Seattle University ILL Borrower: IEC Call#: B11 .A4 Lending String: LOY,NXW,"WSE,IAS,GCO,EEI Location: Lemieux Library LEML- BOOK 3RD FLOOR Available Patron: ODYSSEY ENABLED Journal Title: Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association / Volume: 87 Issuc = _Monthvear: 2013Pages: 67-68 = = Earlham College & nile Author: Candace Vogler ri heacoel Reet wes! BZ Atticle Title: Good and Bad in Human Action _-_-Riehmond, IN 47874-4005 9 {8 imprint: Washington, D.C. : The Office g ILL Number: 170003642 INTO ILLiad TN:NOTICE: Warning: ss. The COP’ restric Gaited states Mies or other the making of jghted toaverial: the mpaucons of OP Good and Bad in Human Action Candace Vogler that practical reason’ a modern predictivects of avoidance. Wherefore according w the onder of che natural inclinations isthe order of the precepts of the nacueal law.” lowing Augustine, Aquinas goes 0 this first and most general precept of nacural law cannot be abi human heart.” ‘Surveying relaced to argue that lee naturalis deleri non potest ished from the houghe in the h century, David Velleman wrote: “The agent portrayed in much philosophy of action i, ler’ ace i, a square. He does nothing intentionally unless he regards ior its consequences as desirable. The reason is that he acts intentionally only when he acts out of a desire pated outcom i that outcome, hhe must regard it as having some value. actions are therefore directed at outcomes regarded sub specie bonis under che guise of the good Now, I suppose that ver id human action |, many Kinds of good, and -ast avoiding thar there is some evil in -man's objection is surely Sh, shabby, or outright wicked human ae up to requires geting some inwhae they ae doing, and ever people verning human action as acts and bad policies as v wan good. Leave aside sudden, explosive expressions of pettiness or vi up having to see from a fi le feature of human nature? ‘Where do we look ro find this good that people are supposedly. te time? Where inde Matthew Boyle and Doug, ‘They first argue ordinary outcomes (staves of affairs or events) chat admit of propositional construe: the sort of object an agent means to realize i preci entionally coward a certain end ue that, where such an object has come to exist, it wi le to describe the movements that have o verms which ddo not imply that an intencion has been realized therein. But it does not follow that it must be possible to give an acco foran intentional action to have occurred employing o c psychological causes. Rather, we must explain the nature ofthe relevant psychological eauses by appeal to their dizectedness toward precisely this sore of processor event.” ‘They go on to argue thac proper understanding of human action sees human acts in the wider context of human self-movement, a context that requires substantive understanding of human good, by way of an understanding of ou form of life, for its ineligibilicy: The most general idea of an action is the idea of movement or change th sense “comes fom the subject,” rather than merely be sesult of forces acting on the subject “from with between self-movement oF self-change, on the one hand, and movement or change whose cause is external, the background of an idea of form which goodness. This connection holds fora case it takes a particular shape. For to be a this: to live by thought, which is to say by the employment of conce “Hence the shape thar the general connection berween action and gx takes in a rational creature Rational action isa kind of movement that has ies source in a subject’s power 0 boring things under the concept good!® I be one that involves ¢ The poine is formal. | will approach the guise of che good thesis by way of three points about hu- man action. The first has to do with the mo ood at issue in doing things. Following Michael T reflection on the progre aspect of intentional action, coupled wi Aristotelian thoughe that the subject of intentional action isa kind of animal—the sort—and that understanding the processes that characterize animals of ul carties wit it an understanding of the good of such animals. tational animal i distinctive: nal creature’ self-movement is mediated by thoughts about, and the favorable case by knowledge of, its own good: is capacity for ac- tion isa capacity to pursue what it takes 0 be good. And by the same token, the life ofthe rational creature will be one that essentially invo exercise of the powers of of a specifically ratios