Acts

1. The Identity Thesis

What is an act? One of the problems concerning the nature of acts is the problem of individuation. Suppose that John does each of the following things (all at the same time): (1) he moves his hand, (2) he frightens away a fly, (3) he moves his queen to king-knight-seven, (4) he checkmates his opponent, (5) he gives his opponent a heart attack, and (6) he wins his first chess game ever. Has John here performed six acts? Or has he only performed one act, of which six different descriptions have been given? Again, suppose that John (1) moves his finger, (2) pulls the trigger, (3) fires the gun, and (4) kills Smith. Are there four distinct acts that John has performed, or are all of these one and the same act? An answer to such questions will provide a partial answer to the question of the nature of acts.

A straightforward answer to these questions has been proposed by G. E. M. Anscombe and defended in some detail by Donald Davidson. On the Anscombe-Davidson view there is but one act that John has performed in each of the two cases. On their view John's moving his hand is identical with John's moving his queen to king-knight-seven; John's moving his hand is identical with John's checkmating his opponent; etc. There is but one act here, which has been described in a variety of ways. Miss Anscombe writes:

... a single action can have many different descriptions, e.g. "sawing a plank," "sawing oak," "sawing one of Smith's planks," "making a squeaky noise with the saw," "making a great deal of sawdust," and so on and so on. ... ... Are we to say that the man who (intentionally) moves his arm, operates the pump, replenishes the water supply, poisons the inhabitants, is performing four actions? Or only one? ... In short, the only distinct action of his that is in question is this one, A. For moving his arm up and down with his fingers round the pump handle is, in these circumstances, operating the pump; and, in these circumstances, it is replenishing the house water-supply; and, in these circumstances, it is poisoning the household.

So there is one action with four descriptions....

Similarly, Davidson writes:

I flip the switch, turn on the light, and illuminate the room. Unbeknownst to me I also alert a prowler to the fact that I am home. Here I do not do four things, but only one, of which four descriptions have been given.

And in another article Davidson writes:

But what is the relation between my pointing the gun and pulling the trigger, and my shooting the victim? The natural and, I think, correct answer is that the relation is that of identity.

I shall call this thesis the identity thesis. It has been espoused not only by Anscombe and Davidson, but also by D. S. Shwayder and Eric D'Arcy.

The identity thesis constitutes one clear and attractive way of individuating acts. But there are several difficulties it encounters. In general, if X and Y are identical, then X must have all and only the properties that Y has. We shall find, however, that some of the pairs of acts which are alleged to be identical do not share all the same properties.

Let us look, for example, at John's pulling the trigger and John's killing Smith, which were mentioned in one of the examples given above. According to the identity thesis, these acts are supposed to be one and the same act. But are they really identical? Consider the act of John's killing Smith and consider the event consisting in the gun's going off. Is it true to say that this act caused this event, that John's killing Smith caused the gun to fire? Surely not. It would be extremely odd to say that John's killing Smith caused the gun to go off. But now consider John's act of pulling the trigger. It is certainly true of this act that it caused the event in question, i.e., that it caused the gun to fire. Thus, John's pulling the trigger has the property of causing the gun to fire, whereas John's killing Smith does not have the property of causing the gun to fire. However, since one of these acts has a property which the other lacks, they cannot be one and the same act.

Let us take a slightly different example to illustrate the same point. Suppose that John is playing the piano, and that his playing causes Smith to fall asleep while also causing Brown, who was already asleep, to wake up. John has performed the following acts: (1) he has played the piano, (2) he has put Smith to sleep, and (3) he has awakened Brown. According to the identity thesis, John's playing the piano = John's putting Smith to sleep = John's awakening Brown. But are these genuine identities? Consider the following two events: (e1) Smith's falling asleep and (e2) Brown's waking up. Ex hypothesi, both of these events were caused by John's playing the piano. Now let us compare John's playing the piano with John's awakening Brown. Clearly, while John's playing the piano caused (e1), Smith's falling asleep, John's awakening Brown did not cause (e1). Similarly, compare John's playing the piano with John's putting Smith to sleep. John's playing the piano did cause (e2), Brown's waking up, while John's putting Smith to sleep did not cause (e2). We see, then, that John's act of playing the piano has a property which is lacked by John's act of putting Smith to sleep and has another property which is lacked by John's act of awakening Brown. Hence, John's playing the piano cannot be identical with John's putting Smith to sleep and cannot be identical with John's awakening Brown.

These two objections to the...