Voluntary action in Aristotle's 'Eudemian Ethics': reason, responsibility and imputation

• Grant number: 16/05983-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: September 01, 2016
• End date: August 14, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Marco Antônio de Ávila Zingano
• Grantee: Daniel Mark Wolt
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 15/05317-8 - Theories of causation and human agency in ancient Greek philosophy, AP.TEM

Abstract

The project focuses primarily on Aristotle s accounts of voluntary action. These accounts are meant to tell us something about when it is appropriate to hold an agent accountable for an action. There is a large question, though, about how precisely this is meant to work: what is it about an action s being voluntary that is supposed to imply, at least in the cases of adult human agents, that the agent is accountable for that action. I take up this question as it concerns one of Aristotle s two accounts, the one found in the Eudemian Ethics. I argue that the feature of one s voluntary action in virtue of which one is accountable for them is that such actions are done as a result of the agent taking something as a reason for acting. Aristotle is thus the first philosopher to draw a clear connection between accountability and the ability to grasp and respond to reasons. I show also how this idea is worked out in interestingly different ways in the Nicomachean Ethics, and how this idea is anticipated in certain of Plato s later dialogues (namely, Timaeus and Laws). (AU)

Scientific publications

(5)

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

WOLT, DANIEL M.. . IDEAS Y VALORES, v. 67, n. 166, p. 181-198, APR 2018. (16/05983-0)

WOLT, DANIEL. `APXH IN ARISTOTLE'S EUDEMIAN ETHICS II 6, 1223a9-16. CLASSICAL QUARTERLY, v. 68, n. 1, p. 330-332, MAY 2018. (16/05983-0)

WOLT, DANIEL. Two conceptions of voluntary action in the Nicomachean Ethics. EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY, v. 28, n. 2, JAN 2020. (16/05983-0)

WOLT, DANIEL. The (In)Voluntary in the Timaeus and the Eudemian Ethics. APEIRON-A JOURNAL FOR ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE, v. 52, n. 3, p. 245-272, JUL 2019. (16/05983-0)

WOLT, DANIEL M.. KANT ON FREE WILL AND THEORETICAL RATIONALITY. IDEAS Y VALORES, v. 67, n. 166, p. 18-pg., 2018-04-01. (16/05983-0)