accordion effect

What Is the Accordion Effect?Author(s): Michael E. BratmanSource: The Journal of Ethics, Vol. 10, No. 1/2 (Jan., 2006), pp. 5-19Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115848 .Accessed: 22/12/2013 08:40

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MICHAEL E. BRATMAN

WHAT IS THE ACCORDION EFFECT?

(Received 13 September 2004; accepted 13 September 2004)

ABSTRACT. In "Action and Responsibility," Joel Feinberg pointed to an im

portant idea to which he gave the label "the accordion effect." Feinberg's discussion

of this idea is of interest on its own, but it is also of interest because of its interaction

with his critique, in his "Causing Voluntary Actions," of a much discussed view of

H. L. A. Hart and A. M. Honor? that Feinberg labels the "voluntary intervention

principle." In this essay I reflect on what the accordion effect is supposed by Feinberg to be, on differences between Feinberg's understanding of this idea and that of

Donald Davidson, and on the interaction between Feinberg's discussion of the ac

cordion effect and his critique of the voluntary intervention principle.

KEY WORDS: accordion effect, action, agency, John Atwell, causation, Donald

Davidson, Joel Feinberg, H. L. A. Hart, A. M. Honor?, Keith Lehrer, responsibility,

transitivity of causation, voluntary intervention principle

In an important and influential essay, "Action and Responsibility," Joel Feinberg pointed to a natural idea, one to which he gave the

label "the accordion effect."1 Feinberg's discussion of this idea is of

interest on its own; but it is also of interest because of its interaction

with his critique, in his "Causing Voluntary Actions," of a much

discussed view of H. L. A. Hart and A. M. Honor? that Feinberg there labels the "voluntary intervention principle."2 In the present

1 Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving (Princeton: Princeton University Press,

1970), pp. 119-151. Prior to Feinberg's essay related ideas were famously discussed

in G. E. M. Anscombe, Intention (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1959), and in Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980),

pp. 3-19. A focus of this earlier literature was on metaphysical issues of the indi

viduation of action, issues that are not central to Feinberg's concerns. 2 Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, pp. 152-186, where Feinberg discusses H. L.

A. Hart and A. M. Honor?, Causation in the Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959). The voluntary intervention principle is characterized by Feinberg by way of a

quotation from Hart and Honor?: "the free, deliberate and informed act or omission

of a human being, intended to produce the consequence which is in fact produced,

negatives causal connection" (quoted in Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 153).

The Journal of Ethics (2006) 10: 5-19 ? Springer 2006 DOI 10.1007/sl0892-005-4589-3


http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

6 MICHAEL E. BRATMAN

essay I want to reflect on what the accordion effect is supposed by

Feinberg to be, and on the interaction between Feinberg's discussion

of the accordion effect and his critique of the voluntary intervention

principle. This will also lead to a discussion of Donald Davidson's

understanding of and use of what he takes to be the accordion effect.

I hope in these ways to shed some light on a web of issues about

human agency that are at the intersection of these two wonderful

essays by Feinberg. In "Action and Responsibility," Feinberg notes that sometimes in

saying that: "Smith is responsible for X, we can mean simply that Xis

the result of what Smith did or, in equivalent terms, that Smith did

something (say, turned the knob) and thereby caused X (the door's

opening) to happen."3 Feinberg calls such a claim that "Smith did

something ... and thereby caused X ... to happen" an ascription of

causal responsibility to Smith. Feinberg then later goes on to note

that: "we can usually replace any ascription of causal responsibility to

a person by an ascription of agency or authorship."4 And he calls this

form of replacement of an ascription of causal responsibility by an

ascription of agency or authorship "the accordion effect." He then

goes on to formulate this idea as follows:

We can, if we wish, inflate our conception of an action to include one of its effects,

and more often than not our language obliges us by providing a relatively complex

word for the purpose. Instead of saying that Peter did A (a relatively simple act) and thereby caused X in Y, we might say something of the form "Peter X-ed Y"; in

stead of "Peter opened the door causing Paul to be startled," "Peter startled Paul."

