The Rationality of Habitual Actions
Date
2005Author
Pollard, Bill
Metadata
Abstract
We are creatures of habit. Familiar ways of doing things in familiar contexts become
automatic for us. That is to say, when we acquire a habit we can act without thinking
about it at all. Habits free our minds to think about other things. Without this
capacity for habitual action our daily lives would be impossible. Our minds would be
crowded with innumerable mundane considerations and decisions. Habitual actions
are not always mundane. Aristotle famously said that acting morally is a matter of
exercising the right habits.2 For him, a lack of conscious thought is no bar on an
action’s moral status. Habits are involved in our most prized activities. Of course our
natural capacity for acquiring habits is sometimes a nuisance, and we acquire bad
habits all too easily. But we nevertheless could not do without a vast array of habits
which are not like this, and we can’t help but exercise them in our daily lives. It does
not seem too strong to say that we spend much more of our time acting habitually than
we do acting in the light of conscious thought.
We are also rational creatures. It is because of our rationality that we naturally
think that most human actions are different in kind from the behaviour of other
animals. This difference is manifest in the fact that we hold rational creatures
personally responsible for what they do, in ways that would make no sense for nonrational
creatures. Our rationality, then, appears to give our actions a unique quality.