Something must be done!

'All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.' Blaise Pascal

I have often wondered if Man (in the gender-neutral sense of the word) has a nature. To ask this question does risk being massively general, not to mention seeing Man as a fixed entity, rather than an evolving entity. It is also a question running the risk of generalizing ones own cultural heritage (or brain-spamming) across a vastly varied globe.

I do, however, think Man has a nature. And that nature is 'to do things'. It sounds a bit obvious and general - and you might accuse this vague answer of being meaningless. Of course Man has to do things! Yet I am not saying 'to do things' as a massively broad prophecy. I am in fact saying that Man would rather do something over nothing. Given a choice between grief and nothing, Man would choose grief; it agonises Man less than boredom.

Man is a creature of motion, never able to stay still without a powerful reason to do so. The essence of Man is therefore action. Even stupid or 'evil' action will suffice over inaction. In fact, what does Man call more evil than inaction? (He may also call inaction anti-social or cowardly!)

The gaps in Man's endless movement - which we call holi-days, are windows set into his tightly packed schedule. And those holi-days are not spent in rest, but grief! If the sabbatical were to be truly a time of rest, Man would do nothing with them, rather than something. Sadly for Man, he is obliged, even coerced, into going on holi-days in an attempt to prove to the world that he is enjoying himself.

For Man is a social animal, however much he may try and deny it and call himself an individualist. In short, he cares about what other people have, what other people think he has, what other people think he should do, what other people think he thinks about what they think he should do, and so forth.

Preferably, Man would like to have more than his fellow specimen one or two notches up or down on the 'scales of success'. Man is the great comparer, the great envier. He is pushed and pulled into motion by his petty dreams; dreams of quantity over quality. Even though this appalling state of affairs is so dismal and unsatisfying (even for the winners), Man would rather clutch onto his second-rate existence then pause for thought. For to truly think about the soiled world he lives in is to destroy it utterly.

But why? What drives Man on in the face of such obvious ignorance, depravity and simple stupidity?

The simple answer is evolution. We have not evolved to be thinkers - we have evolved to perform immediately pressing linear tasks. But this is not to reduce the whole of Man (the story-teller, the inventor, the artist) to chemical reactions and genes. That would be silly, Man is not his genes.

However, part of Man is his physical body and this is forever an influence upon his character, producing in him that which feels intuitively right without explanation. For instance, why should Man fornicate and procreate? Because it feels right to do so.

Nature is a circular entity. Try asking it question: Why exist? That I might exist. Why grow? So that I may grow. Why reproduce? That my offspring may reproduce. Why adapt? That I might become more adaptable to my environment. Unsatisfying answers to the philosopher!

Observing the white moss growing on the windowsill, one colony has dominated more of the sill than its fellows. In the context of the moss, that larger moss is something of an expansionist empire! But why are they growing? That they may grow. There is no reason beyond this and nor do they need a greater reason to continue their quest for mastery of the window-sill. To the outside observer, it seems utterly futile, but try telling that to the moss (or by analogy, anyone who thinks the purpose of life is just to procreate and seek nutrients)!

Fortunately, we homo sapiens sapiens have been 'blessed' to be more than a colony of moss, or a fruit fly, or a tiger, or what have you. We have the power of language, the power to create many great things - literature and mathematics and of course philosophy! And we have the creativity to dream of timeless scapes and create wonderful works of art. And we can invent incredible new devices that alleviate the suffering imposed upon us by nature. And we can reach the stars.

We have imagination.

Our ability to imagine the perfection of affairs in the world (in this world) creates for us a virtuous character to strive for. This is the boon of our imagination. Many a philosopher has posited worlds which exist outside of space-time where perfection exists. Many a religion has promised bliss and eternal salvation in this life or the next. I do not believe either of these to be true. They are perfections which exist only in our minds, as opposed to the actual world confronting us. Still, they are another means of keeping us moving.

These perfect dreams are what grant us purpose, and allow us to be virtuous; for virtue can only exist when there is an end purpose toward which we may move. Far from making us idle utopian dreamers, this perfection is the yardstick against which we can compare our underachieving selves.

