Philosophical arguments

The course aims to equip students with the conceptual tools needed to engage critically with contemporary debates in action theory. It offers a systematic exploration of fundamental questions about human agency such as: What does it mean to act? How do intentions relate to what we do? How can actions be explained, and in what sense can they be evaluated morally?

We begin with the basic question of what constitutes an action, distinguishing actions from mere bodily movements or passive events. Drawing on the foundational texts of Donald Davidson and Elizabeth Anscombe, we examine the criteria by which something counts as an action, and whether agency requires consciousness, voluntariness, or rationality.

We address the central role of intention in distinguishing actions from accidents. We consider various accounts of intention—intention-in-action and future-directed intention—and explore how intention structures explanation of action. We address the question of how actions are explained, contrasting reasons-explanations with purely causal or mechanistic accounts.. We also investigate the nature of practical reasoning and the distinction between internalist and externalist accounts of motivation. In the final segment of the course, we shift from descriptive to normative questions and consider the moral evaluation of actions. What is the relationship between an agent's intentions and the moral permissibility or blameworthiness of their actions? Can an action be wrong even if done for the right reasons, or vice versa? This part of the course will engage with debates about the moral significance of intention, the doctrine of double effect, and distinctions between doing and allowing, intending and foreseeing, and acting and omitting.