Are goals or preconditions better explanations? It depends on the question

Recent research on causal inference suggests that common actions tend to be attributed to goals, whereas difficult actions, if obstructed, are attributed primarily to preconditions. The present studies examine the way that the framing of causal questions influences ratings of goals and preconditions for common actions. The studies test the view that ‘why’ questions favour goal explanations, by presenting causal questions framed as ‘why’ questions or ‘explain’ questions. Structured and free-response measures were used. They show that when the question is expressed as asking why an action occurs, goals are rated better than preconditions, regardless of the presence of obstacles, whereas if the question is framed as requesting an explanation of the action, preconditions are deemed better explanations than goals for obstructed actions. Goals remain better explanations when the action is unobstructed. These findings confirm the importance of the framing of causal questions for research on causal explanation, and suggest that the phrasing of causal questions influences the focus of explanations. Copyright © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

What do I think you're doing? Action identification and mind attribution

The authors examined how a perceiver's identification of a target person's actions co-varies with attributions of mind to the target. The authors found in Study 1 that the attribution of intentionality and cognition to a target was associated with identifying the target's action in terms of high-level effects rather than low-level details. In Study 2, both action identification and mind attribution were greater for a liked target, and in Study 3, they were reduced for a target suffering misfortune. In Study 4, it was again found that action identification and mind attribution were greater for a liked target, but like that for the self or a liked other, positive actions were identified at higher levels than negative actions, with the reverse being true for disliked others. In Study 5, the authors found that instructing participants to adopt the target's perspective did not affect mind attribution but did lead to higher level identifications of the target's actions.     

At one with our actions,but at two with our bodies

Jennifer Hornsby's account of human action frees us from the temptation to think of the person who acts as ‘doing’ the events that are her actions, and thereby removes much of the allure of ‘agent causation’. But her account is spoiled by the claim that physical actions are ‘tryings’ that cause bodily movements. It would be better to think of physical actions and bodily movements as identical; but Hornsby refuses to do this, seemingly because she thinks that to do so would be to endorse the so–called ‘standard causal story’. But Hornsby misses a possibility here, for we can insist on this identity claim without endorsing the standard story if we embrace an account which parallels the disjunctive account in the philosophy of perception. This will leave us with a picture of physical action that saves the insights of Hornsby's account without succumbing to its distortions.     

Reasons-sensitivity and degrees of free will

Some actions are free and others are not. But free will also comes in degrees. This paper offers a novel account of degrees of free will, taking as its starting point the idea that an action is free to the extent to which the agent was sensitive, in acting, to reasons for or against performing that action. Though lip service is often paid to the idea that reasons-sensitivity comes in degrees, however, the details turn out to be harder to pin down than one might initially have thought. I criticise three recent accounts of degrees of reasons-sensitivity, arguing that none of them succeed in capturing our intuitions about degrees of free will in particular cases. I then defend an alternative approach, which combines a causal account of sensitivity with my own preferred metaphysics of degrees of causal contribution. As well as avoiding the problems faced by its rivals, I’ll argue that this account provides a novel response to the situationist threat to free will, arising out of empirical studies purporting to show that ‘situational factors’ play a larger role in producing actions than we typically assume.     

‘Everyone’, consequences,and generalization arguments

This paper addresses issues raised by recent discussion in normative ethics which concern relations between properties of individual actions and of certain groups of actions. First, an ambiguity common to ‘everyone can’ and ‘everyone ought’ is examined. Next, a similar ambiguity in talk about consequences is studied; here several procedures for identifying and evaluating consequences are compared. Then a notation that untangles the ambiguities is presented. Next, this notation is employed in an analysis of Marcus Singer's deduction of his generalization argument. Finally, there is a study of the question as to whether or not conflicts are possible between Singer's generalization argument and the dictates of consequences of individual actions. The findings are that such conflicts are or are not possible depending upon how a certain restriction on generalization arguments is interpreted, and that in either case the proponent of generalization arguments is faced with problems.     

