Action
In John Shand (ed.), Central Issues of Philosophy. Wiley-Blackwell (2009)
| Abstract | We are agents. Not only are we capable of acting, but considerable portions of our lives are taken up by our doings, by exercises of our agency. Our actions and doings are essential to much of what we cherish most in our lives, and—arguably—our death can be equated with the permanent loss of our agency. Under these respects, we differ from inanimate objects, artifacts, chemical substances, and natural phenomena such as—for instance—planets, tables, acids, and lightning-storms. When we speak of the ‘actions’ of these things, we simply refer to the operations of some of their characteristic causal powers. But when speak of our own actions and doings, we refer to phenomena that, at least in their paradigmatic form, have all of the following: they are directed at some aim or purpose, they are the subject matter of practical deliberation, the objects of our intentions, the chief manifestations of our freedom, the primary targets of accountability and moral evaluation, and the characteristic objects of demands for rational intelligibility and justification. | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,664 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesAbraham Roth (2003). Practical Intersubjectivity. In F. Schmitt (ed.), Socializing Metaphysics : the Nature of Social Reality. Rowman & Littlefield, 65-91.
Matthew Hanser (2000). Intention and Accident. Philosophical Studies 98 (1):15-34.
Benjamin Mossel (2005). Action, Control and Sensations of Acting. Philosophical Studies 124 (2):129-180.
Ralf Stoecker (1998). Tun Und Lassen – Überlegungen Zur Ontologie Menschlichen Handelns. Erkenntnis 48 (2-3):395-413.
Lynne Rudder Baker (2011). First-Personal Aspects of Agency. Metaphilosophy 42 (1-2):1-16.
Deborah G. Johnson (2006). Computer Systems: Moral Entities but Not Moral Agents. Ethics and Information Technology 8 (4).
Robert Pippin (2010). Hegel's Social Theory of Agency : The 'Inner-Outer' Problem. In Arto Laitinen & Constantine Sandis (eds.), Hegel on Action. Palgrave Macmillan.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads13 ( #87,849 of 549,013 )Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,261 of 549,013 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
