Dynamics in Action Intentional Behavior as a Complex System

What is the difference between a wink and a blink? The answer is important not only to philosophers of mind, for significant moral and legal consequences rest on the distinction between voluntary and involuntary behavior. However, "action theory"-the branch of philosophy that has traditionally articulated the boundaries between action and non-action, and between voluntary and involuntary behavior-has been unable to account for the difference. Alicia Juarrero argues that a mistaken, 350-year-old model of cause and explanation-one that takes all causes to be of the push-pull, efficient cause sort, and all explanation to be prooflike-underlies contemporary theories of action. Juarrero then proposes a new framework for conceptualizing causes based on complex adaptive systems. Thinking of causes as dynamical constraints makes bottom-up and top-down causal relations, including those involving intentional causes, suddenly tractable. A different logic for explaining actions-as historical narrative, not inference-follows if one adopts this novel approach to long-standing questions of action and responsibility.

Alicia Juarrero is Professor of Philosophy at Prince George's Community College, Maryland. She is a member of the National Council on the Humanities, the governing board of the National Endowment for the Humanities.