All sorts of events occur – bridges collapse, planets appear in the evening sky, people give speeches – and some of these events are special in being actions persons perform. Classical Chinese marks the distinction between actions and other events graphically, by adding to the term “wei”, meaning “to do”, the radical for “human being”, thus yielding a character that literally means “a person's doing”. Not everything a person does can be counted among his actions, however; witness Jack's falling down the hill, about which we say that it happens to him, rather than that he performs it. Or, to take another illustration, if I raise my arm, then my arm rises; but my arm may rise without my raising it, for example, if my neighbour lifts it. Wittgenstein problematizes this contrast between a doing in which one passively takes part (Jack's falling down the hill, my neighbour's lifting my arm) and a doing of which one is the author (Jack's accompanying Jane up the hill, my intentionally raising my arm) by asking “what is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?” (Wittgenstein 1958: §621). What distinguishes actions from other events, and how are these differences mirrored in the explanations we offer of actions, as compared to other events?

Volition and reasons

Serious action theory begins with Aristotle, who explains this contrast between an action someone performs and an occurrence he suffers by positing that the “moving principle (archē) [of an action] is in the agent himself, [who is] aware of the particular circumstances of the action” (Aristotle 1984: 1111a20–21).