The Things We Do and Why We Do Them Also by Constantine Sandis

The Things We Do and Why We Do Them Also by Constantine Sandis A COMPANION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF ACTION (edited with Timothy O’Connor) HEGEL ON ACTION (edited with Arto Laitinen) HUMAN NATURE (edited with Mark Cain) NEW ESSAYS ON THE EXPLANATION OF ACTION (edited) The Things We Do and Why We Do Them Constantine Sandis Reader in Philosophy, Oxford Brookes University, UK © Constantine Sandis 2012 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2012 978-0-230-52212-1 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2012 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-35679-9 ISBN 978-0-230-36010-5 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/9780230360105 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 Αφιερωμένο στους γονείς μου Contents in Brief List of Illustrations viii Preface ix Acknowledgements xi Analytical Table of Contents xv List of Conflating Views to be Avoided xviii 1 Objects and Objectives of Action Explanation 1 2 Conflation in Action 24 3 What Makes an Action Explanation Proper? 41 4 The Operation of Reasons 61 5 Nested Explanations 82 6 The Structure of Agential Explanation 104 7 Spheres of Explanation 121 Appendix I – The Ontology of Action 142 Appendix II – Thought and Motive in Historiography 155 Notes 169 Bibliography 193 Index 215 vii Illustrations Tables 3.1 Causalism v. anti-causalism 47 4.1 Reasons for and against AV 71 4.2 Psychologism v. anti-psychologism 80 4.3 Humeanism v. anti-Humeanism 80 Figures 7.1 Moving my body 130 7.2 Turning my head 133 7.3 Raising my arm 138 7.4 Indicating stimuli 139 viii Preface Caveat lector: this book does not offer any overarching explanations as to why we behave as we do. Such books are a dime a dozen: biologists, economists, historians, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and other theorists bombard us constantly with competing conjectures regarding the ‘true’ or ‘real’ reasons that lie behind our actions. In direct opposition to this trend, I shall be arguing that there is no one thing called ‘action’ or ‘behaviour’ which all action explanation aims at. What I offer, then, is not a theory of why we do the things we do, but an account of why all such theories are bound to fail. More positively, I present an investigation of the relationship between various theories of action explanation and our everyday accounts which yields some sur- prising results concerning human nature. I proceed by pointing out various interrelated conflations shared by many theorists: between the things we do and the events of our doing them, between the reasons for which we act and the underlying factors which render us sensitive to them, between the motivation of action and its causal production, and so on (a list is provided on pp. xviii–xix). Such commonly held assumptions, I suggest, are collectively responsi- ble for the rise of numerous irresolvable disputes across a range of disci- plines. Once this is revealed, many questions which have long served to characterise intractable debates relating to the nature of action and its explanation begin to evaporate. The theory of action explanation may be roughly divided into four parts whose boundaries and inter-dependencies are both blurred and contested: (i) meta-theoretical issues relating to ontology, meaning, and methodology; (ii) theories of why it is that we act as we do (e.g. Homeric, Humean, Nietzschean, Freudian, or Milgramian); (iii) practical applica- tions of the aforementioned theories (e.g. in marketing, politics, psy- chotherapy and so on); and (iv) a philosophical psychology which cuts across the first three fields of enquiry, just as the study of moral psychology cuts across that of meta-, normative, and practical ethics. This book is about theories of human action and its explanation. It examines (i) with the further aim of casting doubt upon various accounts relating to both (ii) and (iii), and reaching a better understanding of how to best go about developing (iv). ix x Preface In the first chapter, I distinguish between a plurality of things that may all legitimately be called action and/or behaviour and, similarly, numerous different things that we may wish to explain in relation to them – viz. different objects