display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
11 ideas
| 20045 | Acting for a reason is a combination of a pro attitude, and a belief that the action is appropriate [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Whenever someone does something for a reason he can be characterised as (a) having some sort of pro attitude towards action of a certain kind, and (b) believing (or knowing, perceiving, noticing, remembering) that his action is of that kind. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963], p.3-4), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 3 'The belief-' | |
| A reaction: This is the earlier Davidson roughly endorsing the traditional belief-desire account of action. He is giving a reductive account of reasons. Deciding reasons were not reducible may have led him to property dualism. |
| 6384 | The notion of cause is essential to acting for reasons, intentions, agency, akrasia, and free will [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: My thesis is that the ordinary notion of cause is essential to understanding what it is to act with a reason, to have an intention to act, to be an agent, to act counter to one's own best judgement, or to act freely. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xi) | |
| A reaction: I cautiously agree, particularly with idea that causation is essential to acting as an agent. Since I believe 'free will' to be a complete delusion, that part of his thesis doesn't interest me. The hard part is understanding acting for a reason. |
| 3395 | Davidson claims that what causes an action is the reason for doing it [Davidson, by Kim] |
| Full Idea: Davidson defends the simple thesis that the reason for which an action is done is the one that causes it, …which means that agency is possible only if mental causation is possible. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.127 |
| 23734 | The best explanation of reasons as purposes for actions is that they are causal [Davidson, by Smith,M] |
| Full Idea: Davidson argues that the best interpretation of the teleological character of reason explanations is an intepretation in causal terms. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Michael Smith - The Moral Problem 4.4 | |
| A reaction: That is, this is the explanation of someone doing something 'because' they have this reason (rather than happening to have a reason). Smith observes that other mental states (such as beliefs) may also have this causal power. |
| 23737 | Reasons can give purposes to actions, without actually causing them [Smith,M on Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Only the Humean theory is able to make sense of reason explanation as a species of teleological explanation, and one may accept that reason explanations are teleological without accepting that they are causal. | |
| From: comment on Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Michael Smith - The Moral Problem 4.6 | |
| A reaction: That is, reasons can give a purpose to an action, and thereby motivate it, without actually causing it. I agree with Smith. I certainly don't (usually, at least) experience reasons as directly producing my actions. Hume says desires are needed. |
| 20075 | Early Davidson says intentional action is caused by reasons [Davidson, by Stout,R] |
| Full Idea: In Davidson's earlier approach, intentional action requires causation by reasons. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by Rowland Stout - Action 8 'Weakness' | |
| A reaction: A very Kantian idea, and one that seems to bestow causal powers on something which I take to be highly abstract. Thus Davidson was wrong (but in a nice way). |
| 6664 | Reasons must be causes when agents act 'for' reasons [Davidson, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: It can be argued (by Davidson) that far from it being the case that reasons for and causes of action are quite distinct, reasons must be causes when agents act 'for' reasons. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Action, Reasons and Causes [1963]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Lowe argues against this view. The rival views to Davidson would be either that reasons are no more than desires-plus-beliefs in disguise, or that the will causes actions, and strong reasons carry a great weight with the will. I like the will. |
| 19698 | Deviant causal chain: a reason causes an action, but isn't the reason for which it was performed [Davidson, by Neta] |
| Full Idea: A 'deviant causal chain' is when an agent has a reason for performing an action, and for the reason to cause the performance, without that being the reason for which the agent performed it. | |
| From: report of Donald Davidson (Freedom to Act [1973]) by Ram Neta - The Basing Relation II | |
| A reaction: Davidson's thesis is that 'reasons are causes'. This was a problem he faced. I think this discussion is now obscured by the complex and multi-layered account of action which is emerging from neuroscience. |
| 9284 | Reasons are 'internal' if they give a person a motive to act, but 'external' otherwise [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: Someone has 'internal reasons' to act when the person has some motive which will be served or furthered by the action; if this turns out not to be so, the reason is false. Reasons are 'external' when there is no such condition. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Internal and External Reasons [1980], p.101) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] An external example given is a family tradition of joining the army, if the person doesn't want to. Williams says (p.111) external reason statements are actually false, and a misapplication of the concept of a 'reason to act'. See Idea 8815. |
| 2174 | Responsibility involves cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: The four elements of any conception of responsibility are cause, intention, state of mind, and response after the event. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Shame and Necessity [1993], III - p.53) |
| 22455 | Many ethical theories neglect the power of regretting the ought not acted upon [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: It is a fundamental criticism of many ethical theories that their accounts of moral conflict and its resolution do not do justice to the facts of regret...: basically because they eliminate from the scene the ought that is not acted upon. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Ethical consistency [1965], p.175), quoted by Philippa Foot - Moral Realism and Moral Dilemma p.39 | |
| A reaction: [p.175 in Problems of the Self] Williams seems to have initiated this idea. It doesn't matter much for Kantians and Utilitarians (any more than a wrong answer in maths), but it matters if character is the focus. The virtuous have regrets. |