Degree in a Book: Philosophy by Peter Gibson

Author:Peter Gibson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Philosophy
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing
Published: 2018-07-26T14:35:14+00:00

Willed action

Traditional accounts of actions usually say that they originate in the will. The simplest version of this is volitionism, which says that there is nothing more to an action than the act of will involved, but this seems wrong because it leaves out bodily movements.

Volitionism ► action = the act of will

Willing to walk is not the same as walking. It is even suggested that the will has its own causal powers (‘agent causation’), which have a unique independence of action. The biggest challenges to this say either that there is no such thing as the will (because introspection reveals nothing like it), or that we are mistaking the intellect or the last desire before action (whichever one does the job) for a distinct mental entity. That is not the end of the discussion, though, because modern neuroscience gives some support for a central controller of thought and action, for which ‘the will’ is the best name. When all the intentions, reasons and desires have been lined up, there still needs to be a starting gun to get the action going; actually doing it needs an initiator.

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