Ascriptions of causal responsibility, then, are often precisely equivalent to ...

ascriptions of causal agency.5

Does the accordion effect depend on whether, as a matter of

contingent fact, our language "obliges us" and has an appropriate causal verb - for example, "startle"? The first sentence in the preceding

quotation may suggest that this is not necessary, though it is common.

The details of this principle change a bit in the Second Edition of Causation in the Law (1985) at p. 136 (and see note 23). These changes do not touch my present discussion, however. And in this Second Edition Hart and Honor? do not explicitly

respond to Feinberg's earlier challenge. That said, when I refer to Causation in the

Law I will refer to the Second Edition. 3

Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 130. 4


Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 134.



WHAT IS THE ACCORDION EFFECT? 7

The second sentence, in contrast, formulates the underlying principle in a way that assumes there is such a verb. Which is it?

To see the point consider a case Feinberg discusses in his

"Rejoinder" at the end of "Causing Voluntary Actions:"

I recently observed two young boys teasing a small child by causing him to giggle uncontrollably. Finally, one turned to the other and said (improperly): "We'd bet

ter quit or we'll laugh him to death." The boy wanted a transitive verb that could

be used interchangeably with "causing another to laugh"; but our language does

not carry such a word in stock, there being little demand for it.6

I will put aside here the point that the agent of the teasing seems to be a

joint agent, whereas Feinberg's focus is on individual agents. What is

important here is that the relevant agent does, according to Feinberg,

perform the act of causing another to laugh; but there is in English no

specific causal verb that corresponds to "causing to laugh" in the way that "startle" corresponds to "causing to be startled."

Is this a case of the accordion effect or not? If the accordion effect

requires that there is in fact a relevant, specific causal verb - one

analogous to "startle" - then this is not a case of the accordion effect (at

least in English). But in this case Feinberg does grant that the generic causal verb "causing X" does apply: the agent causes the laughter.

Using this generic causal verb we do have a natural transition from

saying "agent does something that causes X" to saying "agent causes

X." Is this transition an instance of the accordion effect or not?

Well, one philosopher who has made substantial use of this idea

from Feinberg is Davidson, who explores the idea that "we may take

the accordion effect as a mark of agency."7 What, according to

Davidson, is the accordion effect? Does it require that a specific causal verb apply to the case, or is it only about the inference from

the fact that a person's action causes an upshot to the claim that that

person caused that upshot? The answer is: the latter. On Davidson's

formulation of the accordion effect "an agent causes what his actions

cause."8 Since the agent in Feinberg's laughter case is seen by

6 Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 184.

7 Donald Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, p. 54. One of Davidson's

concerns is with the connection of the accordion effect to issues about the individ

uation of actions (see pp. 55-59), but these are matters we can put to one side here.

Our concerns here are with the truth of various statements about action and

responsibility, not directly with the underlying principles of individuation. 8

Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, p. 53.




Feinberg as causing what his actions cause -

namely, laughter -

this

case is an instance of the accordion effect as understood by Davidson, even in the absence of a specific causal verb that applies.

Let us call this principle from Davidson - that "an agent causes

what his actions cause" -principle Z>, Davidson identifies this as the

principle associated with the accordion effect. I will return later to the

use to which Davidson wants to put this principle. Here I want to

note that, while Davidson seems to think he is following Feinberg

here, and - as I have noted - there are indications in Feinberg's

remarks that do indeed support this reading - this is not, in the end,

Feinberg's understanding of the accordion effect.

This is clear when we look at the remarks Feinberg goes on to make, in "Action and Responsibility," about "exceptions to the rule that

causal ascriptions to human agency can be translated into ascriptions of causal agency"9

- where, I take it, this is the rule associated by

Feinberg with the accordion effect. Feinberg cites two exceptions. Here

is the first: "It may happen, as a purely contingent matter of fact, that

there is no single action word in the language that is precisely

equivalent to a given causal phrase."10 So, for example, there is no verb

"to laugh someone." But this is no exception to the rule associated with

the accordion effect as understood by Davidson. The absence of an

appropriate, specific causal verb in the language has no impact on

principle D, since that principle is couched in terms of the generic

"Agent causes upshot." In the present case, for example, the agent does

cause laughter, though we have no specific causal verb to apply here.

