Abstract
Palmer (Erkenntnis. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-018-0046-0) defends the ‘Constitution View’ of omissions. According to this view, every omission is constituted by, though not identical to, some positive event. I argue that Palmer’s version of this view can’t do all the work he wants it to do. First, it can’t provide an answer to the ontological question to which he addresses himself: ‘What kind of thing is an omission?’ Second, it doesn’t give us the resources to determine which positive events serve as the ultimate constituters of omissions which seem to occur over long periods of time (e.g. my omission to mow my neighbour’s lawn over the summer); at least, not without embracing consequences Palmer wishes to avoid.
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Notes
Palmer (5) presents this as the ‘Positive Action View’: x’s omission to φ is identical to x’s intentionally ψ-ing, for some ψ. But typical defenders of the view allow that x’s omission to φ can be identified with x’s ψ-ing even if x doesn’t ψ intentionally, and so x’s ψ-ing isn’t a positive action (Payton 2016, 2018; Schaffer 2012).
Rather than asking ‘What kind of thing is an omission?’, Palmer asks, ‘How should omissions be understood, metaphysically?’ (1) But it’s clear that he has the ontological question in mind. He asks whether an omission is ‘something’ or ‘nothing’ (1), invoking the dispute about whether omissions are entities, or absences in the non-serious sense. He also sets his own view in opposition to the three views just sketched (5–7), each of which is intended as an answer to the ontological question.
“[F]or every omission there will, at some level of analysis, be a non-omission that serves as the constituting base event,” (16); “a person’s omissions are fully constituted by events of which she is the subject,” (17).
The claim that every omission is ‘fully’ constituted by a positive event may seem questionable even by Palmer’s lights, since he allows for constitution chains, i.e. cases where one omission is constituted by another, which in turn is constituted by a positive event – see Palmer (forthcoming: 12–13), and §3 below. However, I take it that x and y are partial constituters of z only if they occupy the same level of a constitution chain, and work together to constitute the entity at the next highest level (17n.20). To say that an omission is fully constituted by a positive event isn’t to deny the existence of such a chain, but to say that some level of the chain is entirely occupied by a positive event.
Palmer omits the qualifier ‘partially or fully’ (3), but since he distinguishes partial and full constitution, (C1) must be qualified to concern partial constitution, full constitution, or both. The latter option seems the most natural.
As with (C1) – see previous note – Palmer’s omits the qualifier ‘partially or fully’ (3), but the qualification is a natural one.
Thanks to an anonymous referee for this suggestion. Silver (2018) defends a view of this sort.
Compare: Silver (2018: 39–42) argues that the property omitting to φ is a positive property, distinct from the property not-φ-ing. Thus, he distinguishes my omission to raise my arm from my not raising it; the latter (which is an absence, or negative state of affairs) is a result of the former (43).
Thanks to an anonymous referee for this suggestion.
You might think that the view is motivated by Palmer’s rejection of alternative views. However, while he provides arguments against the three views mentioned in §1, there are other alternatives. There’s Silver’s (2018) view, on which omissions are positive events in their own right. And Bernstein (2014) floats two views: that omissions are merely possible events; and that omissions are tripartite entities, composed of an actual event, a merely possible event, and a counterpart relation between them. (Palmer (5n.7) mentions the first Bernsteinian view, but provides no arguments against it, and doesn’t mention the second view at all.) This ‘argument from elimination’ is, at best, incomplete.
Following Parsons (2007: 203), say that x is exactly located at a region r just in case (i) x isn’t located anywhere outside of r and (ii) no sub-region of r is free of x. Clarke is clearest that the argument relies on (TL1) in his (2014: 20–21).
See Clarke (2011: 603; 2012: 133; 2014: 20).
I defend an analogous position (Payton 2018: 92–93). Although I identify negative actions with positive events, my defense could be transposed into the context of the Constitution View.
There’s another problem. My implementation of my decision not to mow the lawn is an omission to mow the lawn; to omit to mow the lawn just is, in these circumstances, to implement that decision. Either this omission is identical to the one with which we began, or it isn’t. The latter horn looks like an odd result – it’s odd to think that there are two omissions to mow the lawn – and it clutters up our ontology with no obvious gain. The former horn contradicts (C1).
Palmer writes, “however we answer this further question about what constitutes my successfully carrying out my decision, this does not in any way cast doubt on the claim that I omitted to mow the lawn over the summer by deciding not to mow it and successfully carrying out that decision” (13, emphasis in the original). He takes this to show that, contra Clarke, “there is a principled way of determining what constitutes the omission” (13, emphasis in the original). But this side-steps the original challenge, which was to determine which positive event ultimately constitutes the omission.
Palmer (3) is explicit that his account is meant to apply to both intentional and unintentional omissions.
An anonymous referee suggests an alternative reading of Clarke’s challenge. On this reading, Clarke doesn’t deny that the constituter of my omission occupies the entire three-month interval. Rather, he denies that, at every moment t in that interval, all of what my body does at t serves to constitute that proper part of my omission which occupies t. The challenge isn’t to locate the constituter of my omission at a proper sub-interval of the summer, but rather to rule out the behaviour of certain parts of my body as helping to constitute my omission.
Palmer’s view fails to answer this challenge, too. My ψ-ing, understood as above, encompasses all of what my body does over the summer. Thus, just as Palmer can’t rule out that my ψ-ing, as a whole, constitutes my summer-long omission, he can’t rule out that all of what my body does at a given time during the summer constitutes that proper part of my omission which occurs at that time. (As the reader can check, (C3) and (C4) are satisfied.).
References
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Silver, Kenneth. (2018). Omissions as events and actions. Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 4(1), 33–48.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to David Liebesman and three anonymous referees for feedback on earlier drafts. Research for this piece was funded by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
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Payton, J.D. Two Problems for the Constitution View of Omissions: A Reply to Palmer. Erkenn 87, 1447–1455 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00237-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-020-00237-0