Action Explanation
Action Explanation
The orthodox view of action explanation goes as follows: a desire combines with a belief to cause a bodily movement; citing these explains the action in question.[1] I desire a beer and I believe that moving my body into the kitchen will get me a beer, and these together cause me to act in a certain way, i.e., I go to the kitchen. The desire alone will not do the trick, and neither will the belief, but if we conjoin them the action is the causal upshot. This is belief-desire psychology. I will pour cold water on this idea: these conditions are neither necessary nor sufficient to bring about the action, though in certain circumstances they could. Possible agents could work this way (just about).
The reason they are not necessary is this: you could act without having either a belief or a desire. Some agents have no beliefs at all, others act without forming instrumental beliefs; and not all action is prompted by desire. It is too intellectualist to suppose that all action is backed by a belief about what bodily movements would lead to a certain outcome—consider animals, babies, and unreflective adults. Is it to be supposed that I consciously believe that putting my foot forward will lead me to get to the other room? I don’t even think about it, let alone form a belief to that effect—a rational, justified, true belief. Rather, my body is programmed to act that way; I don’t consider the various ways I can get to the other room and arrive at the belief that putting one foot in front of another will get the job done. Nor do I always desire to do what I do; I often desire not to do it. The concept of desire is being used in a highly promiscuous manner in these formulations (so sometimes people resort to “pro-attitude”). But even if we allow this dubious move, it is not true that people always act on their desires, even their carefully considered desires—because there is such a thing as weakness of will. People find themselves doing what they do not, and ought not, want to do. Desire is bypassed, bracketed. And the conditions are not sufficient because causation by belief and desire is not sufficient for intentional action, as in cases of deviant causal chains. Further, a desire is basically impotent without the consent of the will; I have a great many desires I don’t act on. I can desire a beer and believe I can get one from the kitchen but I don’t act on it, because I’m too lazy or am trying to drink less or because I get distracted. In order to act the will must be engaged—whatever that may be. The belief-desire story is intended as a substitute for direct appeal to the will, this being deemed mysterious. It is indeed a mystery, but the belief-desire story is a myth. The correct explanation of my action is that I willed it, but we can’t say what this amounts to. Beliefs and desires are lame substitutes, being neither necessary not sufficient for willed action.
The fact is that action can result from, and be explained by, almost anything. It can be explained by a moral judgement, or a momentary perception, or a vivid mental image, or a pang of hunger, or a fit of jealousy, or a creative breakthrough—so long as the will is engaged. But we don’t know what the will is and how it works; it seems like a sudden upsurge from the deep. It has unconscious roots and a peculiar kind of creativity. It seems to emerge from nowhere, inexplicably, miraculously. It is like consciousness in this respect—an emergent puzzling phenomenon. A mental impetus, a mysterious trigger. It is easily aroused and not always rational. It isn’t fussy about what triggers it. If I imagine myself jumping off a high building, I may find myself with an urge to do it, though nothing in my psyche recommends that rash move; my will is being tickled and aroused. I may spit or kick or scream just for the hell of it. The will is like a separate faculty with a mind of its own; it isn’t the obedient servant of belief and desire. The will looks askance at belief and desire—too passive, too leaden, too stuck in their ways. They are conservative and docile; it is bold and adventurous. The right view, then, is that we have no adequate theory of action explanation, beyond the truism that some bodily movements are the result of will and some are not. Why did I jump off the bridge or tap my finger? Because I willed it; that’s the basic psychological fact, though correlated with other such facts (beliefs and desires, moods and feelings). The action was unlike unwilled “acts” like accidentally tripping up or falling down. The will is influenced by belief and desire, but it isn’t identical to them—they are not what it consists in. The will is a mystery, as has long been recognized.[2]
[1] The locus classicus is Davidson’s “Actions, Reasons, and Causes” (1963).
[2] Take sleep-walking, for example: clearly an action, but where are the beliefs and desires supposed necessary for action? Or hypnotically induced action, or obsessive-compulsive action, or shifting in bed while asleep, or humming, or pursing one’s lips, or involuntarily mimicking someone else, or pulling one’s ear lobe, or swearing under one’s breath. The model of an antecedent desire coupled with an instrumental belief about how to satisfy it has no application in these cases—yet they are actively willed. It is another thing entirely.
I love this essay. Cutting through orthodoxy and bringing the puzzling nature of the phenomenon back into view. Progress.
Insightful comment; it’s amazing how tenacious orthodoxy can be while being utterly incredible.
