Human Agency

Abstract

As Roderick Chisholm had remarked, the classical formulation of the view that desires and beliefs are causes of human action is due to C. J. Ducasse.¹ However, soon after he had carefully formulated his position, a reaction against any causal analysis of action set in under the influence of the later Wittgenstein, Ryle, and Austin. According to the adherents of this new philosophy of mind, it is a simple category mistake to apply the concept of cause to human action. Countless articles and books later, the tide began to turn and it became respectable once again to hold a position closely akin to Ducasse’s. It is well known that one force helpful in turning the tide was Donald Davidson’s justifiably esteemed paper “Actions, Reasons, and Causes.”² What is less well known is that Ducasse himself in his later publications and in correspondence with Richard Taylor ably defended his view against contemporary criticisms and effectively attacked, in turn, the assumptions from which they emanate. Ducasse, then, not only elegantly formulated the classical view of volitions as causes but also contributed arguments that are useful in its current rehabilitation. The point of this chapter is to articulate these arguments and, in hope of further rehabilitation, to strengthen and extend them.