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I’m just sitting around doing nothing: on exercising intentional agency in omitting to act

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Abstract

In some recent work on omissions, it has been argued that the causal theory of action cannot account for how agency is exercised in intentionally omitting to act in the same way it explains how agency is exercised in intentional action. Thus, causalism appears to provide us with an incomplete picture of intentional agency. I argue that causalists should distinguish causalism as a general theory of intentional agency from causalism as a theory of intentional action. Specifically, I argue that, while intentional actions may best be understood as the causal products or outcomes of causings, we should identify exercises of intentional agency with causal processes. With a causalist account of intentional agency sketched, I respond to the challenge to causalism from omissions. I argue that when an agent intentionally omits there is a causal process that has a zero-sum outcome. But the causal process is sufficient to make it true that the agent exercises intentional agency in intentionally omitting.

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Notes

  1. In the remainder of this paper, I will simply use “causalism” to refer to the causal theory of action and refer to proponents of the causal theory of action as “causalists.”

  2. See, e.g., Aguilar and Buckareff (2015) and Dretske (1999).

  3. Readers familiar with Steward (2012) and Clancy (2013) will recognize that I am ignoring Steward’s distinction between weak and strong accounts of settling. Moreover, they will notice that I am endorsing a causalist version of a view that approximates the stronger compatibilist account of settling that Clancy defends. For reasons I cannot explore here, I think that the strong incompatibilist account Steward defends, contra what Steward contends, is consistent with causalism. But taking up that task is something best done in another paper.

  4. Thanks to a referee for this journal for urging me to give a positive account of what is meant by ‘exercising agency’ in this paper.

  5. While there are differences, standard defenses of causalism, e.g., Bishop (1989), Brand (1984) and Mele (1992, 2003), share these features in common. Some do not afford intentions a central role. See, for instance, Smith (2010, 2012).

  6. See Davidson (1973) for a standard statement of the problem.

  7. If Stout (2006) is right, then the general strategy he employs, which relies on a shift away from event-causation to a metaphysics of causation on which actions are part of a causal process involving the manifestation of an agent’s relevant dispositions, can provide us with the tools we need to address the problem of causal deviance. Hyman (2015) defends a similar approach. While there are differences, my own preferred way of thinking about causation in agency is similar to Stout’s and Hyman’s.

  8. Arguably, while he does not explicitly state it as an objection from omissions, Frankfurt (1978) offered an argument from omissions. Specifically, there is his example of guiding agency when sitting still in a car that is moving down a hill while being satisfied with its speed and direction (1978, p. 160). It is a case of agency that involves an absence of activity and an absence of causal antecedents. For a reply to Frankfurt, see Mele (1997). See Zhu (2004) for a reply to Mele. Mele and Zhu discuss the problem as the problem of “passive action,” but Frankfurt’s example has the characteristics of what I describe below as basic omissions. For more recent, directed criticisms of causalism that explicitly take up the problem of omissions, see Hornsby (2004, 2010) and Sartorio (2010a, b).

  9. For reasons articulated by Dowe (2001, 2004) and Martin (1996), I assume that omissions are neither causally produced nor are they genuine causes.

  10. For helpful taxonomies of ways of omitting and how omissions relate to other phenomena such as refrainings, see Bach (2009) and Clarke (2012).

  11. Thomson (2003) discusses this kind of case as one of causing an omission.

  12. I am assuming a Single-Phenomenon View (see Brand 1984) of intentional behavior (including omissions) and not a Simple-View (see McCann 1986). According to the former, some behavior, B, is intentional so long as B lies within the motivational potential of some intention of an agent. According to the Simple-View, B is intentional only if the agent intended to B.

  13. Thanks to Daniel Telech for raising this challenge in his comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

  14. Thanks to Santiago Amaya for suggesting that I respond to the worry that there may be no basic omissions.

  15. Thanks to a referee for this journal for urging me to clarify some of the details of Sartorio’s account I had left underspecified in a previous draft of this paper.

  16. Shepherd (2014) does distinguish his account from Clarke (2010a, b). For my purposes, I am most interested in the similarities between Clarke’s most recent view (Clarke 2014) and Shepherd’s position. Thanks to a referee for this journal for flagging the differences between the earlier views of Clarke that Shepherd criticizes.

  17. There are similarities here between what Clarke and Shepherd propose and Frankfurt’s account of the agent in a car who is sensitive to changes and poised to intervene in how the car is moving or its trajectory. But there is an important difference: Clarke and Shepherd tell an explicitly causal story of the process while Frankfurt’s is explicitly non-causal. Thanks to a referee for this journal for pointing out the similarities.

  18. Thanks to Santiago Amaya for pointing this out to me.

  19. Thanks to Santiago Amaya for pointing out this problem with Clarke and Shepherd’s proposals.

  20. For a discussion of this distinction, see Buckareff (2007) and Clarke (2003, p. 25). Proponents of the component view include Dretske (1988, 1992), Pacherie (2008), Searle (1983), and Thalberg (1977). Brand (1984), Davidson (1963), and Goldman (1970) all endorse the product view. Mele (1992) is officially neutral and Bishop (1989) can be read as endorsing either view at times.

  21. The position on agency I am taking here is influenced by the work of Stout (2002, 2007) on intentional action. In particular, Stout and I both emphasize processes involving manifesting causal powers of agents. For the account of the metaphysics of causation I sketch here, I am particularly indebted to the work of Chakravartty (2007), Heil (2003, 2012), Ingthorsson (2002), Molnar (2003), Martin (2007), and, especially, Mumford and Anjum 2011.

  22. See Heil (2003, 2012), Martin (1997) and (2007), and Mumford (1998).

  23. Thanks to a referee for this journal for helpful comments that I believe have resulted in an improved statement of the basic features of CTAg.

  24. Further discussion of CTAg and its connection to guiding agency is developed in another paper by Jesús H. Aguilar and me (ms.).

  25. For the following account of causal explanation, I am indebted to Dowe (2001) and Jacobs (2010).

  26. Thanks to Daniel Telech for pushing me to address this worry explicitly.

  27. Thanks to Santiago Amaya for his help in formulating my response to this challenge.

  28. Thanks to Sharon Rosen for this objection.

  29. See Clarke (2010a) and Shepherd (2014) for discussion of such cases. Thanks to a referee for this journal for drawing my attention to the fact that such cases do not necessarily pose a problem for the causalist.

  30. Thanks to Michael Robinson for suggesting that this case may just be a case of nonintentional agency. For more on nonintentional agency, see Mele and Moser (1994).

  31. Thanks to Santiago Amaya for suggesting that this may be case of a deviant omission.

  32. An earlier version of this paper was read at the 2014 meeting of the Central States Philosophical Association at Northwestern University; the 2015 Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Saint Louis, Missouri; and in a colloquium at Albion College. Thanks to my commentators at the meetings, Daniel Telech and Carolina Sartorio for helpful comments. Additional thanks are due to the members of the audience each time I presented the paper, especially Luca Ferrero, Kim Frost, Daniel Mittag, Michael Robinson, and Sharon Rosen. Finally, thanks to Santiago Amaya, Rebekah Rice, Neil Williams, and two referees for this journal for their incisive feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. Any omission on my part to acknowledge others who aided me in writing and editing this paper is unintentional.

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  1. Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, NY, 12601, USA

    Andrei A. Buckareff

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Buckareff, A.A. I’m just sitting around doing nothing: on exercising intentional agency in omitting to act. Synthese 195, 4617–4635 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-017-1424-x

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