What do infants understand of others’ action? A theoretical account of early social cognition

Intention reading and action understanding have been reported in ever-younger infants. However, the notions of intention attribution and action understanding, as well as their relation to each other, are surrounded by much confusion, making it difficult to assess the meaning and value of such findings. In this paper we set out to clarify the notions of ‘action understanding’ and ‘intention attribution’. We will show that what is commonly referred to as ‘action understanding’ in fact encompasses various heterogeneous association and prediction mechanisms. In general, these forms of action understanding will not result in the attribution of an intention to an observed actor. By detaching intention attribution from action understanding, and by exposing the latter as an umbrella notion, we provide a theoretical framework on early social cognition that allows for better comparison of findings from different experimental paradigms, and better assessment of infant action understanding abilities. Taking into account the plurality of forms that action understanding can adopt will help cognitive neuroscience to gain a full understanding of the early roots of social cognition.     

The volitive and the executive function of intentions

Many philosophers of action, including Bratman and Mele, conceive intentions functionally, as executive states: intentions are mental states that represent an action and tend to cause this action. In the philosophical tradition (e.g. for Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Leibniz, Kant) another function of intentions, which may be called “volitive”, played a much more prominent role: intentions are mental states that represent what kind of actions we want and prefer to be realised and thus, in a possibly rational way, synthesise our motivational, desiderative, and perhaps affective as well as cognitive attitudes towards this action. This paper argues that intentions must fulfil both functions and then develops a concept of ‘intention’ that integrates both functions. One reason for including the volitive function in the definition of ‘intention’ is that only via this function the value of actions as such is realised, namely to enable the person, the kernel of the self to express herself and to control the world. Various forms of dissociation of the two functions are discussed and a proposal how to deal with such cases in the definition of ‘intention’ is developed.     

Was It My Fault? Effects of Counterfactual Mutation Focus and Self‐Presentation Strategy1

A recent perspective proposes that counterfactual thinking mutates controllable events that could have prevented a specific outcome, and so provides knowledge that can be used to prevent similar outcomes in the future. This implies that counterfactual thinking does not necessarily influence causal reasoning, although they may be associated in some circumstances. Results of 2 studies reported here show that, for serious outcomes where actions of the self are antecedents and different self‐actions might have prevented the outcome, there was an associated increase in self‐blame. Findings from these studies also suggest that whether self‐mutations are reflected in public expressions of blame will depend on whether the context favors self‐serving self‐presentation strategies, or mitigating strategies incorporating the face concerns of others.     

Culpable Control and Causal Deviance

Actions that are intended to produce harmful consequences can fail to achieve their desired effects in numerous ways. We refer to action sequences in which harmful intentions are thwarted as deviant causal chains. The culpable control model of blame (CCM) is a useful tool for predicting and explaining the attributions that observers make of the actors whose harmful intentions go awry. In this paper, we describe six types of deviant causal chains; those in which: an actor’s attempt is obviated by the intervention of another person or the environment; the intended effects could not have been produced regardless of the actor’s behavior; other causes diminish the actor’s causal role; the actor brings about foreseen but undesired consequences as a result of pursuing his or her focal goal; the focal action produces a chain of increasingly remote causal events; and the actor derives unforeseen benefits from his or her nefarious actions. A basic assumption of the CCM in these cases is that attributions for the participants’ actions will depend on positive and negative evaluations of their intentions and behaviors. We describe empirical findings that are consistent with this assumption, and predict other findings for causal deviance phenomena that have not yet been investigated empirically.     

How similar are the changes in neural activity resulting from mindfulness practice in contrast to spiritual practice?

Meditation and spiritual practices are conceptually similar, eliciting similar subjective experiences, and both appear to provide similar benefits to the practicing individuals. However, no research has examined whether the mechanism of action leading to the beneficial effects is similar in both practices. This review examines the neuroimaging research that has focused on groups of meditating individuals, groups who engage in religious/spiritual practices, and research that has examined groups who perform both practices together, in an attempt to assess whether this may be the case. Differences in the balance of activity between the parietal and prefrontal cortical activation were found between the three groups. A relative prefrontal increase was reflective of mindfulness, which related to decreased anxiety and improved well-being. A relative decrease in activation of the parietal cortex, specifically the inferior parietal cortex, appears to be reflective of spiritual belief, whether within the context of meditation or not. Because mindful and spiritual practices differ in focus regarding the ‘self’ or ‘other’ (higher being), these observations about neurological components that reflect spirituality may continue work towards understanding how the definition of ‘self’ and ‘other’ is represented in the brain, and how this may be reflected in behaviour. Future research can begin to use cohorts of participants in mindfulness studies which are controlled for using the variable of spirituality to explicitly examine how functional and structural similarities and differences may arise.     