“Why did I jump off the bridge ….? Because I willed it; that’s the basic psychological fact”
But why did you will that, instead of, say, going out to the garden and pottering about? You could have saved yourself a lot of trouble. (I’ve never understood the notion of ‘will’. What’s mysterious to me is what people are talking about when they talk about it. In my personal everyday consciousness I might think about choices or intentions or priorities, but, not understanding anything about “will”, that notion doesn’t seem to figure for me. (Maybe it’s operating behind the scenes.) But thanks for your account of what it is, and I can easily agree that it is a mystery.)
The point is that I might have had certain beliefs and desires or I might have just felt a sudden urge to do it or I might have imagined it and this triggered me to do it. What is in common is that I willed it, whatever that is. It isn’t a belief-desire pair as in the standard theory.
I might have willed it because I wanted to commit suicide or because I wanted to know what it felt like or because I wanted a bath–any number of desires.
“What is in common is that I willed it, whatever that is.”
So whatever it is can be explained by relating it to reasons determining the doing of that particular act, rather than reasons for not doing that act and doing something else instead, why that reason prevailed over other possible reasons. It seems that it would be important in, say, a murder investigation, to understand why the murderer went through with the act of taking somebody’s whole life away, rather than thinking better of it and going out to the garden to cool off instead. It looks like “motive” is not the same as “reasons”, and a murderer might not be able to give the real determiners; only an objective observer could venture an explanation. Why did D Trump will himself to go out and incite a massive crowd to go and violently attack the Capitol, rather than will himself to forget about that and go home and enjoy his money in retirement? He himself could not answer that kind of a question. It’s something a psychiatrist would have to probe and pursue. “To prevail in the election and retain power” is not sufficient. Why did P Hegseth and K Patel will themselves (if indeed the person is the agent of the willing) to accept appointments that they must have known they were completely unqualified to perform, rather than respond the way Tucker Carlson did when asked if he was going to run for President? Why don’t Republicans in Congress will themselves to do what at least some of them know is the right thing and take the electoral consequences, rather than do nothing, with what they should also know is the certain result that they will eventually live the rest of their lives in public disgrace? If you ask them for their reasons, you will only find them afflicted with self-dishonesty (if I can coin a term). “Being afraid of having their career ended by the voters” I don’t think is enough; the question is open-ended. A possible image emerges of a disunified self, with an impenetrable wall between an adaptive self and a dark self, unavailable to consciousness, actually in control. How could such a condition come about? These are the kinds of puzzles about human action that bother me. I feel that they shouldn’t happen, so I still look for an explanation.
Human motivation is indeed puzzling and bizarre, which is why we often don’t know why people do what they do, and nor do they. Here is where Freud stepped in and gave us some weird and implausible explanations.
I have a psychological explanation of the reluctance to countenance mysterianism despite the overwhelming reasons in its favor–that is, in favor of the general occurrence of encountering mysteries in philosophical speculation.
A major factor is not wanting to be perceived in certain ways, e.g. as arrogant or stupid. To affirm mysterianism is to suggest that your own difficulties in penetrating through the problems are shared by the smartest people in the discipline; it is to postulate an equality between your confusion and theirs, which may appear presumptuous and invite censure.
Second, it is to confess your own imbecility in philosophy even while suggesting that everyone else is no less imbecilic in this respect. This invites scrutiny and possibly negative assessments of your own intelligence, which acts as a deterrent since most academics are insecure about their intelligence, want to be perceived as smart, often trying to hide their ineptitude where it exists.
Being relatively immune to these factors requires firm self-confidence as well as intellectual independence.
There are certain truths that are unnoticed and unarticulated not because it takes a great feat of reasoning to perceive them, but because they cut against the grain of the passions and submissiveness of people. It takes a certain stubborn honesty to be willing to say them.
Good insights. Let’s add that many people are convinced they have solved these problems and don’t want to be wrong. I used to think I had solved them in my callow years.
To what extent is being a good psychologist, adept at grasping human motivation, a useful, or perhaps even necessary, trait for a philosopher to have? I am reminded of the beginning of Nagel’s bat essay, where he gives a kind of psychological diagnosis for the popularity of reductionist theories of the mind: the “human weakness” for assimilating something we don’t understand to something we do understand. And he refers to “the recent wave of reductionist euphoria”.
I do think it is useful, even necessary, to delve into the psychology of philosophers. I have discussed this subject in “A Psychology of Philosophy”and “Psychology of Philosophy” published here.
Reading through the “A Psychology of Philosophy” I was struck by its brilliance and thought about the staggering range of subjects you’ve written on and published here. I just laughed. You’ve covered everything already.
Staggering is the word–I had quite forgotten these pieces. No one to my knowledge has ever done anything comparable. And they keep on coming. Other philosophers seem like limited dim bulbs. I laugh too.