Turn now to Feinberg's second exception. In these cases "transitive

verbs of action are available to tempt us, but they cannot be

substituted for straightforward causal idioms without distortion of

sense. Substitution commonly fails in cases of interpersonal causation - where one person, whether by accident or design, causes another

person to act."11 In Feinberg's example that follows, A makes a

remark that causes B to wiggle his finger. Feinberg says that even

though 'A's remark causes B to move his finger, "we cannot say that

[A] moved the finger himself. Here is an instance, then, where 'causing to move' is not the same as 'moving.'"12 In the case, then, Feinberg

supposes that








(i) A does something that causes B to move his finger, and that

(ii) A causes B to move his finger;

but, nevertheless, it is not true that

(iii) A moves B's finger.

The transition from (i) to (ii) is an instance of principle D\ but it is the failure in the transition to (iii) that is cited as a breakdown in the accordion effect, as Feinberg is understanding it.

I think it is clear, then, that Feinberg is not understanding the

accordion effect as the Davidsonian idea that "an agent causes what his

actions cause." As Feinberg understands it, rather, the accordion effect

involves the application of a specific causal verb. If A does something that causes X, but there is no specific causal verb associated with

causing X, then even though A causes X, the case is an exception to the

accordion effect, as understood by Feinberg. And, in contrast with

principle Z>, Feinberg does not want to claim that the principle

underlying the accordion effect is without exceptions; the claim is only that some such principle captures common and important cases.

What is the Feinbergian principle here? Well, it is pretty much

what Feinberg (after flirting with something closer to principle D) says it is: "Instead of saying that Peter did A (a relatively simple act) and thereby caused X'm F, we might say something of the form Teter

X-Qd F; instead of Teter opened the door causing Paul to be

startled,' Teter startled Paul.'"

We can put it this way: When an agent acts and his act causes some

change, X, in something, F, there is frequently (though not always) a

specific, transitive causal verb, Cx, associated with causing that upshot in F, such that it is true that the agent C^-ed F When there is such a

causal verb such that it is true that A C^-ed F, we have an instance of the

accordion effect. But sometimes an agent will act in ways that result in

change X in F, and yet the language does not oblige with a specific causal verb that applies. In these latter cases we do not have an instance

of the accordion effect, as Feinberg understands it.

Call this principle F. Principle F concerns cases in which "causal

ascriptions to human agency" are "translated into ascriptions of causal

agency" by way of a specific causal verb. Principle Fdoes not claim there

is always an appropriate causal verb that applies; indeed, Feinberg is at

pains to insist that this is not so. Principle F also involves a language

relativity that is absent from principle D.




I do not claim that Feinberg would reject principle Z>, only that

principle D is not the principle associated with his understanding of the

accordion effect. Indeed, when Feinberg is discussing causal ascriptions to human agency, and not when he is focusing on the transition from

those ascriptions to ascriptions of causal agency, he seems to take

principle D for granted: recall his remark that "Xis the result of what

Smith did" is equivalent to "Smith did something... and thereby caused

X"13 The point I want to make is that Feinberg sees the accordion

effect not in terms of principle D but, rather, as involving a transition

to an ascription of causal agency in terms of a specific causal verb. We

do not have an instance of the Feinbergian accordion effect if we make

a transition simply to an ascription of "agent causes upshot." Indeed, so long as we remain with that generic causal verb, we remain, as

Feinberg sees it, in the domain of "causal ascriptions to human agency" rather than the domain of "ascriptions of causal agency."

I do not say this is the most natural reading of talk of "ascriptions of causal agency"

- indeed, I find it artificial. It does seem to me

13 Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 130. I take it that in saying "thereby caused

X" Feinberg is saying that Smith caused X. Again, in his discussion of the person

who makes a remark and thereby causes another to move his finger Feinberg seems

to take for granted this equivalence. Here is the full passage: "Dr. Ortho, by making

certain learned remarks about the musculature of the forearm, may cause Humphrey

thoughtfully to wiggle his finger. Even though it would be correct to say that Dr. Ortho's remark caused Humphrey to move his finger, we cannot say that Dr. Ortho

moved the finger himself (Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 135). Would Hart and Honor? accept principle Z>? On the one hand, they characterize "attributive inqui

ries" as concerned with whether a "harm can be attributed to the defendant's action

as its consequence, or whether he can properly be said to have caused it" (Hart and

Honor?, Causation in the Law, 1985, Second Edition, p. 24). And they here seem to

see these as two formulations of the same query, though it is not completely clear.

