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How Many Theories of Act Individuation Are There?

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How Many Theories of Act Individuation Are There? HOW MANY THEORIES OF ACT INDIVIDUATION ARE THERE? by Joseph W. Ulatowski A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy The University of Utah May 2008 ABSTRACT The problem of action individuation is a debate about the identity conditions of human action. The fumdamental question about action individuation is: how do we distinguish between actions? By “we,” action theorists have sought the ordinary conception of how people distinguish between actions. The aim of this dissertation is to show that discovering what ordinary intuitions about action individuation are may assist us in coming to terms with action theory. Three views of action individuation have dominated the action theory literature. Donald Davidson and G.E.M. Anscombe have argued that a number of different descriptions may refer to a single action. Alvin Goldman has argued that each description designates a distinct action. Others, e.g., Irving Thalberg and Judith Jarvis Thomson, have averred that some acts are sequences of causally related events, which include both a primitive bodily action and some of its effects. These action theorists have assumed that a simple invariant account of action individuation captures how ordinary people distinguish between actions. In my dissertation, I devised an experiment to test the action theorists’ assumption. My data show that people’s intuitions seem to depend on the valence of the consequences of the action under consideration. So, a simple invariant account is not possible. In light of the empirical results, I argue that if we seek a folk account of action individuation, then that account should be able to explain the variability that seems to be present in people’s intuitions about different cases. For Mom and Dad TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT.............................................................................................................iv INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................1 The Folk Account of Action Individuation.............................................................7 Overview of the Dissertation ............................................................................... 11 Chapter 1: Why Action Individuation Matters ..................................................... 14 Chapter 2: What is Experimental Philosophy? ..................................................... 16 Chapter 3: Defending Experimental Philosophy................................................... 17 Chapter 4: Action Individuation: The Current State of Play ................................. 20 Chapter 5: An Experimental Study of Individuating Actions................................ 22 The aims of this dissertation ................................................................................ 25 CHAPTER 1 WHY ACT INDIVIDUATION MATTERS....................................... 27 Introduction......................................................................................................... 27 The “Conventional” Motivation Story ................................................................. 28 Problems with the Conventional Motivation Story............................................... 35 The Doctrine of Double Effect and Action Individuation..................................... 40 Plans, Practical Reason, and Action Individuation ............................................... 47 The Unity of Virtue and Action Individuation...................................................... 54 Other Motivations................................................................................................ 57 Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 59 CHAPTER 2 WHAT IS EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY? ................................. 63 Introduction......................................................................................................... 63 Some Characteristics of Experimental Philosophy ............................................... 64 What are intuitions?............................................................................................. 72 Some Advantages of Experimental Philosophy.................................................... 79 CHAPTER 3 DEFENDING EXPERIMENTAL PHILOSOPHY............................. 83 Introduction......................................................................................................... 83 Some Challenges to Commonly Employed Philosophical Methods...................... 84 Kauppinen's Criticisms ........................................................................................ 96 Potential Objections to Experimental Philosophy............................................... 104 Experimental Philosophy, Folk Intuitions, and the Problem of Action Individuation .......................................................................................................................... 107 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 110 CHAPTER 4 ACT INDIVIDUATION: THE CURRENT STATE OF PLAY........ 112 Introduction....................................................................................................... 112 The Early Beginnings of the Problem of Action Individuation........................... 113 The Minimizing View ....................................................................................... 122 The Maximizing View....................................................................................... 132 Objections to the Maximizing Account.............................................................. 139 The Componential View.................................................................................... 141 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 154 CHAPTER 5 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS ......................................................... 155 Introduction....................................................................................................... 155 Some Background Information.......................................................................... 157 The Experiment................................................................................................. 162 Explanation ....................................................................................................... 165 CHAPTER 6 A FUTURE FOR ACT INDIVIDUATION? .................................... 168 Persisting Acts................................................................................................... 170 Individual Differences and Act Individuation .................................................... 173 REFERENCES...................................................................................................... 175 INTRODUCTION Recent contributions in philosophy have challenged the presumption that the philosopher’s own intuitions accurately represent ordinary people’s intuitions. These contributions have used empirical assessments to mine ordinary intuitions. The results of these empirical assessments have been surprising because ordinary intuitions have failed to correspond with philosophers’ intuitions about ordinary intuitions. Many philosophical problems find their source in intuitions,1 for example, “what is free will?”, “what is knowledge?”, or “what is intentional action?” Some philosophers, such as Edmund Gettier, use counterexamples to show how inadequate our theories of free will, knowledge, or intentional action are. For Gettier, his counterexamples had attempted to undermine theories of knowledge. His project, however, did not analyze concepts. Sometimes philosophers do not use counterexamples; instead, philosophers tend to engage in analyzing concepts (Jackson 1998). 1 I ought to mention at the outset that some philosophers deny that we should depend on intuitions. For example, John Stuart Mill, especially in his work in the epistemology of logic, argues that the reliability of intuition is itself an a posteriori question; the belief that an appeal to intuition must rest on a priori properties is mistaken. 2 Conceptual analysis has tried to resolve complex problems by breaking them down into simpler parts. For example, Jonathan Bennett writes, Typically, [conceptual analysis] equates a thought with a conjunction of thoughts which are, in a sense, its conceptual parts; and parts must be simpler than the structured whole which they compose; so the analysis resolves a complex into items that are simpler. (Bennett 1995, 3f.) Conceptual analysis addresses something reasonably close to our ordinary conception of some philosophically important topic (Jackson 1998, Gibbard 1990, Lewis 1972). By “our ordinary conception,” these conceptual analysts mean what any ordinary person off the street would say. If the goal is to analyze folk concepts, one might expect philosophers to ask people for their opinions. But conceptual analysts claim that such polls are largely unnecessary. The philosophy of action, or action theory, depends on intuitions. Just as in other areas of philosophical research, action theorists have assumed that they need not ask people for their intuitions.2 As a result, they believe that their own intuitions are sufficient to systematize ordinary intuitions about action. One aim of this project is to question
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