When dyads act in parallel,a sense of agency for the auditory consequences depends on the order of the actions

The sense of agency (SA) is the perception of willfully causing something to happen. Wegner and Wheatley (1999) proposed three prerequisites for SA: temporal contiguity between an action and its effect, congruence between predicted and observed effects, and exclusivity (absence of competing causal explanations). We investigated how temporal contiguity, congruence, and the order of two human agents’ actions influenced SA on a task where participants rated feelings of self-agency for producing a tone. SA decreased when tone onsets were delayed, supporting contiguity as important, but the order of the agents’ actions (lead, follow, or simultaneous) also mattered. Relative contiguity was the main determinant of SA, as delayed tones were usually attributed to the most recent action. This was unaffected by contingencies between the two actors’ actions (Experiment 2), showing that contiguity has a powerful influence on SA, even during joint action in the presence of other cues.     

Infants’ developing expectations of possible and impossible tool-use events between ages 8 and 12 months

Infants’ developing causal expectations for the outcome of a simple tool-use event from ages 8 to 12 months were investigated. Causal expectations were studied by comparing infants’ developing tool-use actions (i.e. as tool-use agents) with their developing perceptual reactions (i.e. as tool-use observers) to possible and impossible tool-use events. In Experiment 1, tool-use actions were studied by presenting infants, ages 8 and 12 months, with tool-use object-retrieval problems. In Experiment 2, a second age-matched sample of infants watched a comparable series of possible and impossible tool-use events in which a tool was used to retrieve a goal-object. Two core related findings were made. First, infants’ causal action and causal perception develop in parallel. In both action and perception, supporting tool-use develops before surrounding tool-use. Second, infants’ tool-use action develops before their causal perception of comparable tool-use events. The findings support the constructivist hypothesis that infants’ causal actions may develop before and inform their causal perceptions.     

The Attribution of Positive and Negative Qualities to Social Actions

This research reports on the manner in which extrinsic qualities are attributed to different forms of social action. Particular concern was given to the question of how such attribution of properties might be related to a person's desire to be involved in the action. Two findings seemed to be relatively clear. First, quite arbitrary qualities are attributed to various social actions with a high degree of consistency. Because these qualities cannot be considered intrinsic to the action, the consistent attribution of such qualities must come from some source other than the actions themselves. Second, of the several qualities examined, the most powerful attributed quality for purposes of social motivation appeared to be the general concept of display. Actions perceived as having a high degree of display potential for an actor were also actions that respondents were willing to commit themselves to or become involved in to a profound degree.     

Children’s causal reasoning: Counterfactual thinking occurs for ‘negative’ outcomes only

Harris, German and Mills (Children’s use of counterfactual thinking in causal reasoning. Cognition, 61 (1996), 223–259), following Mackie, argue that children make explicit use of counterfactual thinking in arriving at causal judgments. They showed that children as young as 3, in explaining simple mishap events, made reference to courses of action that a protagonist had rejected, when that course of action would have prevented the observed outcome. It is hypothesized here that such counterfactual thinking might have been invoked by the ‘negative’ mishaps rather than as part of the causal reasoning process. Although the generation of counterfactuals in explanation was replicated using mishap outcomes such as those used by Harris et al., counterfactual thinking was not evident in children’s explanations of ‘positive’ outcomes. These results undermine the view that a counterfactual thinking process, as indexed by reference to possible actions rejected by a protagonist, is necessary for causal reasoning. Alternative characterizations of the relationship between causals and counterfactuals are discussed.     

Lack of effort as a result of self-focused attention: An attributional ambiguity analysis

Attributional ambiguity is a strategy used to avoid having to attribute potentially negative performance on a task to ability. If the outcome of a task is attributable to ability, if no external cause for failure is available, and if a person is aware that the outcome is attributable to the self, ambiquity can be created with regard to the causation of the outcome. Heightened attribution of an outcome to self, as results from self-focused attention, was expected to produce less effort when external causes for potential failure were explicitly removed. In a 2 × 2 experiment, a positive mood was induced that was then either suggested or excluded as a plausible explanation for potential failure on a task said to be indicative of general intellectual ability. Subjects for whom self-awareness was experimentally induced, and for whom an external attribution of failure was explicitly removed, put significantly less effort into the task. Self-focus, however, has also been shown to enhance task performance. An indirect measure showed increased readiness to perform in direct contrast to the obtained lower self-reports of effort. The range of generalizability and application of attribute ambiguity is discussed.     