of action explanation. Chapter 2 presents some basic conflations that arise from the failures to make the sorts of distinctions highlighted in the previous chapter, followed by an explo- ration of their recent philosophical ancestry. Chapters 3–5 highlight further conflations whilst also advocating the theoretical benefits of abandoning them all. Chapter 3 does this in relation to debates between causalists and rationalists on how to best explain individual and social action; Chapter 4 turns to philosophical debates surrounding the nature of reasons and motivation; and Chapter 5 examines psychological theories that purport to uncover the ‘real’ reasons for our actions. The sixth chapter investigates the relation between the considerations we act upon and the explanatory statements that cite them. In the seventh, final, chapter I introduce some constraints between different spheres of action explanation previously delineated, with the further aim of clear- ing the ground required for collaborative cross-disciplinary progress. Acknowledgements I began working on the material for this book over a decade ago. Largely to blame for its slow progress are those commentators on earlier ver- sions (including abandoned parts) who gave me good reason to exten- sively revise both my thoughts and their expression. I am thankful to all of them for making this a better book than it otherwise would have been. My greatest debt is to Jonathan Dancy, who supervised the PhD thesis which begat the general argument of this volume. I do not know whether any sentence from that work bar its title has survived intact, but Jonathan’s voice remains lodged in my head, reminding me that there is no proposi- tion that cannot be rendered true by appending ‘in a sense’ to it. I am also hugely grateful to my thesis examiners, Michael Smith and Galen Strawson, for extremely sound advice and generous encouragement. Drafts of various chapters were also read and commented upon at various stages by David Backhurst, Mark Bevir, David Charles, David Dolby, Giuseppina D’Oro, Fred Dretske, Geoffrey Ferrari, Hanjo Glock, Michael Lacewing, Maggie Little, Jack Marr, and Karsten Stueber. I thank them all for their invaluable advice. David Dolby, in particular, sent frequent feedback on numerous drafts and has saved me from more errors than I would care to point out. Complete lists of those who, over the years, made helpful suggestions at conferences, seminars, coffee shops, or bars are rarely possible if ever welcome, but it would be callous not to mention Maria Alvarez, Nafsika Athanassoulis, Annette Baier, Jon Bishop, Reid Blackman, Emma Borg, Lisa Bortolotti, Stephen Boulter, Thom Brooks, John Broome, Gary Browning, Stephen Butterfill, Mark Cain, Beverley Clack, John Cottingham, Josep Corbi, Max de Gaynesford, Katerina Deligiorgi, Alice Drewery, Douglas Farland, Stephen Finley, Keith Frankish, John Glasbrook, Simon Glendinning, Rémi Clot-Goudard, Phil Goff, Martin Groves, Naomi Goulder, Peter Hacker, Natalia Waights Hickman, David Hillel-Ruben, Perry Hinton, Jeppe Høj, Brad Hooker, Stephen Houlgate, Rosalind Hursthouse, Kent Hurtig, Dan Hutto, John Hyman, Emma Jay, Tom Joyce, Mahmoud Kassem, Leonard Kahn, Javier Kalhat, Peter Kail, Nikos Kakalis, Simon Kirchin, Joshua Knobe, Arto Laitinen, Sören Landkildehus, Gerald Lang, Neil Levy, Andreas Lind, Bertram Malle, Erasmus Mayr, John McDowell, Al Mele, Lije Millgram, Alan Monahan, xi xii Acknowledgements Marta Moreno, Carlos Moya, Luke Mulhall, Dan O’ Brien, Lilian O’ Brien, David Oderberg, Francesco Orsi, Catherine Osborne, Charlie Pelling, Charles Pigden, Christian Piller, Tom Pink, Bill Pollard, Josep Lluis Prades, John Preston, Anthony Price, Michael Proudfoot, Stathis Psillos, Chris Pulman, Andrew Reisner, Sabine Roeser, Valerio Salvi, Elizabeth Sandis, Severin Schroeder, Nik Shackel, John Shand, Ali Sharukhi, Maureen Sie, William Sin, Gianfranco Soldati, Ralph Stoecker, Tom Stoneham, Fred Stoutland, Philip Stratton-Lake, Bart Streumer, Julia Tanney, Nassim Taleb, Roger Teichmann (who taught me by example that the correct response to many a philosophical claim is ‘if you like’), Kevin Timpe, Teemu Toppinen, Tom Tyler, Sam Vice, Robert Vinten, Ken Westphal, Andrew Williams, André Wunder, and Anna C.

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