Voluntary Action, Chosen Action, and Resolve

ABSTRACT This paper provides a phenomenological account of the intentional structure of action. To establish the context, I first distinguish (a) physiological changes and the bodily motions manifesting them that one passively undergoes in response to external causes from (b) actions as such. With respect to actions, I further distinguish among what I call incomplete actions, voluntary actions, and chosen actions. I shall frame my discussion in terms of three similar distinctions, although my position will intersect but not coincide with any of them. The three distinctions are Edmund Husserl’s distinction between action-will and decision-will, John Searle’s distinction, as amended by John McDowell, between intention in action and a prior intention-to-do, and Aristotle’s distinction between voluntary and chosen action. The paper concludes with a discussion of a particular instance of chosen action that I call “resolve” and its relation to personal identity.