Again, on p. 74 of the Second Edition they move easily from the issue of identifying an "action to be ranked the cause" to the issue of whether "B has caused the harm

and A has not," where A and B are agents, not actions.

On the other hand, in remarks added in the 1985 Second Edition, Hart and Honor?

say that "a causal relation of some sort may indeed be established between the conduct

of the person who supplies the advice or means and the death of the victim.... But the

fact that what is here unearthed is not the central type of causal relationship but

something more tenuous is marked by the fact that we would not happily say that the

accomplice had either 'caused' the death or 'caused' the prisoner to kill" (Second

Edition, pp. 42-43; the corresponding passage, without these remarks, is in the First

Edition of Causation in the Law, at p. 40). Here they seem to contrast what the conduct

causes with what the accomplice himself causes. So here they seem to pull back from

principle D. In any case, in my discussion below I consider the possibility that one of the

insights we should glean from Hart and Honor? involves a challenge to this principle.




natural to see "Jones caused her laughter" as an ascription of causal

agency to Jones even in the absence of a transitive verb "to laugh someone." Davidson would, I think, agree. He would, I think, see

principle D as a principle that characterizes a transition from causal

ascriptions to human agency to ascriptions of causal agency in terms

of the generic "agent causes upshot" But I think that even though

Feinberg accepts principle D, he does not see this principle in this way as a principle about a transition to an ascription of causal agency. This

is because Feinberg -

idiosyncratically, I think - does not see a generic

ascription of "agent causes upshot" as yet in the domain of an

ascription of causal agency. Or anyway, this limitation in talk of

ascriptions of causal agency is needed to make the most sense of what

Feinberg says. This also helps us understand what Feinberg goes on to say when, in

this paper, he turns to Hart and Honor?. Feinberg notes that Hart and

Honor? argue that "a fully voluntary act 'negatives' causal connection

between an earlier causal factor and some upshot."14 This is the idea

that Feinberg, in "Causing Voluntary Actions," labels the "voluntary intervention principle." Reflecting on his example in which A's remark

seems to cause B to move his finger, Feinberg says that this idea from

Hart and Honor? is incorrect insofar as it denies that B's action was

caused by A's remark.15 Indeed, Feinberg thinks, I take it, that A's

action (his remark) causes the movement of B's finger, and that this is

contrary to Hart and Honor?'s view. But Feinberg also says that in the

example the intervention of the voluntary act on the part of B

"precludes the extension of causal agency."16 For him to think this, even though he thinks that, despite that intervention, A causes B to

move his finger, Feinberg must be thinking of the "extension of causal

agency" as requiring that a specific causal verb - in this case, the

transitive verb "to move something" -

applies. Since this is supposed to be an exception to the accordion effect he is, again, understanding the accordion effect in terms of principle F9 and not in terms simply of

principle D.

Again, this also helps us understand Feinberg's reply in his

"Rejoinder," appended to "Causing Voluntary Actions," to Keith


15 Though, strictly speaking, what is challenged at this point in the discussion is

the closely related idea that, in "Causing Voluntary Actions," Feinberg labels the

"first cause principle" (see below). In my next sentence I note the challenge to the

voluntary intervention principle, strictly speaking. 16

Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 135.




Lehrer's comments on Feinberg's original paper. One of the purported

counter-examples to the voluntary intervention principle that Fein

berg sketches in his original paper involves someone I will call

"lago."17 lago tells a "coldly jealous husband" about his wife's love

affair with Horner, hoping thereby to get the husband to kill Horner.

