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:
- A man desires to inherit a fortune
- He believes that if he shoots his dad, he will then inherit a fortune, and so
- 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
