Philosophy of Action

The use of the label philosophy of action gained currency roughly in the second half of the 20th century. However, although the label is relatively new, the subject matter is not. At least since Socrates, philosophers have been concerned with the problems and questions now gathered under that label. Essentially, the philosophy of action seeks to offer an account of distinctively human behavior—in particular, of behavior that is characteristic of, to use Aristotle's phrase, “rational animals.” This is behavior on the basis of which we make judgments about people's goals, characters, and values, and it is the behavior that grounds ascriptions of causal and sometimes also moral and legal responsibility to people for certain occurrences, outcomes, and states of affairs.

A philosophical account of the behavior just mentioned requires a good understanding of issues such as what exactly actions, and their counterparts—omissions—are; when an action is voluntary and intentional; whether there are genuinely free actions or whether freedom is an illusion; and, if there are free actions, what roles do reasons, intentions, and the will play in such actions (which introduces the problem of akrasia—the possibility of acting against one's better judgment because of “weakness of the will”). Other issues include how we should understand the explanation of actions by reference to reasons, the role of emotions and of the unconscious in actions, whether moral responsibility for actions (and omissions and their consequences) requires free agency, how to understand collective agency, and the agency of nonhuman animals.

One distinctive feature of the philosophy of action is that its boundaries are relatively vague. The reason for this is that the core questions in this area of philosophy cannot be addressed without resolving problems in other areas, such as metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, ethics, and legal philosophy. Throughout its history, the agenda of the philosophy of action has been defined by different questions, and, as a result, the central debates have, at different times, been closely tied to different areas in philosophy. This entry provides an overview of some of the central questions and arguments in the philosophy of action, as well as an indication of which issues have been at the center of contemporary philosophy of action.