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On the Unifier—Multiplier Controversy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

C. A. MacDonald
C. A. MacDonald*
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Extract

Many recent discussions of the identity and individuation of actions focus on attempts to find satisfactory answers to questions like, “When, if ever, is a shooting (stabbing, poisoning, etc.) a killing?” Those who attempt to answer such questions divide themselves, on the whole, into two opposing groups. I. Thalberg has conveniently labelled the members of one group ‘unifiers’, and the members of the other group ‘multipliers’.

The unifier account is commonly attributed to philosophers such as G. E. M. Anscombe and Donald Davidson. Proponents of this account characteristically believe that many non-basic actions (where ‘basic’ is defined in terms of bodily movements) such as shootings, killings, etc., are identical with those basic actions by means of which the non-basic ones are performed. This position is indicated in the following remarks:

… in moving her hand, the queen was doing something that caused the death of the king. These are two descriptions of the same event — the queen moved her hand in that way; she did something that caused the death of the king. (Or to put it, as I would rather, in terms of a definite description: The moving of her hand by the queen on that occasion was identical with her doing something that caused the death of the king.) Doing something that causes a death is identical with causing a death. But there is no distinction to be made between causing the death of a person and killing him.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , December 1978 , pp. 707 - 714
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1978

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References

1 In “When Do Causes Take Effect?”, Mind 84(1975), pp. 583-89. All subsequent references to Thalberg are to this article.

2 Davidson, D. “Agency”, in Agent, Action and Reason,ed. Binkley, R. et. al. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1971), pp. 1-25; p. 22.Google Scholar

3 Goldman, A. A Theory of Human Action (Englewood Cliffs , N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970), p. 2.Google Scholar See also J. Kim, “On the Psychophysical Identity Theory”, American Philosophical Quarterly (1966).

4 In “Shooting, Killing, and Dying”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2 (1972-3), pp.315-23. All subsequent references to Bennett are to this article.

5 Op. cit.

6 In “The Time of a Killing”, The Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971), pp. 115-32.

7 Op. cit., p. 315.

8 Ibid., p. 316.

9 Op. cit.

10 In “Agency”, op. cit., pp. 22-23.

11 Op. cit., p. 587.

12 Ibid.