Approach and avoidance as action effects

Numerous studies use arm movements (arm flexion and extension) to investigate the interaction between emotional stimuli and approach/avoidance behaviour. In many experiments, however, these arm movements are ambiguous. Arm flexion can be interpreted either as pulling (approach) or as withdrawing (avoidance). On the contrary, arm extension can be interpreted as reaching (approach) or as pushing (avoidance). This ambiguity can be resolved by regarding approach and avoidance as flexible action plans that are represented in terms of their effects. Approach actions reduce the distance between a stimulus and the self, whereas avoidance actions increase that distance. In this view, action effects are an integral part of the representation of an action. As a result, a neutral action can become an approach or avoidance reaction if it repeatedly results in decreasing or increasing the distance to a valenced stimulus. This hypothesis was tested in the current study. Participants responded to positive and negative words using key-presses. These “neutral” responses (not involving arm flexion or extension) were consistently followed by a stimulus movement toward or away from the participant. Responses to emotional words were faster when the response's effect was congruent with stimulus valence, suggesting that approach/avoidance actions are indeed defined in terms of their outcomes.     

归因是怎样影响假设思维的

考察了归因这一外力对假设思维的影响。研究发现归因对假设思维的影响与选择原因大小成正比与事件后果严重程度成反比。当选择原因相对后果而言足够大时,假设思维将不服从“特例－常规”规律。在此基础上,根据是否存在外力将事件分为被迫事件和自由事件,并提出“特例－常规”规律（或是“做－不做”规律）只适合自由事件而不是所有事件。这一结果部分地解释了长期存在于实验研究与现场研究中的假设思维所表现出的差异。     

ACTIONS,HABITS AND CONSTITUTION

In this paper I offer a critique of the view made popular by Davidson that rationalization is a species of causal explanation, and propose instead that in many cases the explanatory relation is constitutive. Given Davidson’s conception of rationalization, which allows that a huge range of states gathered under the heading ‘pro attitude’ could rationalize an action, I argue that whilst the causal thesis may have some merit for some such ‘attitudes’, it has none for others. The problematic ‘attitudes’ are those which can be attributed to the agent only on the basis of her history of doing a certain sort of thing. In other words, they are among the agent’s habits. I argue that such temporally extended states cannot be the causes of any present occurrence. Instead, I suggest we should think of the present action as partly constituting the state in question, and give a corresponding interpretation of the explanatory relation. Such explanations invite us to abandon a conception of agency narrowly based on psychology, in favour of an enriched one which takes an agent’s habits to partly constitute the agent.     

The Relational Genesis of Community: Self–Other Dialogue

Of late, there is increasing interest in the dialogical foundations of the self and community. Indeed, dialogical theory points to the embeddedness of community in self–other relations. This article proposes a dialogical approach to community that draws upon four key themes of discourse: the sociality of the self, the realm of interindividual relations, the constructive role of social representations, and the emergent properties of collective action. The ‘between’ constitutes a valuable concept for theorizing fundamental processes of relational existence and responsive meaning‐making, including the co‐constitution of community. In the process of coming into dialogic relation with one another, individuals construct meanings, experiences, and actions that profoundly shape both selfhood and community. Thus conceived, community is founded on dialogic interaction and intersubjective representation, thereby becoming the conscious object of reflection and action. The intention here is to theorize the relational genesis and continued transformation of community through self–other dialogue. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Causal Contribution in War

Revisionist approaches to the ethics of war seem to imply that civilians on the unjust side of a conflict can be legitimate targets of defensive attack. In response, some authors have argued that although civilians do often causally contribute to unjustified global threats – by voting for war, writing propaganda articles, or manufacturing munitions, for example – their contributions are usually too ‘small’, or ‘remote’, to make them liable to be intentionally killed to avert the threat. What defenders of this view lack, however, is a theory of causal contribution. This article sketches and defends a theory of causal contribution. We then apply it to the kinds of situation that defenders of the view are interested in. We argue, however, that since degrees of causal contribution turn out to be sensitive to particular features of the situation that are extrinsic to the agent's action, whether an agent makes a small or a large contribution to a threat may not only be very difficult to discern but in many cases may not line up very well with the kinds of intuition about liability that defenders of the view want to uphold.