Study of the Complex and Disputed Philosophical Questions Surrounding Human Action

This study presents a dualist account of the nature of human action, dualist in a modest sense in that it defends the claim that generally actions involve two kinds of components – the physical and the mental – and that the mental components – the experiential awareness – cannot be interpreted in materialist of functionalist ways fashionable of late. The study identifies eleven elements or data concerning our everyday idea of human action. It then gives an account of the voluntary which, in stressing its character as an all-pervasive awareness of what it is like to be doing something as opposed to having things happen to one, neatly avoids the pitfalls of infinite regress associated with ‘acts of will’. The account of motives is fleshed out and defended against various well-known objections. Finally, the study spells out the author’s approach to freedom and indeterminism.