We do have a purpose, and that is to glorify our creativity, our intellect and our spirituality (self-awareness) over our evolutionary commands. When something feels right without explanation, it is nature's voice. Love, hatred, visceral emotion, sensual pleasure, this is the voice of nature. When something is dreamed as in art, or reasoned as in philosophy, or observed as in scientific endeavour, it is the creation of Man, built on the foundation of his so lofty mind. It is of great value. It can take us beyond adaptation to our environment into the realm of what I call the imperfect balance of Man; the best we can possibly do. Fiction and art is often a direct representation of this striving, a spiritual journey without which life would be quite unbearable.

For to think that we have no cause greater than to procreate, seek worldly power and enjoy physical pleasure is to set the bar extremely low, and invite all sorts of horrid wars, greed, hedonism, pretense, madness and tribalism into the 'daily life' of our species.

To conclude, I would fain return to the beginning of this article. We must allow our wretchedness to fail and die, rather than maintaining it for the sake of something to do. For this we must recognise that sometimes, just sometimes, doing nothing is better than doing something.

St. Zagarus

A primary reason for an action is its cause

The nature of action is something that many modern philosophers have written about. In this piece, I’ll be stating, and then critically discussing Donald Davidson’s conclusion that a ‘primary reason for an action is its cause.’ I’ll then be critiquing one problematic area of Davidson’s work which affects his conclusion; reason. At the end of the piece, I’ll be stating my own view as to how valid the claim a ‘primary reason for an action is its cause’ seems to be.

Davidson’s theory of action

Donald Davidson argues in his piece ‘Action, Reasons and Causes’ that a ‘primary reason for an action is its cause.’ To support this conclusion he finds that actions are a specific subset of events, and that our actions can be described as bodily movements. In the next three parts, I shall establish how Davidson came to these both aforementioned points by first establishing how he comes to find that a ‘primary reason for an action is its cause.’

When an agent acts, it leads others to assume that the agent had reason(s) for their actions. Their actions cannot be explained by saying that it was just the actions themselves that attracted the agent. We can only explain what it was about the action that interested the agent. He comes to this conclusion by supporting the common sense notion that reason rationalises the action. Whenever an action takes place, there must be a reason for it. Therefore, reason must be characterised as:

‘(a) having some sort of pro-attitude toward actions of a certain kind and,

(b) believing that his action is of that kind.’

The reason why (a) is necessary, is because an individual must have a desire – no matter how big or small - to act. But, a desire to act, isn’t enough conviction that an act is worth pursuing. Davidson gives the example that ‘a man may all his life have a yen to drink a can of paint’ without the belief that such a thing is worth doing. This is why (b) is necessary; a pro-attitude towards an action, and a belief that that action should be performed, are two separate necessary characterisations of reason. Therefore, both (a) and (b) are necessary to make up the primary reason why ‘the agent performed the action.’ This makes a primary reason a mental event that causes other events. Without them, we would have no causal connection for an agent’s actions.

Davidson believes that actions are a subset of events, in the sense that they are intentionally performed under a description. For instance, an individual may have a ‘pro-attitude’ towards switching on the light, and the ‘belief’ that switching on the light will turn it on, but by giving this reason, we haven’t rationalised that by flipping the switch, the room may be illuminated, or that a burglar would be alerted. The only thing the individual has rationalized is the fact that by flipping the switch, the light would turn on. Davidson adds a condition to his argument in order to ensure that actions are a subset of events, but only the ones that are intentional under some description:

‘C1. R is a primary reason why an agent performed the action A, under the description d, only if R consists of a pro attitude of the agent towards actions with a certain property, and a belief of the agent that A, under the description d, has that property.’

With this condition in place, the actions that have been rationalized by the individual, are the only ones that correlate to the event. ‘I flipped the switch’ is a subset of the event ‘I caused the flip to switch.’ Any action that lies outside out the subset is one that the agent has not rationalized. There are some philosophers that have argued that under Davidson’s theory of action, actions are in fact the same as events. I shall look at these arguments later in the essay.

Throughout 'Actions, Reasons and Causes’, the actions seem to be described as having direct bodily movements, ‘flipping the light switch,’ ‘raising ones arm’ etc. This is because our direct actions in the world begin through a form of bodily movement. There are philosophers that have been critical of Davidson’s conception of bodily movements. I shall look at these arguments later in the essay.

