, for example, Anthony, Louise ‘Anomalous Monism and the Problem of Explanatory Force,’ Philosophical Review 98 (1989) 153-87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

17 Frankfurt, Harry presents an interesting possibility for such a causal connection in ‘The Problem of Action,’ American Philosophical Quarterly 15 (1978) 157-62.Google Scholar

18 I am indebted to Tori McGeer, Bernie Katz, André Gombay, Mark Thornton, Betty Harlow, and the referees of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy for considerable advice.