After due consideration, the husband does indeed shoot and kill

Horner. The husband's killing is free and deliberate, even though, as

Feinberg sees it, caused by Iago's action. So this is, Feinberg alleges, a

violation of a principle from Hart and Honor? that precludes the

causation of fully voluntary action, a principle Feinberg labels "the

first cause principle."18 Further, since we "might well judge that

the cause of Horner's death was [Iago's] disclosure of the facts to the

cuckolded husband"19 this is also, at least potentially, a violation of

the voluntary intervention principle. Or so Feinberg argues. Lehrer is unconvinced: "it is quite clear that the death of Horner is

to be attributed to the husband ... and to no one else."20 Feinberg

replies: "I do not see how the facts of the case would logically foreclose the judgment that the cause of Horner's death was [Iago's]

spilling the beans or that the death is to be attributed jointly to [lago and the husband]."21 But Feinberg goes on to concede that in

17 The example is in Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 157. It occurs as one of a

quartet of purported counter examples. A fifth purported counter example is in the

"Rejoinder" at p. 177. As Feinberg notes, Hart and Honor? acknowledge two

general lines of qualification to the voluntary intervention principle [see Hart and

Honor?, Causation in the Law (Second Edition), p. 75]. However, Feinberg claims

that his counter-examples do not fit into either of these two categories. 18

Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 152. Feinberg describes this principle by

quoting from an earlier essay of Hart and Honor? where they say that "a [free and

deliberate] human action is never regarded as itself caused" (this quote appears in

Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 152). Hart and Honor?, Causation in the Law, is a

bit more nuanced than suggested in this quotation from the earlier essay (see e.g.,

pp. 42-43 in the Second Edition). But these are not matters we need to discuss here. 19


Keith Lehrer, "Comments," in W. H. Capit?n and D. D. Merrill (eds.),

Metaphysics and Explanation (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1966), pp. 52-53. Let me note that one of Lehrer's criticisms is that in his original discussion

Feinberg did not do justice to the point that Hart and Honor? were interested

primarily in attributive causal statements, not in explanatory causal statements.

Feinberg concedes the point, but claims that his counter examples challenge Hart

and Honor?'s principles even interpreted explicitly as principles about attributive

causal statements. 21

Feinberg, Doing and Deserving, p. 183. Feinberg presumably intends a dis

tributive reading, not a shared agency reading of "jointly."




supposing that the death might be attributed to lago he is not making a claim of "causal agency," he is only pointing to a "causal

citation."22 This concession would make no sense if "lago caused the

death" were a claim of "causal agency." After all, Feinberg explicitly

envisages that we might correctly judge that "the cause of Horner's

death was [Iago's] spilling the beans." And, as we have seen, Feinberg does accept principle D (though not in the same spirit as Davidson), and so in this case the inference to "lago caused the death." So

Feinberg must be thinking that a claim of causal agency requires the

application of a specific causal verb - in this case, say, shooting

Horner or, perhaps, killing Horner. And Feinberg is noting that he

might be right about the possibility that lago causes the death even if

no such specific causal verb applies. lago, after all, certainly does not

shoot Horner, and many will find it strained to say he kills Horner.

This does not mean that, indeed, no such specific causal verb does

apply; it only means that Feinberg's challenge to Hart and Honor?, and his reply to Lehrer, is seen by him as independent of this issue, even though Feinberg also holds that if indeed there is no such

specific causal verb that applies, the case is an exception to the

accordion effect.

Let us step back a bit. Feinberg's main challenge to the voluntary intervention principle is by way of purported counter-examples. If we

agree that these counter-examples work - and I myself find them

largely persuasive - then we must conclude that sometimes a

voluntary intervention does not negative relevant causal attributions.

It does not follow from this, however, that the existence of a

voluntary intervention does not in some cases block, or help block, the casual attribution.

Feinberg himself seems unwilling to say this, however, since he

offers a substitute for the voluntary intervention principle: "the more

expectable human behavior is, whether voluntary or not, the less likely it is to 'negative causal connection."22. But we could acknowledge the

significance of expectability without dismissing the voluntariness of

an intervention as of no significance at all to relevant causal

attribution. One way to read Lehrer is to see him as suggesting that at

least in some cases along these lines the fact that the husband acts

fully voluntarily and deliberately supports the judgment that it is the

husband, and not lago, who causes Horner's death. After all, even






Feinberg grants that we will sometimes make this causal attribution

to the husband and not to lago.24 And we can see Lehrer as

suggesting that when we do this it can be at least in part because of

the fact that the husband's relevant acts are voluntary and deliberate

and they intervene between Iago's acts and the death. We can reason

in this way even if we are convinced by Feinberg that the voluntary intervention principle errors in supposing that such a voluntary and

deliberate intervention always blocks the causal attribution.

