The contours of control

Journal article

Necessarily, if S lacks the ability to exercise (some degree of) control, S is not an agent. If S is not an agent, S cannot act intentionally, responsibly, or rationally, nor can S possess or exercise free will. In spite of the obvious importance of control, however, no general account of control exists. In this paper I reflect on the nature of control itself. I develop accounts of control’s exercise and control’s possession that illuminate what it is for degrees of control—that is, the degree of control an agent possesses or exercises in a given circumstance—to vary. Finally, I demonstrate the usefulness of the account on offer by showing how it generates a solution to a long-standing problem for causalist theories of action, namely, the problem of deviant causation.

Authors: Shepherd, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Journal: Philosophical Studies
• Volume: 170
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 395-411
• Publication date: 2014-01-01
• Edition: Publisher's version
• DOI: 10.1007/s11098-013-0236-1
• EISSN: 1573-0883
• ISSN: 0031-8116
• Language: English
• Keywords: non-deviant causation; control; philosophy of action
• Subjects: Practical ethics; Philosophy; Ethics (Moral philosophy); Ethics of the biosciences