ENGLISH

Action and Responsibility

By Andrew Sneddon

Book information

Year
2005
ISBN
9781402039829, 9781402039966, 1402039964
Language
english
Format
PDF
Filesize
668 kB (683952 bytes)
Series
Library of Ethics and Applied Philosophy
Edition
1
Pages
200\200
Scanned
yes
Time added
2011-06-04 13:46:07

Description

What makes an event count as an action? Typical answers appeal to the way in which the event was produced: e.g., perhaps an arm movement is an action when caused by mental states (in particular ways), but not when caused in other ways. Andrew Sneddon argues that this type of answer, which he calls "productionism", is methodologically and substantially mistaken. In particular, productionist answers to this question tend to be either individualistic or foundationalist, or both, without explicit defence. Instead, Sneddon offers an externalist, anti-foundationalist account of what makes an event count as an action, which he calls neo-ascriptivism, after the work of H.L.A. Hart. Specifically, Sneddon argues that our practices of attributing moral responsibility to each other are at least partly constitutive of events as actions.

Similar books