Critique of reason

A criticism Davidson faces with his theory of action, is that reasons cannot be causes. Causation is generally defined as ‘a relation between two events.’ Event ‘A’ caused event ‘B.’ Davidson establishes that a primary reason consists of ‘(a) a pro-attitude’ (or desire) and ‘(b) a related belief.’ But these desires and beliefs are not events. They are mental states individuals have. Therefore a primary reason consists of an aggregate of an agent’s mental states. An agent may have the pro-attitude towards having ‘a drink of water’ and a belief that having ‘a drink of water' is a manner of ‘quenching their thirst,’ but these mental states alone don’t cause the event that is ‘drinking water.’ This leads to the conclusion that reasons cannot be causes of actions because reasons are not events, but an aggregate of mental states.

Also, Davidson’s logical distinctions do not seem to be actual distinctions at all. Every cause must have a logically distinct effect. The cause that is ‘drinking water’ can have the logically distinct effect that is ‘quenching ones thirst.’ However, with Davidson’s theory of action, the cause - reason - and the effect – action – don’t have this distinction. A primary reason is defined by Davidson as ‘(a) having a pro-attitude’ and ‘(b) a related belief,’ while actions are defined as things that are rationally explained by a primary reason. No logical differentiation lies between actions and reasons under Davidson’s definition, so it isn’t logically supposable that reasons cause actions.

By stating that ‘a primary reason for an action is its cause’, Davidson seems it be employing a universal psychological law. There are no universal psychological laws that relate to or express basic laws of reasoning. To say that the pro-attitude towards ‘having a drink of water’, and a belief that doing so is a manner of ‘quenching ones thirst’, is a primary reason for the act that is ‘drinking water’, would mean that that primary reason is a psychological cause for an action. This is problematic because we cannot prove this to be empirically true by peering into the minds of individuals and seeing the causal connection between reason and the act. This leads me to the conclusion that reasons cannot be causes because reason is not a universal psychological law for actions.

The previous point on how we are unable to find out the causal connection between reason and the act by peering into an individual’s mind brings me to another criticism, which is that having knowledge of the reasons for an action cannot be knowledge of the actual causes. Knowledge of the causal connection would be based on evidence which could be observed or heard or gathered by the senses in another way. For instance, we wouldn’t know that an individual would have a pro-attitude towards ‘having a drink of water’ and a belief that that doing so would be a manner of ‘quenching their thirst.’ This is their own private reasoning as to why they wanted to drink water, which we would never know. If an individual had been walking through the desert and were incredibly thirsty and had a drink of water, we could empirically come to the causal connection that they had been walking through the desert and were incredibly thirsty, therefore they had a drink of water. This leads me to the conclusion that having knowledge of the reasons for an action cannot be knowledge of the actual causes.

Reason may have caused an action, but the action may have not been done for that particular reason. This argument can be made a lot clearer if we look at a deviant causal chain. These chains that show that we have no explanation for the ‘because’ of acting for a reason:

1. A man desires to inherit a fortune
2. He believes that if he shoots his dad, he will then inherit a fortune, and so
3. This belief and desire makes him so anxious and nervous, that he pulls the trigger and kills his dad. We come to the conclusion that he pulled the trigger because he wanted to inherit a fortune.

This is known as an internal deviant causal claim, as the man shot his father in a state of nervousness rather than with the intent that is supported by his beliefs and desires. An external deviant causal claim would be like the one put forward by Roderick Chisholm of the driver who kills his uncle, but without the intent that is supported by his beliefs and desires; to inherit a fortune. The driver is agitated by his beliefs and desires, which causes him to run over a pedestrian who happened to be his uncle. Here, we would come to the conclusion that ‘the nephew killed the uncle in order to inherit the fortune.’ With both internal and external deviances, we find that the action was not done for the reasons put forward by the individuals, and yet the acts still took place. This is problematic with Davidson’s theory of action because we wouldn’t know if an act was done because of a primary reason, or because of an internal, or external deviance.

Conclusion

Davidson’s idea that ‘a primary reason for an action is its cause,’ seems to hold well when we talk about an individual’s actions. We can give reasons as to why we acted in a certain way. In this sense Davidson’s theory is very useful, but this is still only to a certain degree. His theory has many problems when we actually look at what is actually causing what. There are no psychological laws that cause actions, which is problematic for Davidson since all primary reasons are formed in the mind.

In conclusion it seems that Davidson’s conclusion that ‘a primary reason for an action is its cause,’ has a number of deep philosophical problems. But when it comes to talking about an individuals actions, Davidson’s theory gives a very good account on what we say when we talk about them.

Krishan Vadher