Essentially Embodied Agency I: Actions, Causes, and Reasons

Abstract

Abstract It turns out that it is not at all easy to say what the categorical difference between an intentional arm-raising and a mere arm-rising really consists in. Now the we and us in action are conscious, intentional, motile, egocentrically-centered and spatially oriented, thermodynamically irreversible, suitably neurobiologically complex living organisms— minded animals. So our goal in this chapter and the next is to say as precisely as possible what, for minded animals, the categorical difference between intentional actions and mere bodily events really is. More specifically, this chapter explores the neurophenomenological, conceptual, and metaphysical connections between intentional actions, causes, and reasons. In Section 2.1, we spell out and criticize classical causal theories of action in a general way. But as we point out, non-causal theories of action are also unacceptable, since they implausibly substitute teleological reasons-explanations for the basic causal facts that actually bring about intentional actions. Our response to this dilemma is to develop a non-classical but still causal theory of action— what we call the Essentially Embodied Agency Theory. In Sections 3.2 to 3.5 we motivate this theory of action by focusing specifically on Davidson’s classical causal theory and then developing four fundamental worries about it.