Acting on reasons
Synchronic executive control
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14949539 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Arthur Schipper (0000-0002-6281-6676, Philosophy Section, Department of Cognitive Sciences, College of Humanities and Social Sciences United Arab Emirates University Al Ain United Arab Emirates, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 148-166 |
| Publication date | 2025-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | European Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0966-8373 • E-ISSN: 1468-0378 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ejop.12925 |
| OpenAlex | W4391389763 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 47 |
There is a wide variety of cases of alienation, including (a) when an agent is alienated from her own motivational states and (b) deviant causal cases when an agent's motivational states cause her intended actions but via a deviant causal pathway. Reflecting on the variety of kinds of alienation reveals that action explanation still needs to account for the positive role that agents play in non‐alienated actions in general. To fill this gap, this paper identifies a sui generis but crucial notion of control, what I call “synchronic executive control,” where agents act on their reasons , which must be distinguished from (a) endorsing one's reasons as reasonable or as the reasons for action (from the autonomy literature), and (b) other, diachronic notions of executive control such as competence, skills‐based control, planning‐based control, and counterfactual control generally (from especially the deviant causation literature). The presence of such executive control is crucial for explaining the role of agents in non‐alienated actions, and its absence explains the lack of agency in alienation cases. The result is the identification of a relationship agents have with their reasons which unifies the variety of non‐alienated actions in a novel way
Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Computer Science · Creativity in Education and Neuroscience · Mind wandering and attention · Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies · Psychology · Artificial Intelligence
Rational Causation
Potentiality
Judgment and Agency
What Happens When Someone Acts?
The Concept of Flow
Flow
The Importance of What We Care About
All the Power in the World
Necessity, Volition, and Love
Singular Terms and Ontological Seriousness
Flow and the dynamics of conscious thought
Necessitation and the Changing Past
Life and Action
Doxastic justification through dispositions to cause
Static And Dynamic Dispositions
Fundamental truthmakers and non-fundamental truths
Know-how, action, and luck
The Basing Relation
Endorsement and Autonomous Agency
On Freedom and Determinism
Structures of Agency
Actions, Reasons, and Causes
A Metaphysics for Freedom
Power and activity
Intentionality
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |