On the identification of individual actions

FEDERICO JOSÉ ARENA

Lancaster

Congreso; J. L. Austin Centenary Conference; 2011

Lancaster University

In this paper it is claimed that, by reconsidering Austin's theory about meaning, it will be possible to strength ascriptivism's claims regarding the meaning of action sentences. Legal philosophers and criminal lawyers have given two different answers to the problem of the identification of an individual action. On the one side, descriptivism claims that there exists a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for the identification of an individual action, i.e., to determine if a body movement and a change in the state of affairs are an action and which. On the other side, in an attempt to apply to action's sentences Austin's theory of meaning, ascriptivism claims that there exists no such a set. This negative thesis is based on two main features that the concept of action shares with legal concepts, to wit, i. it is used to ascribe responsibility and ii. it is defeasible. Ascriptivism has received direct objections that question the relationship between those two features and the negative thesis, and indirect objections stemming from some critics to Austin's theory. The paper tries to show that if we reconsider Austin's theory by distinguishing, instead than two types of sentences, two kinds of elements of every sentence, to wit, a propositional and a pragmatic one, then it will be possible to answer both kinds of objections. On this basis, ascriptivism can accept, with descriptivism, that body movement and changes in the state of affairs are necessary, but not sufficient, conditions. However, while descriptivism claims that a further element that can be added to close the set, i.e., the intention of the agent; ascriptivism denies such a thesis. Under this version ascriptivism's negative thesis is a consequence of the open-endedness of mental states attribution, and not of the putative fact that action concepts are used to ascribe responsibility.