Abstract
One implication of the analysis of action I have advanced is, as I suggested in Section 20, that all and only items of voluntary behavior are bound actions. Moreover, there are two distinct kinds of involuntary behavior; and there is what might be called, after Aristotle, non-voluntary behavior. These last three types of behavior correspond, respectively, to the two kinds of unbound action and mere doings. I wish to argue as well that all, but not only, bound actions are intentional; and, closely connected with this, that our understanding of intention is parasitic upon our understanding of intentional behavior, rather than the reverse being the case.
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References
Aristotle, Ethica Nicomachea, trans. W. D. Ross, in The Works of Aristotle (London: Oxford University Press, 1915), vol. IX, 1110a12.
Ethica Nicomachea, 1111b7–9.
Cf. Ibid., III.1, passim, esp. 1111a21–22 and 1110b2–3.
Ibid., esp. 1111a23.
Ibid., esp. 1110–b17–24.
Ibid., 1110a14–15.
Cf. ibid., 1111a21–23.
Ibid., 1110a1 and 1110b1–3.
Ibid., 1109b35–1110a3, 1111a20–23, and 1110b16–24.
Ibid., 1109b35–1110a4—italics mine.
Ibid., 1111a21–24—italics mine.
Ibid., 1110b1–5.
See respectively, John Austin, Lectures on Jurisprudence: or the Philosophy of Positive Law, Fourth Edition (London: John Murray, 1879), esp. Vol. I, Lectures xiv and xiv–xx
John Austin The American Law Institute, The Model Penal Code: Proposed Official Draft (Philadelphia: The American Law Institute, 4 May 1962).
Lectures on Jurisprudence, I.xiv.376—italics in the text.
Cf. ibid., I.xviii.424–425 passim. Austin credits Thomas Brown with his model for the repudiation of the notion of the will—see Brown, Inquiry Into the Relation of Cause and Effect (Edinburgh: A. Constable and Company, 1818).
Lectures on Jurisprudence, I.xviii.424.
Ibid., I.xix.433. The reference to Bentham is to his Principles of Morals and Legislation, ed. Wilfrid Harrison (Oxford: Blackwell’s, 1967), VII.11.
Lectures on Jurisprudence, I.xviii.427.
Ibid., I.xix.437.
Ibid., I.xiv.377.
Cf. ibid., I.xix.437 and I.xiv.377.
Ibid., I.xix.437.
“Voluntary and Involuntary Acts,” pp. 128–129.
Ibid., p. 122.
Intention, p. 28.
Ibid., pp. 11–12. Compare, too, the following: “If someone meets me in the street and asks ‘Where are you going?’ and I reply ‘I don’t know,’ he assumes that I have no definite intention; not that I do not know whether I shall be able to carry out my intention. (Hebel)”—L. Wittgenstein, Zettel, trans. G. E. M. Anscombe (Oxford: Blackwell’s, 1967), Section 582.
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© 1972 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Rayfield, D. (1972). Voluntary and Intentional Behavior. In: Action: An Analysis of the Concept. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2807-3_6
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