Indeed, Hart and Honor? point to a very general ground for such

reasoning:

[Our] sense of respect for ourselves and others as distinct persons would be much

weakened, if not dissolved, if we could not think of ourselves as separate authors

of the changes we make in the world. If we had to share the authorship of such

changes with numerous prior agents, of whom it could be said that, had they not

acted as they did, we should not have been able to bring about the change, we

could no longer think of ourselves as separate authors in the way we now do.25

We can agree with Feinberg that his counter-examples show that the

voluntary intervention principle errs in its generality, while still

seeing, in these remarks from Hart and Honor?, a potential ground for the idea that the voluntariness of an intervention can sometimes

matter to a causal attribution.

Consider, then, the idea that the voluntariness of an intervention

can block or help block, not only the applicability of a specific causal

verb (which Feinberg himself emphasizes), but also, in some cases, a

causal attribution by way of the generic "Agent causes upshot." As I

have said, this is compatible with Feinberg's example-driven criticism

of the voluntary intervention principle, since this criticism is that this

principle errs in its generality. Indeed, this idea is to some extent in

the spirit of Feinberg's acceptance of the idea that certain causal

verbs impose conditions on causal process that are violated by

voluntary interventions - the idea now is just that this can sometimes

be true even for the generic causal verb "Agent causes upshot." And

this idea is also compatible with Feinberg's principle F, since that

principle only says that there are common cases involving a

Feinbergian accordion characterized in terms of the application of

a specific causal verb. But since principle D is, like Hart and Honor?'s


25 Hart and Honor?, Causation in the Law (Second Edition), pp. lxxx-lxxxi.




voluntary intervention principle, a purportedly general principle, it

may be threatened by this idea.

Consider the following sequence of thoughts:

(1) lago performs voluntary action A.

(2) The husband performs voluntary action B.

(3) B is a causal consequence of A.

(4) B causes Horner's death.

(5) A causes Horner's death, (from (3), (4), and the transitivity of causality)

(6) lago causes Horner's death (from (1), (5), and principle D)

We are taking (1), (2), and (4) as given. If we suppose that there can

be cases in which we would want to say that it is the husband, and not

lago, who causes the death, where should we stop the chain of

reasoning in such cases?

Well, the first cause principle would block (3); but Feinberg has

given us good reason to reject that as a general principle. Granted, we

might try to say that, even though the first cause principle is not in

general true, this causal claim [namely, a version of (3)] fails whenever

we think that the agent of the earlier act does not herself cause the

later upshot [that is, whenever we reject a version of (6)]. But this

seems to me unlikely to work as a general explanation of our

unwillingness to say, in such cases of voluntary intervention, that the

agent of the earlier act causes the later upshot. It seems clear to me, for example, (though it would probably not be clear to Hart and

Honor?, given their tendency to insist on a fairly sharp divide

between reasons and causes) that Iago's remarks cause the husband's

shooting of Horner. What remains unclear is whether lago causes

Horner's death or whether we should say, instead, that the husband, and not lago, causes the death.

Again, the transitivity of causation is a fairly basic idea, one not to

be given up lightly; so there would be a high price to pay if we were to

try to stop the inference from (3) and (4) to (5). There is, then, pressure, if we do not want to end up at (6), to seek to qualify

principle D and not to accept it in its present form.

