Actions and Bodily Movements

Abstract

I want to return now to the view of what a person is, which I mentioned at the beginning of the previous chapter, in which a person is identified with his body. If this alternative is adopted, actions are likely to be thought of as movements of human bodies, i.e., bodily movements. Some bodily movements, however, are the direct result of external causes; the example given in Chapter I was the movement of Brutus’ arm caused by a rock falling from a cliff. And presumably such movements would not count as actions.