Davidson saw this clearly. In a footnote he writes:

Suppose Jones intentionally causes Smith intentionally to shoot Clifford to death. We certainly won't conclude that Jones shot Clifford ... Still [principle D] is correct

provided we can go from 'Jones's action caused Clifford's death' to 'Jones caused

Clifford's death'. There will, of course, be a conflict if we deny that both Jones and

Smith ... could be said to have caused Clifford's death, and at the same time affirm




the transitivity of causality. We could however, preserve [principle D] in the face of a

denial that under the circumstances Jones could be said to have caused Clifford's

death by saying that under the circumstances the transitivity of causality also breaks

down.26

So Davidson suggests that if we are unwilling to say that Jones causes

the death, we nevertheless defend principle D by giving up on the

transitivity of causation and in that way blocking the move to a

version of (5). But, as I have said, abandoning the transitivity of

causation is a high price to pay. So perhaps we should seek a more

qualified version of principle D. And the point to emphasize is that

we could do this while holding onto both Feinberg's example-based

rejection of the voluntary intervention principle, and Feinberg's version of the accordion effect, principle F. The claims that are most

central to these two papers of Feinberg do not, in the end, require

Feinberg to defend principle D in its full generality, and there may well be reason not to.

It may be that Feinberg does not consider this possibility because

he sees the move from "Agent's act causes upshot" to "Agent causes

upshot" as remaining within the domain of causal ascription to

human agency, rather than as a transition to an ascription of causal

agency. This is the - to my mind, idiosyncratic

- feature of Feinberg's discussion that I highlighted earlier. But if we take seriously the

natural idea that to say that lago caused the death is to ascribe causal

agency to lago, then principle D will not seem, as it apparently does

to Feinberg, trivial (though different from the accordion effect); and

considerations from Hart and Honor? may lead us to seek to qualify

principle D even while agreeing with Feinberg that the voluntary intervention principle is overly general in its claims.

John Atwell has also challenged what I am calling principle D?1

Atwell sees that this principle is not the same as Feinberg's accordion

effect (though I have offered a different treatment of that accordion

effect than does Atwell).28 What I call principle D Atwell calls

Feinberg's "sub-thesis," and he argues against it by way of an example:

26 Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, pp. 53-54n. 27 John E. Atwell, "The Accordion Effect Thesis," The Philosophical Quarterly 19

(1969), pp. 337-342. 28

As I see it, Atwell's criticisms of Feinberg's accordion effect do not take suf

ficient account of Feinberg's explicit remarks about the exceptions to the accordion

effect. This is a separate matter, though, from Atwell's discussion of what I have

called principle D.




"Brown was partially paralyzed, and had been for years. During that

long trying period Mrs. Brown faithfully cared for him. One day, with

all the strength he could muster, Brown managed a faint smile of

gratitude; but, as the fates would have it, Mrs. Brown was so

overwhelmed with joy that she suffered a heart attack and died."29

Since the smiling caused the death it follows, according to principle Z), that Mr. Brown caused Mrs. Brown's death. But to say this, says

Atwell, is to make "a minimal suggestion that Brown is somehow at

fault."30 Since Brown is in no way at fault, we should balk at saying that Brown caused the death. So we should not accept the "sub-thesis"

(that is, principle D). While Atwell deserves credit for explicitly raising the question of

whether the "sub-thesis" is true, I do not find his purported counter

example convincing. I think we are used to saying "You caused this

very bad thing, but through no fault of your own, and this does not

mean you are a bad person or at fault." This can be the stuff of

tragedies; but tragedies happen. As I see it, it is when another agent voluntarily intervenes between

the action and the upshot that we sometimes have the potential for a

violation of principle D - which is not, of course, to say that the

voluntary intervention always blocks the causal attribution to the

agent of the earlier action.31 We can learn this lesson from Hart and

Honor? while agreeing with Feinberg that the voluntary intervention

principle errs in its generality. These considerations interact with the use to which Davidson aims

to put the accordion effect (as he understands it). Recall that

Davidson wants to "take the accordion effect as a mark of agency." For Davidson this means that the applicability of principle D is a

mark of agency: those "events in the life of a person"32 whose causal

upshots are causally attributed to the agent, and so conform to

principle D, are actions of that person. As Davidson says, the idea is

29 Atwell, "The Accordion Effect Thesis," p. 341.

30 Atwell, "The Accordion Effect Thesis," p. 341.

31 Atwell's discussion is limited to a consideration of Feinberg's "Action and

Responsibility." He does not address the discussion of voluntary interventions in

"Causing Voluntary Actions." As I see it, it is in these issues about the impact of

voluntary interventions that we find a more persuasive challenge to principle D. This

is part of my general strategy of seeking a deeper understanding of the accordion

effect and related matters by exploring interactions with the voluntary intervention

principle and with Feinberg's criticisms of that principle. 32

Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, p. 43.




that "[I]t is a way of inquiring whether an event is a case of agency to

ask whether we can attribute its effects to a person."33 Without asking whether this is going to work in the end, we can say that to pursue this

idea without circularity we had better not use the very idea of action or

agency in the relevant mark of agency.34 So if we tried to substitute for

principle D something roughly along the lines of principle

D'. If there is no relevant voluntary intervention of a certain sort, an agent causes

what his actions cause,

we would not be in a position to appeal to this substitute principle to get a non-circular mark of agency. This is because the very idea of agency is

built into the appeal, in the substitute principle, to voluntary intervention. And it may be that a concern to avoid such circularity

helped support Davidson's apparent inclination to defend principle D

even if it meant allowing for intransitivities in causation.35 But if we give

up this use of a substitute for principle D as, a mark of agency, we are

33 Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, p. 54

34 Davidson does say that the accordion effect is "a mark of actions but yields no

analysis of agency" (Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, p. 60). So perhaps he

would say that concerns of circularity arise only for an "analysis," not for a "mark"

of agency. But this seems to me strained, and it does seem to me that Davidson's

apparent use of the accordion effect argues against invoking the very idea of agency

in the content of the principle in terms of which we understand that effect. 35

I only say "may," because I find Davidson's considered view here difficult to

interpret. One issue has already been raised in the previous note. Another issue is just

how committed Davidson was to this use of the accordion effect. He concludes the

section of this paper in which he has focused on the accordion effect as follows: "The

accordion effect is interesting because it shows that we treat the consequences of actions

differently from the way we treat the consequences of other events.... But as a criterion

[the accordion effect] can hardly be counted as satisfactory: it works for some cases

only, and of course it gives no clue as to what makes a primitive action an action"

(Davidson, Essays on Actions and Events, p. 55). I am unsure which cases Davidson has

in mind when he says this "works for some cases only," but it does seem that he is here

thinking of the "primitive" actions he goes on to mention. The idea of a "primitive"

action is that of an action one performs not by performing some other action. Apparent

examples are moving one's hand (and thereby...). Davidson, of course, has a distinctive

view about the individuation of actions and primitive actions, but we do not need to

consider these matters here. What is puzzling here, I think, is why Davidson thinks that

the apparent fact that an agent causes what her primitive actions cause cannot explain

why a primitive action is an action (though of course it cannot explain why it is

primitive). But I will not try to sort this out here.




not obliged in this way to defend an unqualified version of principle D.

And, as we have seen, there may be good reason not to.36

Department of Philosophy

Stanford University

Stanford, CA 94305 USA E-mail: [email protected]

36 Thanks to Scott Shapiro for helpful conversation and to John Martin Fischer for helpful comments on an earlier draft. This essay was written while I was a Fellow

at the Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences. I am grateful for financial

support provided by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. I dedicate this essay to the

memory of Joel Feinberg, teacher and friend.



Article Contentsp. [5]p. 6p. 7p. 8p. 9p. 10p. 11p. 12p. 13p. 14p. 15p. 16p. 17p. 18p. 19

Issue Table of ContentsThe Journal of Ethics, Vol. 10, No. 1/2 (Jan., 2006), pp. 1-210Volume InformationEditor's Introduction [pp. 3-4]What Is the Accordion Effect? [pp. 5-19]Taking Law Seriously: Starting Points of the Hart/Devlin Debate [pp. 21-51]"Volenti" Goes to Market [pp. 53-74]Is That All There Is? [pp. 75-106]The Cards That Are Dealt You [pp. 107-129]The Philosophy of Joel Feinberg [pp. 131-191, 2]Review: Review Essay on the Roots of Evil [pp. 193-199]Bibliography of Joel Feinberg [pp. 201-204]Back Matter

accordion effect

Documents

joel feinberg

accordion effect

feinbergs discussion

causing voluntary actions

jstor terms

feinbergs concerns

jstor archive

donald davidson